“I wish I did,” answered Coy Gibbs when asked if he knew what made Justin Barcia come to life during the second half of the 2015 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. “I think it was just one of those things where we made him feel comfortable and made him happy and waited to see what he could do. And it all worked and he really came through. I think it’s all been a testament to him as a rider and all the guys on the team working hard.”
Using a big win at the Budds Creek National last summer as a catalyst, Barcia, after an admittedly woeful supercross season, caught fire and went on a run, winning motos, overall victories and winding up third in the final championship point standings. After finishing the season off with a phenomenal ride at the Motocross of Nations, Barcia immediately went into the off-season to begin preparing for the 2016 Monster Energy Supercross Championship. With his work ethic in full effect and his trusty mechanic Ben Schiermeyer at his side, the duo, along with the rest of the AutoTrader.com/Toyota JRGMX Yamaha ensemble cast, has been pushing hard.
Racer X tracked down Barcia at the JGR headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Racer X: Justin, how are you doing?
Justin Barcia: Oh, not too bad. I just left the track. It was a long day. I was getting my laps in and stuff, but it was good.
What have you been up to the last couple of months? I’d imagine a lot of riding and testing and training.
Yeah, it’s been busy, for sure. I’ve been in Florida mostly. I’m in Charlotte right now. Yeah, I’ve been in Florida and doing a lot of training and putting in the laps and working with [Buddy] Antunez a little bit and riding my bicycle, like always. It’s been a busy time right now, but this is the time to put in the work.
Yeah, we’re basically a month away from the start of it all, huh?
Yeah, it’s pretty much a month away and now it’s just all about maintaining and doing the right things.
Since the Motocross of Nations in September and the Monster Cup in October, you haven’t raced at all during the off-season, have you?
Yeah, this is the first time I’ve probably never done any overseas races or anything. My goal this year was to really focus on supercross and worry about getting the jump here in the States and not doing all the little foreign races and stuff. And Monster Cup is obviously a really cool race. It’s a one-off race and there’s a lot of money on the line. For me, I rode really awesome at this year’s race. My bike worked really good compared to past years where I just wasn’t fully comfortable. You know, obviously, I didn’t get the results that I wanted (Barcia went 5-3-4 for fourth overall), but I felt like I rode really good and I was super comfortable and felt good with the team. There were a lot of positives to take away from it, but obviously you always want to win and sometimes you don’t always get the results you need.
In speaking with Coy and the team in Las Vegas, it became very clear that you wanted to get to work on the 2016 supercross season immediately. True?
Yeah, that’s exactly true. My main goal is to do really good in supercross in 2016 and that’s what I’ve been focused on the most. You know we got back from Motocross des Nations and I was right back to work riding supercross and trying to get my bike how I like it right away and I think for me, right now and at this point in time, I feel so much more confident and comfortable with my riding and just the way my bike is working and how everything is going. Last year at this time I was kind of chasing my tail a little bit. Now I feel like I’m a step ahead of the game. I’m not trying to get better every day. Well, you’re always trying to get better every day and you want to be the best you can no matter what, but right now I feel like I’m at such a good point where I can just go out there and ride and put my laps in. I don’t really have to worry about the little things of testing and all this other stuff. We’ve got a month to go and I feel really comfortable and I’m not really worried about too much. I’m just focused on riding and training and the goal.
Through thick and thin you need to be on the podium and just putting yourself in the right position.
As far as the motorcycle, what did you and the team work on?
Quite a bit of the motocross stuff transfers over to supercross, so that was nice because we got the bike pretty dialed at the end of the year for motocross. Then coming into supercross testing, the bike was really comfortable right away as far as chassis set-up and all that stuff. We just had to fine-tune the suspension here and there and the motor setting isn’t that much different [than motocross]. Instead of a five-speed transmission, we run a four-speed. Not big crazy stuff, it was just fine-tuning little things. It wasn’t like we were changing the whole bike—it went really good. The guys came down to Florida and worked with me some and I’ve been here in Charlotte quite a bit. You know, anything that pops up in my mind, now is the time to fix it and that’s what we’ve been doing. It’s going really good. I’m super happy, honestly.
And as far as yourself, did you do anything different when compared to this point in time a year ago?
Yeah, I felt good last year, but I was definitely chasing my tail in just trying to get ready as much as I could. I had the ankle surgery and then started riding and I was fit for sure, but I was never where I felt like I needed to be in making the big switch to a new bike. This year there are no worries. I knew that I liked the bike and I knew it would transfer over from motocross to supercross. I had a good training program off the dirt bike last year and I just transferred that over to this year. I haven’t really made too many changes, I have more confidence and I just feel like a veteran a little bit. I’m just going in and doing the right things. I feel like that in my whole career I haven’t had this smooth of an off-season, so hopefully we can keep that ball rolling and into Anaheim.
Coy has mentioned to me that something just kind of clicked with you during the Nationals last summer and everything just started falling into place and the results started coming. What’s your take on that?
No one knows really what clicked, you know? People say, “It was that one mud race! He did that and got that win at that one mud race and it all just took off!” I can agree and winning does feel good and maybe that one mud race did give me a boost in confidence, but for me and the team, we never gave up and we worked through the struggles. The beginning of the season wasn’t the greatest, you know? It was a little disappointing. Then we turned it around and we never gave up and got a couple wins and got a lot of podiums. It just kind of took off at the end of the season and it showed that we worked hard. I just feel now that we’re through all those little hiccups and bumps. Obviously there’s always going to be something here or there, but I’m really happy with the team. They’ve been really good with me through the ups and the downs and I have a team that sticks with you and never gives up. That feels really good so I’m not going to give up for those guys and I know they’re not going to give up on me. I re-signed for three more years, so that just shows that through the bad and the good we’re going to have each other’s backs and we want to win. I feel like I’ve never had such a good game plan going into a new season.
The competitive landscape for 2016… You have Eli Tomac on the green bike, you have James Stewart back, you have the guys in orange, you have the Honda guys, you might have Chad Reed on a blue bike, how are you looking at your competition?
Man, we say it every year: it seems like the competition is getting stiffer and stiffer. This year is going to be a barnburner for sure. There are so many good racers and there is so much talent where someone does this good and someone does that good. For me right now, I’ve just been focused on my training and all that stuff that I haven’t really thought about it too much. Obviously I know that there is going to be a lot of competition and that’s what I love about this sport. You can’t sit on the couch all winter and come out and expect to do good. You know everyone is putting in the work, so that’s pretty cool. It’s going to be hard, for sure. Eli on the new bike; we’ll see how that goes. I’m sure he’s going to be fast like always. Ryan [Dungey] is always consistent and you can’t forget about the guys on the Suzuki’s. Man, there are so many guys to name.
Not having those bad races, that’s a big part of it, isn’t it? If you look at the results from last season, between Dungey and Eli, who had a couple of bad races, you can’t get hurt and you absolutely have to be on the podium every week, don’t you?
Yeah, you know, that’s the truth, for sure. You can’t get hurt and you can’t make the big mistakes to take yourself out of a race. I’ve done that in the past and that really frustrates me because I feel like I put in too much work to have something so stupid, like a crash or a big bobble or putting yourself in a bad position, really mess things up.
Can you win this thing in 2016, and if so, how are you going to win it?
I think I can win it, for sure. The team is behind me one hundred percent and we put in the work and we put in the time, and like what we were just talking about, you can’t take yourself out of the fight right away. You need to be in it the whole year. Through thick and thin you need to be on the podium and just putting yourself in the right position. To win a championship you have to have the speed and the race wins, for sure. There are so many little things that go into it and I feel like I know all those little things now. I just need to put it all together. I feel like I have all the puzzle pieces and now they’re kind of together. It’s not going to be easy. It’s never easy in such a competitive sport like this and I do definitely think I have a good shot at it and we’ll just take it race by race and see how it goes.