Twisted Tea/HEP Motorsports Suzuki’s Justin Bogle has had an eventful start to his season. He got a late start to his season, his third season on a Suzuki with three different teams, and didn’t qualify for the 450SX main event at the opener. Round two in Oakland he pulled off the track after a trying week with the death of his close friend Ryan Fedorow. This week he was disqualified from the race after running into Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GasGas Factory Racing’s Justin Barcia after he felt he was wronged by #51 early in the main and ended up on the ground. That’s DNQ-DNF and a DQ in case you’re scoring at home.
We caught up to Bogle on the PulpMX Show to get his side of the story from San Diego as well as his trying time to start the 2022 season.
Racer X Online: You are in the news. You got DQ’d this weekend. Take us through your thinking, what happened. And whether you think your penalty is fair or not.
Justin Bogle: We could talk about the thinking, or lack thereof, on maybe all parties involved because clearly there were some mistakes made. I’ll preface this whole thing with the fine was paid that night and the DQ was accepted. I feel like obviously I was wrong for what I did. As a man, I can accept the responsibility for my actions. I understand it. I respect the decision. It is what it is. You can’t do things like that, and I know that, I think. I got a pretty good start, finally. I didn’t get emotional and go out for blood or anything. I was having a good race. We were only a few laps into it, and I just wasn’t expecting it at all. I don’t even wear a watch, but I got my clock straight cleaned. I was a little bit wounded. I was sitting there for a minute. I got going. I was almost a lap down already. Did you watch it on TV? I just stalled it. [Laughs]
Did you get hurt at all? I saw you bent down, grabbing your hand or wrist. Or was that more collecting yourself? Did anything get hurt?
My knee got smashed pretty good in there. It was one of those things where I’m okay, I’m just sore. It was the initial stinger where I’m like, “Oh, shit. I really hope I didn’t just get hurt right there.” Honestly, I kind of got rattled a bit, too. I wasn’t expecting it. I kind of got a shoulder to the side of the head. I snapped my neck back. So, I was trying to gather myself, trying to decide if I’m hurt or not. I wanted to keep going. Even though it was bad, and I was so far back and got lapped however many times, I still wanted to just finish the damn race because I’ve been having such a bad season. I just needed to finish the race and get through it. So, obviously I had a momentarily lapse in judgement, some would say. It’s something I shouldn’t have done. Ran into the guy with the red plate. My night was ruined. I won’t say any names, but my DM’s were going, and my text messages. A lot of people just saying, “At least somebody finally did something about it.”
The thing about Justin Barcia is he’s not a bad guy. He’s not. It’s just really frustrating because I’ve been hurt a lot, and when it’s just really stupid things like that, there’s potential to get hurt in those situations. It’s frustrating because he didn’t have to do that. I’m realistic. I know that I’m not a contender right now. He would have got by me in a corner or two, max. Worst case scenario, he passes me in the whoops. Just really impatient and really a stupid move. I just kind of needed him to know that I wasn’t going to just let him push me around and just take the shit. In my experience with life, it’s a horrible idea to do that with somebody that doesn’t have anything to lose. You got to be smarter than that if you want to contend for a championship. Obviously on my end of things, I’m not contending for a championship. It’s been a while since I have. I just get sick of people doing things like that and it just being okay. Just be smarter than that, dude. We’re all out here risking our lives every single time we go out, and it’s dicey out there on a supercross track. There’s no reason for you to have to worry about people breaking your legs in corners. I’m fine with getting taken out. I’m fine with a little rough riding, but there’s a line. It’s just respect. Like I said, I got no hard feelings towards J-Bone [Jeremy Albrecht of the AMA], [AMA's Mike] Pelletier, “Tooley” [AMA's Tim McAdams], anyone I was in the meeting with. Honestly, not with Barcia even.
Just know that I’m not okay with that. Don’t do that. Just as a man, you just can’t be pushed around like that. I think everyone just kind of understood that at a certain point you’ve got to let somebody know. I think we’re all just sick of that shit. We accept and understand the penalties. I can take responsibility for that. It’s not like I’m going to be in that situation again. Even like I told the guys in the meeting, I said, “I don't know what you guys should do here, because I’ve never been in here.” I don’t go looking for trouble. I’m not one of those guys looking for a fight. I just am not going to let people push me around for no reason. That’s just not the way that I’m going to handle things. I’m not looking for a fight. I would love to have a conversation with him this week and we can discuss what happened and as men try to have a civil conversation and move from it, because I don't want to deal with any more than he does or anyone around him or myself.
Nobody wants to be looking around there worrying about it. He’s got a red plate to get back, and you’ve got to get closer to the top ten. Nobody needs to be head on a swivel like, what’s this guy going to do?
[Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/GasGas’s] Wil Hahn is one of my best friends. It’s a really tough situation for Wil, for sure. That’s his job and that’s his rider. Everything else aside, out of respect for Wil as being one of my closest friends, absolutely. I want to have this conversation and get this sorted, because none of us need to be dealing with this stuff. It’s just senseless. We’re out here to race. This is our job. Let’s just all be respectful, and we can battle our asses off and work for it, because we all work hard and want this thing. There’s just no point in dangerous stuff.
I didn’t see the pass on video, but I saw some photos that have been circulating of it. You’re blown off the bike, basically, is what it looks like. It looks like you hit a land mine and the 51 is the bomb. I respect Justin Brayton a lot and I was talking to him after the race. He was like, “Dude. It wasn’t good. Not good at all.” He’s like, “I’m following Barcia through the pack. He’s torpedoing guys, and I’m getting all these spots.” I did feel like you should get a penalty, because I don't know if we can have guys getting a lap down and doing that. Having said that, I understand your anger 100 percent. Do you think it’s fair that Barcia didn’t get anything? He did get a penalty for riding alongside wide open next to the whoops, but he didn’t get a penalty for the pass. Are you okay with that?
Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter if I’m okay with it or not. It’s not my decision to make. That’s not my job and my position to make those decisions and hand out penalties. So, whatever they decide, I respect it and can move on from it. I fully accept my penalty because I wouldn’t want someone doing that to me. I just think that at a certain point, honestly he does a lot. There’s got to be a point. As a man, you’ve got to stand up for yourself. You can’t just let people screw with you and just be like, it’s okay. It was more just on principle. I wasn’t angry, really. I wasn’t full of emotion and doing anything weird. It was the slowest corner on the track. A little love tap, just to let you know, don’t mess with me. Just have some respect. Not just for me, have some respect for all these guys. We’re all really gnarly.
J-Bone told us. You didn’t sell it good enough. He said, “You didn’t look back at it.” He said, “Bogle did a bad job of selling it.”
Let’s be honest, though. Did the other JB turn around and check and see if I was alright? With all due respect to J-Bone here, what world are we living in that you stop and turn around and say, “Oh, dude, are you okay?” Come on, dude. It is what it is. Like I said, I made a mistake. I accept the responsibility for it. I would love just as much as anyone else to move on from it and not have to worry about this shit, because it’s pretty senseless at this level to have to deal with dumb stuff, from both ends of it—my end and his.
I like Barcia. I’ve had him on the show a bunch. We had our falling out. We’ve made up. I respect him. He rides hard. I don’t like at Anaheim 1 where everybody was talking to him about his pass on Anderson, which I thought was fine, by the way. That was great. Hard racing. He was like, “Why are you guys trying to make a big deal out of this?” Because, Barcia, it’s you. He’s always like, “It’s just hard racing or whatever.” I was like, dude. Just own it. I just wish Barcia would own it a little bit more than what he does. And I’ve told him that.
I think obviously you live by the sword, you die by the sword. I think if you are going to dish that kind of stuff out on that regular of a basis, you’ve got to be okay with it being done to you sometimes. If not, that’s the only problem that would arise from outside looking in. It’s hard to justify being that upset about it happening to you when you’re involved in these quite often. That’s just looking at it from a non-biased standpoint. You can’t do it and not be okay with it being done to you. Honestly, with him and Anderson, Anderson does it a lot. He’s banging bars with guys constantly, and he is a lot better at accepting it when it happens to him. I will say that.
So, we’re good then? I think he wants to move on. Bogle has said his piece. Let’s talk good stuff, then. How are you?
I’m hanging in there. I don’t think it’s a secret. My year has been not very good. My season has been, I would say about as bad as it could be, but it’s not. Colt’s [Nichols] downstairs right now. He just got back from the hospital. So, that puts it into perspective a little bit. I feel so bad for Colt. He’s been going so fast. He was ready to go win that title, in my opinion. It’s tough. A lot of stuff going on for me the last couple of weeks, for sure. It’s been rough. This whole thing with my season starting out about as terrible as I could probably do… As much as it is frustrating, it is pretty minor in the grand scheme of things of what has been going on in my life. It’s been all right, man. I’ve got a great woman by my side who’s been holding me together, and I’ve got really good friends that have been keeping me on track. In the grand scheme of things, it’s all good. It will be all right.
Condolences on your buddy, Ryan Fedorow, passing away. Friend of many in the industry. I didn’t really know Ryan, but I know a lot of you guys were tight friends with him. What kind of guy was he like? What are you going to miss about him?
Ryan Fedorow was very influential in my life. One of my best friends. He’s older than me, and I really, really looked up to him. I clung to every word he said. I really wanted to be like him. He was one of those few people in life—I believe God only gives you a couple of those people in life and you’ve got to cherish those relationships that you have because not everybody is going to love you and have your back no matter what, unconditionally. Ryan was one of those people for me that whether I paid him to train me or not, he was there for me. He was there for me up until the day that he passed. It was a rough couple of weeks. There’s no doubt about it. I live in his house and talked to him and gave him a hug on his way out of the house that day. So, it’s tough. It’s what you do as a man, but a lot of responsibility for me in the last couple weeks, especially in that first week, trying to sort things and deal with things and just be there for his mother and his family and try to help them out with things, because that’s just what you do for family. Probably one of the roughest things that I’ve been through as a human. I’ve dealt with death before, but never that close to home and that unexpected. I’ve had grandparents pass, but they had cancer or other things where you could accept it. It was tough for me because he was somebody that I went to for damn near everything that I needed advice on. It’s tough losing somebody like that. That’s for sure.
He was the one that talked me off a ledge after a bad day. He was there with me at Anaheim. Like I said, he’s not my trainer. I wasn’t paying him for it. He was there as a friend and somebody that I cared for, respected, and love a lot, and the feeling was mutual. He was there for me. He came over to me and gave me a hug after Anaheim. I was more just a little distraught and confused at how I just didn’t make the main event and pulled such a stupid move. He grabbed my jersey, pulled my chest up, bumped my chin and said, “Uh-uh. We walk out of here with our head up like a champion, because that’s what you are. You don’t walk out of here with your head down. That ain’t how we do things.” Man, we were up until 3:00 am that night. We both went to the hospital to check on Colt, and obviously in the world we live in, they wouldn’t let us in the hospital to check on him, but we were there for a while. When we got home, we were up all night watching videos trying to figure out things that we can do for settings and things like that. It’s been a hell of a couple of weeks. Definitely tough. It is part of life. Doesn’t make it any easier knowing that fact, but it is part of life. I will just accept and move on and try to be as good as I can at everything that I do and apply what he taught me. It’s still kind of hard to talk about, even. I think that for me, Oakland a lot of people were giving me a little bit of shit because I did just pull off mid-race, took my goggles off. I took my helmet off and rode back to the pits. Full transparency, I balled my eyes out in my girlfriend’s arms. Everything just got very overwhelming. It had only been a couple of days since it happened. I had been having to be really tough and strong and not really break down. I don't think I had been able to deal with it and process the emotions. As soon as the adrenaline wore off in the main event, I had just one moment and my brain worked and I just got very overwhelmed. I felt like I was going to hurt myself out there by just not being in it. So, I pulled off and I took a day or two to just try to process everything. It was a big thing for me and obviously something that was hard to deal with. I got my mulligan out of the way, and it’s time to get back on the horse and man up and make it happen because that’s what you do. I’m going to miss that man. I’ll tell you that.
It only gets better from here. You had that happen to you, and then you had a DQ. So, now we’re moving on to Anaheim and hopefully things will get better.
They always do. There’s always a sunrise after the darkness, so it will be all right.
Listen to the full PulpMX Show #490 below (Bogle calls in at the 2:00:25 mark)
