When Mark Fineis first stepped foot on the ClubMX training facility in 2016, the then-11-year-old had no idea what he was getting himself into. A fast young ripper on a 65cc bike, Fineis was the smallest of the training group and at that age the idea of becoming a professional motocross racer was not even a goal yet. He was there to have fun and go fast on his dirt bike. But he got right to work—both on and off the bike.
“Two thousand sixteen was my first year here at Club,” he recalled earlier this week on a Zoom call. “They didn't really allow little bikes here, but I was an exception since I was a little bit of a faster 65 rider. So, I was able to train with the bigger bikes. But it was… [Laughs] 2016 ClubMX was a boot camp. I loved it. Mandatory ice baths. If you were a second late to anything, you had to run laps on the front track in your full boots, helmet, everything. We had chores. Like, since I was the littlest one here, I was always assigned with like just picking up trash around the facility. And there was like mopping the gym, sweeping, the pro shop, amateur shop, shoveling out the gates. I enjoyed it. It made boys men.
“My first week was the most painful and sore I think I've ever been,” he added with a laugh. “Even to this day it was awful. I was barely able to ride with the gym sessions. You'd wake up at six o'clock and do like an early morning workout and then do a workout after and that could be lifting weights or doing cardio. But then you have to ride in between and mandatory ice baths. Didn't matter how cold it was, mandatory ice baths. Me as a little kid, like I'm gonna be honest, I was crying during the ice baths. I didn't know want to do. I was crying. …We were going on road bike rides. I could barely touch the pedals! I'm just on like the littlest size road bike in the very back trying to survive.”
Fast forward to the third week in January 2024, and as much as things have changed, things still remain the same. By now, seven years later, both ClubMX and Fineis have grown up. The training facility now has ten total tracks and multiple houses on the property, while also running the Muc-Off/FXR/ClubMX Yamaha race team in the AMA Supercross and Motocross paddock, part of the entire 31-round SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX).
“It's like watching a kid grow up. It's Brandon's kid,” Fineis said, referring to owner Brandon Haas’s facility nowadays.
Fineis, now 18 himself, is a rider for the racing team, prepping for his final races as an amateur as he transitions into the pro ranks in the next coming months. Aiming for race wins and a title for the Supercross Futures program in Monster Energy AMA Supercross, Fineis will then make the move to the pro 250 Class for the AMA Pro Motocross Championship. He wants to win, and he wants to win by a lot. This summer, his goals are good starts and top ten finishes. If not, he will have to look in the mirror and tell himself to work harder. After all, that has been his mindset to this point in his life.
He does not like it when people doubt him. Hell, the reason he is on some people’s radars is because of his gutsy move in the summer of 2022. During the MX Sports Scouting Moto Combine event that helps transition riders aiming to make the jump to the pro scene by providing them similar race days on the difficult, pro-level tracks, when a fellow rider said Fineis could not hit RedBud MX’s famed LaRocco’s Leap jump, Fineis quieted his doubter by pulling off the move on the opening lap of the race. He almost paid for it though as he barely landed on the track as he dropped out of the sky.
“There's only one reason why I sent it: someone said I wouldn't do it,” he said. “I hate when people doubt me. I hate it.”
The following day for the pro race only a handful of riders on 250F machines ended up doing the jump themselves.
On the Friday ahead of the 2023 Ironman National Pro Motocross finale, Fineis was walking around shirtless with a red beanie on in the 90-degree heat watching the racing. You can find him laughing to himself while in staging, but that quickly turns into confidence and focus before the gate drops. And once the gate drops, he gives it his full effort, similar to RJ Hampshire or Cameron McAdoo types.
“Mark Fineis…he's a guy that whenever he puts the helmet on it's all serious, but as soon as the helmet comes off, he's probably the most unserious guy you could possibly talk to,” he self-evaluated. “Unless it comes to the gym, then, it starts to get a little bit more serious.
“There's not much to me,” he said simply, noting his life mostly consists of dirt bikes and gym workouts. “I don't like lazy people. I'm all about hard work and I respect people that are very efficient and hard working at whatever they do, whatever that is, doesn't have to be dirt bikes. If you work hard at it with 100 percent effort all the time, then I'll respect you. But if you don't, then it's like, why are you doing it?”
Maybe it was the long, difficult days at the track growing up. Even as an amateur last year aboard a GasGas MC 250F, he was putting in the same effort as the riders actually on the ClubMX race team. Same riding and training program both on and off the bike. Plus his riding was done on the same difficult, beat up tracks. Learning the workload from veteran Phil Nicoletti, 2019 AMA Supercross Rookie of the Year Garrett Marchbanks, and two-time 250 Class Pro Motocross Champion Jeremy Martin benefited Fineis a ton. He thinks it will make the transition to the pro ranks less jarring.
“On the bike, it's not much different, but there are like subtle changes,” he compared his 2023 amateur stats training to his current program. “Like now that I'm on the team, Brandon and other guys are more hands on with me and give me a little bit more attention since now that I’m on their team. And off the bike, they haven't adjusted it, but I have liked just from learning and like talking to like Jeremy Martin and Garrett and like listening to what they do just listening to what people have to say and adjusting my program accordingly.
“Learning from the guys here has been a big help, just like in the gym and on the bike,” he added. “I watch what they do. Like, we're doing sprints, I pull right behind Martin and watch him for three laps or how many laps we do, and I pick up on things that he's doing that I didn't do before and make that a habit. So, yeah, it's nice.”
The 2023 season was solid for Fineis. He had the big spring nationals in the southeast, the Supercross Futures program (second in the championship finale main event), the MX Sports Scouting Moto Combine, the Monster Energy AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch, and the 250 All Star race at the SMX finale (second). He was leading the 250 Pro Sport Class at the Ranch after 2-1 moto finishes but the muddy week led to a DNF in the final moto, netting him 13th overall. Scores of 4-9-DNS in the Open Pro Sport class left him 25th overall. It was a tough way to end the week.
He then dabbled in the pro ranks at the final two Pro Motocross events (Budds Creek and Ironman), finishing 24th and 23rd, respectively. A crash and jammed wrist at the first led to a tough day. At the finale he was feeling better but learned how much he needed to improve his bike setup in order to find more success.
“The biggest thing we learned was that suspension is everything,” he said. “My suspension was not up to par. It's like the way the track formed was totally different from how an amateur [national] track formed. I had amateur suspension. My bike was not working the way I wanted it to work. I wasn't able to come into corners and jump the bumps or hammer through the bumps the way I wanted to without my bike giving me a hard time. Yeah, I'd say the biggest thing we learned was the suspension. How big a deal that is.”
He got back to work and scored another second place in the 250 All-Stars race at the SMX finale inside the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
“I'm gonna be honest with you, when I'm out there, when the gate drops, I forget I'm even in the stadium, I'm so locked in it,” Fineis said on racing in front of thousands and thousands of fans. “It's kind of scary because once the I cross the finish and I'm looking around like, ‘Oh, I’m here!’”
“I don't think about it. Don't think about things too much, that over complicates it.”
While recalling his season, he admitted he envisioned it going better.
“I was struggling a lot mentally and just thought I was up to par with a lot of things, which we weren't: suspension, bike,” he said. “Just struggling but learning a lot. [Supercross] Futures, it was cool, but I just wasn't prepared. I was mentally prepared, but like what I was riding and my ability to ride supercross was not ready yet.”
The combine, futures, and SMX all-star race all helped provide gate drops and experience. Insight as to what a race day for the pros is like was incredibly valuable. Then he was working on a deal with Haas to get some support for Supercross Futures this year when the deal quickly turned into a one-year Pro Motocross chance, too.
Luckily, the transition from the steel frame KTM and GasGas machines he was used to for the last handful of years to the aluminum frame Yamaha went rather smooth.
“As soon as I hopped on the Yamaha I was immediately better in the whoops,” Fineis stated. “It's like I was comfortable. It's like the only thing that I didn't like was how loud it was. It was like hurting my ears how loud it was. …I've gotten used to it now. But the transition wasn't hard at all.
“Like I hopped on their bike [ClubMX] I'm like, ‘Is this what all my competitors have been riding on, racing against me on?’” he added. “They're like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘This is cheating. This is cheating!’ It's like I was riding a 125 compared to a 450. It was stupid. Yeah, it was night and day, and it was immediately better.”
Having the fitness to do long motos already meant right away he was able to get to work on finding comfortable settings with the machine. He knew the bike setup was where he lacked in 2023 and he made that a point of focus.
“Suspension was the biggest thing,” he said. “That was the biggest thing. I knew the bike was good. Those guys [team members] were doing their thing trying to make the bike faster. But the bike is fast enough for me. It's like, my starts…we're really hammering down on some starts these past three weeks and my starts are getting really, really good. Yeah, suspension was the biggest thing and I think we're at a place suspension wise where we don't really need to change anything right now until I break through that next speed level.”
It is a big year for the Indiana native. On a one-year deal, with options, he needs to go out and prove himself amongst the best. It all starts this weekend at the Supercross Futures 2024 debut at the Anaheim 2 SX. As the saying goes, “the hay is in the barn.” Now the show begins.