Does the altitude give you an advantage?
Usually I would say yes, but I’ve been out in California for about a year now, so I’m pretty close to sea level. When I flew in, surprisingly I felt pretty good. I think a lot of that was still in my system, but scientifically, all my red blood cells are basically back to normal. I think going back to that altitude doesn’t bother me as much because I’ve lived there my whole life, so it wasn’t that big of an issue. I think I adjusted to it pretty quickly—I didn’t really even notice anything.

Training in altitude typically gives you an advantage at other tracks. Now that you’ve been in California, did you notice a difference when you came back?
Not really. When I first got there and was walking around I could feel a difference in how thick the air was. I told this to my dad, and he thinks I’m crazy, but when I’m at altitude I feel better than when I’m at sea level. When I’m at sea level the air just feels thick and heavy to breath. I don’t know if that’s because I was born [and grew up] in high altitude, but that’s just kind of how it’s always felt and it felt that way when I went back. Usually when I go home and train, I can run almost a minute faster a mile than I can at sea level. I’ve always found that pretty weird, too.

So it’s gone the opposite way for you, in that it is almost a disadvantage.
Right. It might just be in my head, too. Scientifically that doesn’t even make sense. It’s just how I feel my body does. I could be wrong, and it’s all just a mental game.

Most will say that bikes now have leveled the playing field in regards to altitude. For someone that grew up riding and racing in altitude, do you think that’s fair to say?
I don’t know. When we went there for first practice I was pretty worried because my bike felt so slow. I felt that it was about to grenade or something. I told my dad, “Man, this thing is not running good at all.” He was like, “Well, we’re at altitude,” and I was like, “Yeah, I didn’t even think about that.” It was a huge change in power. It was pretty significant. Usually when I do the Colorado National I’ve been back home for a couple weeks. So usually I’m used to altitude and used to how the bike feels. This year, I didn’t go early and was pretty surprised how it felt.    

What does altitude do to the bike? Also, what does it do to you physically? 
You’re at higher altitude so the air is thinner and the bike is starving for oxygen—as well as your body. You’re always going to feel like you can’t get enough air and you’re going to get shorter breath, so you’re going to get tired quicker. Also, you’re muscles aren’t getting as much oxygen as they would at sea level. It’s basically going the same way into your motorcycle—it’s not getting everything it should be getting. It makes for slower throttle response… basically a whole different feeling in response to the engine and everything on the bike.

What do you do to adjust?
We tried a couple different fuel mappings just to try and make it feel a lot more responsive. That was basically all we did to it. We couldn’t do a whole lot, but once we did that kind of stuff the bike did feel a little bit better. Just being at that high altitude it’s hard to make the bike feel like it is at sea level.

Do you kind of have to guess at the right setup and hope it works?
This year, yeah. John Turner at Motor Medic Racing, who also works for Dunlop, had some mapping he wanted to try there, so we just changed one map between first and second practice and I liked it so we just left it there. I didn’t do a whole lot of changes.

Going back to the racing side, will you be doing all the rounds this year?
The plan is to do them all. But it kind of depends on plane tickets and stuff like that. I do have my flight for High Point set, so that is definitely in. Also, I have Tennessee and RedBud locked in. After that, it’s a little bit up in the air, but I’m pretty positive I’ll be at all the rounds.

Last year, you weren’t able to travel east. Do you see that being a disadvantage this year?
High Point usually gets kind of hard packed, so I’m looking forward to that. When I was back in New Mexico, that track was basically a highway, so I’m pretty good at riding the hard pack stuff. I just kind of take the mindset that I’m home riding with my buddies and just messing around. That’s the approach I’ve taken this year and it’s worked pretty well.

You’ve had a long relationship with Rockwell. Are they part of your program outdoors?
For supercross they were. They are helping me out a little bit for outdoors, but they aren’t taking the semi around or anything. I’m just loaded up with the Team Gus thing for the outdoors. Rockwell is still backing me a little bit, though.