Luke Renzland had a head start on most supercross rookies because he was not at all foreign to supercross tracks. A few years back, the New Jersey native took up residence in Florida, and his family built a first-class riding facility, dubbed Dreamland. Anyone who has seen the place will tell you the supercross track there is as good as any.
Good thing Luke has some supercross experience under his belt, because he’s not getting much track time these days. His rookie pro season has featured the standard bumps and bruises, and days off during the week to try to recover. When we found the CycleTrader.com/Rock River Yamaha rider in his team truck after St. Louis, he was sporting some KT tape on his leg, from a hematoma. “I wadded up last week,” he explained.
But he recovered nicely, logging a career-best seventh in St. Louis.
“I’m learning the ropes of supercross,” he says. “Shoulder in the beginning and then I had a concussion at Atlanta 1, and then the leg at Detroit last weekend.”
Renzland has scored 12-DNS-10-14-11-DNS-7 over the course of the season.
“Yeah, that’s kind of the way the season’s been going for me,” he says. “You have one solid ride and then you come back and fumble a little bit. It definitely feels good to come back off of my worst setback of the year in Detroit and come back the strongest I’ve ever ridden. Through practice, the heat race, everything was definitely a step in the right direction today. I was happy to come out with a solid seventh.”
Of course everyone experiences ups and downs during the season, especially the young talent of the 250SX Class, who have yet to learn consistency. Renzland was able to make a run in St. Louis partially because of other riders who made mistakes. “I think I started in fourteenth on the first lap. There was one pileup after the whoops on like lap six maybe,” he says. “I think three guys went down in that. That helped me take a big chunk off the guys in front of me, but other than that I was definitely happy to be able to make solid passes and kind of earn the position.”
These are some decent rides and it’s making his team look better and better. Remember, they scored a podium via Alex Martin earlier in the year in the West Region. Unfortunately, Dreamland is not part of the equation right now. Why? You can probably guess: He’s had an up-and-down run there lately.
“I think since Dallas [the 250SX East opener] I’ve had maybe four practice days total,” he says. “So it’s been kind of rough. The day after Dallas I went home and I was healthy and practiced, and just maybe the third lap of the day wadded up in the whoops. That’s when things kind of started to happen. It hasn’t been the greatest for training, but at the same time I think recovery’s key as well.”
Recovery after one round of racing? Hey, Renzland’s got a sense of humor. “Either way you can look at it as a positive or a negative, but I’m just trying to look at it on the bright side of the things,” he says.
After the career-best finish at St. Louis, Renzland has some real things to be positive about.
“I was just able to charge, and that’s what I’ve been lacking all year is just that pure aggression right off the bat and keeping that pace for the whole fifteen laps. I was happy to be able to definitely make a change tonight and come into the break hot.”
Yes, the 250SX East Region is going on break for a bit. Renzland is finally healthy enough to do some riding at home again. We’ll see what he’s got come the New Jersey race at the end of the month.
