With the first round of Monster Energy AMA Supercross coming up in just over a month, it is crunch time for riders and teams to get everything dialed in. With a longer race season and shortened off-season this makes things more difficult for riders who have switched to new teams for the 2024 season. Fortunately for Chase Sexton he is adapting quite nicely to his new Red Bull KTM Factory Racing machine. Our Kellen Brauer caught up with him at the team intro to get his thoughts on his new bike, the upcoming season and more.
Racer X: Chase Sexton, new team, new bike, new atmosphere, it's finally here so you can take a deep breathe with the off season and all that?
Chase Sexton: Yeah, I feel like it's been a long time coming, I feel like I made the decision pretty early and I have just been, not waiting but I knew it was coming and now it's finally here. It's been really fun, just the people I have been working with it's been really cool. Overall, the bike is a lot different, it's a lot to get used to but it's fun for me as a rider to learn a different bike and see what it does better and what things I can work on. Yeah, it's been fun.
What’s the process been for you to try to learn the bike, what steps have you taken mentally going into it, so you don’t dig yourself a hole from day one.
There’s just stuff you have to ride a bit different, every bike is different especially when you go from an aluminum frame to a steel frame, it acts a lot different. I feel like I ride it pretty similar but also, I feel like there’s some stuff that it does better and some stuff we can work on. It's always a work in progress but overall, like I said I don’t feel big on it, I feel like it fits me a little bit better, like I don’t feel cramped which is nice. That’s one thing when I first rode it, I looked more comfortable right away, it was cool.
Are there any characteristics about the chassis or anything that you felt like, “Wow that’s actually different than I thought it was” from day one?
Riding it felt a lot more stable, like I am not getting those weird kind of things. I feel like a lot of times with the Honda I put a lot of load on it and sometimes it didn’t really take it. And I feel like that’s partly on me also, just me not working with the bike as good. This one, it feels a little bit more natural to me, I can load it like I want to. And it tends to like the load a lot more. It's a bike where it's stiffer but you can load it and it reacts good so it's been good.
Rolling into 2024 how does the mentality change now that you’re defending the title? I am sure to some degree you just want to chase race wins and stuff like that but now you have a #1 on your back, does it feel different?
It's actually really nice. It's nice to have the #1 I feel like that’s something that I have chased for a long time. I still have a lot of areas where I can improve from last year, every year I just want to get better and better. And that’s something I am looking forward to for this year, I gave a lot of points away last year that I didn’t need to, hopefully this year we can kind of cut that. A lot of races last year that I should have won but I didn’t. So, clean up those mistakes and just focus on getting better and better, it's kind of been my mind set the last few years and it's seemed to work out.
New team obviously but it seems like the same training program, Peter Park and then [Moto] Sandbox for you?
Yeah, so Sandbox is new for me this year, going back there, I rode there from 2016-2020 so I have a lot of experience there. I am back training with Kenny [Roczen] I have Tom Vialle and Levi Kitchen working with me this year with Peter, so it's been cool. The boot camp has been fun, just with different personalities. It's been fun to get to know Tom and Levi and to be able to train with somebody other than myself and Peter. It's been really good, Peter has been awesome. So, same off the bike program but on the bike it's been completely, pretty much new.
Watch the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing Team intro here:
So, this year, you are living with Levi right now, is it different in the sense that in the past you were pretty much doing your own thing, does this feel like you’re going to be more working with people throughout the year and training with them?
Yeah, it's cool to have people to kind of work with, but also I have a little bit more experience than those guys and can help them in areas that they maybe struggle with. And also riding wise, Tom and I ride together but Levi I haven’t ridden with yet. So, we get back to Sandbox and he’s obviously really fast and him and I can push each other on the track and I gain from that as well. And off the bike they are very fit, so it's been fun, bike rides and kind of little competitions, I think all three of us has benefited from it so far and I am looking forward to more of it in the future.
As you look forward to the competition in 2024, you have raced Jett [Lawrence] now, you’ve raced Eli [Tomac] but you haven’t raced them together, and obviously there’s a whole list of other people as well. How do you expect it to feel with this whole list of talent that you are going up against?
I don’t know for some reason I just feel like this year is going to be different than last year, I don’t know why. Eli is going to be back, Jett is going to be really good, but I think we are going to see a lot of mixing up, I don’t know why I say that. But for me I feel like I am in a good spot and I keep getting better and better. And for me, I am not looking for those big jumps I just want to slowly build and build and getting to a point where I am winning a lot of races. I won six last year and I want to win more than that this year. Being on the podium every race is obviously the goal, but the competition is relatively the same, but I think people are going to be different and motivated this year and I am very motivated to get after it.
