Max Vohland was not pleased with his day at High Point Raceway on Saturday. Vohland rode home a solid sixth place finish in moto one but ran into a downed Haiden Deegan in the first turn of moto two, coming back to finish 12th by the checkered flag. Afterwards, the KTM rider said his riding in moto one was not good, but his result was, and the script was flipped for moto two: good riding—after the slowup in turn one—and not a good result. He claimed tenth overall on the day, but the second-generation pro racer has high expectations for himself and said it was a mediocre day. Vohland said the following in a post-race interview during the media scrum.
Racer X: Okay Max, walk us through your day here at the High Point national?
Max Vohland: I had a pretty good day; I mean it was pretty mediocre to be honest. First practice I was really comfortable, so it was good, qualified like eighth or seventh or something like that. The second practice the track was way rougher, I felt a little bit uncomfortable compared to the first practice, but I was like, “Ahh I rode so good the first practice” so I left the bike and then the first moto the track tacked up a lot. I had my steering dampener quite tight because of the mud and when it tacked up it made it really hard to stay in the ruts and to get the thing to turn. So, first moto I got a pretty good start, didn’t feel very comfortable but was able to get a sixth, not riding very well, for my standards at least. And then second moto we changed a lot on the bike, and I felt way more comfortable. I felt really good on the sight lap and kind of raced the sight lap a little bit to feel the bike out. I got a pretty good start, about the same start. I ended up not running paddle the second moto which kind of hurt off the start because everyone around me had a paddle. But I was managing it and I think I would have been fine but Haiden [Deegan] ended up falling right in front of me and I kind of got stuck on his bike, was off the track, went through the banners. Then I was already set back and I was trying to charge through the field the first lap and had a huge crash going down the super steep hill, I kind of jumped far and landed in a rut and hooked left and hit that plateau and launched that thing all the way down to the bottom down in the river basically, down in the creek at the bottom.
So, that really hindered me for the second moto. I got up the bike was twisted and banged up. I fought hard and made my way back up to 12th. I think I got tenth overall today, so first moto was alright, didn’t ride good, got a good finish. Second moto rode good didn’t get a good finish. So, it was kind of opposites, but I am not happy with how today went, I am pretty frustrated actually. I am determined to get on the podium, and I am glad we got this week off because I am looking forward to working my ass off this week. I will get there eventually I know I am going to be there eventually, and I am not going to stop until I get there.
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That was my next question with the weekend off before RedBud what does that look like? Is that going to be testing for you, working on fitness or anything?
It's going to be a lot. I am going to try and work on my starts, I worked on my starts a lot this week coming in. I was running blocks at the beginning of the year, now I am not. So maybe my technique wasn’t honed in perfectly. I am going to work on it a little more and hone in and perfect my technique to get better starts. When it comes to this week, we all get the same Baker’s Factory program but I am going to do more than those guys. I am going to make sure I do more. I am going to come into RedBud ready and we will see what happens there.
Now that you have been racing pro for a few years, where does High Point rank compared to some of the other national tracks?
I like it here. I had good races my rookie year here and was really fast last year here. This year of course was different because we had a lot of rain, and it was super muddy. It was different dirty today, some stuff had that light yellow mulch and some stuff had the darker thicker mulch. We had sawdust and the mulch and then the dirt. We had like four different dirt textures out there because we had the mud and the mulch. And then when we got through the mud we got to the hard pack where it was slick so a lot of diversity today. The track was definitely rutted and tough, it was definitely a mud race without the rain. It was the same for everyone, I didn’t dislike it. I like High Point it's up there in the top five I would say. RedBud is a great track too, it's kind of the same deal where they have a lot of different dirt but at least it's not the saw dust and the mulch.
