Anderson: "Anytime I would train, I would just get sick"

Okay, well, something else we talked about in San Diego was that you had mentioned you had good speed and you were riding really well, but the field is so heavy now. With your speed, you can be podium, and the next night or the next week with the same speed be fifth, sixth, seventh.
Yes. I think like the only person who's realistically pretty even is I think there's two of them right now. I think you can pretty much count on Chase and Jett to be in the top three for the most part. But other than that, even, like, as great as even Eli is, he has those nights where he has a hard time being in that, in that front pack.

Do you think that's a little bit age related, too? I mean, you were, what 32? All you guys. You can be kind of in that same area.
I think there's a lot of factors that go into it. I think obviously, you know, like having kids, our days are not a one-dimensional focus. You know, I think we have a lot more going on in our lives compared to the younger guys. And I think that can be good to distract you, but it could also be sometimes, you know, maybe make you a little bit tired.

Yeah, kids will wear you out!
Yeah. That two-year-old age is the age where, you know, they're...  you can't contain them! [Laughs] I mean, it's awesome. It's super fun, but I think that's an aspect, where I think obviously recovering is maybe tougher for us. And I think just mentally, I think those younger guys are are willing to take a lot of risk. They're still chasing, and we are just really enjoying what we do. So I think there's an aspect of that, that your mindset is a little bit different from whenever you're 22 to 32.

Of course. When you're that young, you think you're never going to get old, right?
Yeah, it goes in the blink of an eye, too. It's really crazy.

So after Seattle, you pulled out. We were, we were told, family emergency. And the following week you were out for the rest of the season and the team put out a Instagram saying personal health concerns. Is there anything about that time frame you're willing to kind of tell us what was going on, what came to be, because you even missed a lot of outdoors towards the end of the season. I assume it all kind of is the same thing.
Yeah, it's all the same thing. I've just really been struggling over the years with with my thyroid and I have been on medicine for my thyroid to help, but my thyroid is kind of really been hard to manage. It also has to go with my EBV, which Epstein-Barr is like multiple different things. There's eight different types. You can have mono [for example]. Basically I'm getting sick a lot. And from San Diego on until Seattle, I probably had a cold four times to where I wasn't able to like really ride or anything like that. Then even in outdoors, same thing, you know, and I really just needed to give my body a rest. There was no training that I could do or anything along those lines that it was going to help me, because anytime I would train, I would just get sick, you know? And when you're traveling in airplanes all the time and everything like that, I just really had a hard time keeping my health together. I never really had that issue when I was younger. I could kind of burn the candle on both ends, and it never really affected me, you know?  I'll just be completely honest is if I would go out right now and I was to go just get hammered for a night, I would wake up with a cold and I would be screwed for a week. Back in the day, I could go out every Saturday night and still be on the podium and winning on the weekends as long as I trained. You know that wearing on my body wasn't as hard on me then as it is now.

Yeah, when you're a professional athlete and your body is at the peak performance, those little things, as you get older, I'm sure have an even bigger effect. And with the way the season is now, you get really even before this SMX, you guys didn't get much time off to really recover. And it's even worse now.
Yeah, and even for me, I'm like, all right. So, let's just say realistically, I'm getting, lately, I've been getting sick like maybe four to five times to where I have to actually take off like four days. And if I could just figure out to get my body healthy enough to make it through a supercross season with just getting sick once, that'd be a win for me, you know?

Yeah for sure. Okay, before we get to Suzuki, I got one more thing I want to bring up. You know, in the past, you've had some, rivalries over the last couple seasons with maybe Jett or Hunter [Lawrence] at times. And then I think sometime this year you said like, "Hey man, I like talking crap off the track. But those battles with those guys are really cool." I want to ask you about the talking crap stuff a little bit because Coop [Cooper Webb] does it. I feel like it's kind of a fun thing you guys can do or whatever to kind of get into other guys' heads a little bit, and it just kind of messes with people. I feel like that's what it's about. But do you sort of enjoy talking crap a little bit?
Um, yeah! I mean, realistically, if you think about it, it's the art of sport. I think you have a lot of guys that have a different mentality. I think part of me, I think sometimes whenever I'm behind a guy, I'm pretty sure they're thinking twice of me, you know? And I think that that is maybe an aspect that benefits me. But then at the same time, it's been an aspect that has definitely hindered, you know, podiums, results, wins, all that stuff. But I think as I get older, I think obviously you just get calmer, but at the same time, I for sure can get fired up out there, you know?

People really like to talk about your character based upon that. But, I mean, we just want it! These podiums and these wins and stuff, they don't come as as often as they did previous in my career. Even at 32, I still want to be able to stand on that box every year, you know? So that's a very, very important to me. So even us getting fired up or how we go about things and stuff like that, it's just because we're so passionate about what we do and passionate about the results. And sometimes our industry is a little cutthroat, you know, because all of us are racing each other. But if we're behind the guys and maybe we can use a little bit of like, those, those games to make them think twice, maybe make them make mistakes and stuff like that. I mean, those podiums are what keep you doing your job!

Okay. Suzuki, after four years at Monster Energy Kawasaki, you've signed a deal with the Twisted Tea Progressive Suzuki team. Talk about riding for Pipes Motorsports, how that came about, what brought the decision on?
Honestly, I think Kenny has really made their motorcycle look really, really good. And you could see that it is competitive enough to be able to be on the podium and win races. I think the program that we're putting together is really nice because I'm not going to do outdoors. It's not necessarily that I don't want to do outdoors. I think it's just me managing my body to be able to go as long as I can in my career because I'm gonna get to outdoors and feel really guilty about not doing them. You know, you just sit on the couch and you watch the races and you just feel like you should be out there if you don't have a cast on. But yeah, I think the program that they have over there, the motorcycle, is amazing. And it's really, really cool to be able to work with Larry Brooks. He's kind of a legend in the job that he's in, you know, from working with [Jeremy] McGrath to Stew [James Stewart] to Kenny to Reedy [Chad Reed], you know, it's it's been pretty crazy how he could create results and kind of an unorthodox way without factories is what he's always done. Going to Suzuki, it feels like a no brainer.  Suzuki is coming on board more to help this year. And I'm excited for the next couple of years. And I want to come out swinging. You know, I'm doing the World Supercross, so I'm a little rusty going into that. But hopefully by, hopefully by A1, I'll be, you know, swinging.

And you have some history with Suzuki. Obviously. Amateurs five Loretta titles I believe with Suzuki, Pro debut with Rockstar Suzuki. Your first podium was with them in 2012. Your first win in 2013. So they were kind of leaning into it with the press release about your homecoming. Does it feel that way to you a little bit.
Yeah! I mean, the yellow fender has been pretty familiar to my career, you know I spent three years, obviously, my first three years riding the 250 class with the Rockstar Suzuki team. I think I signed my Suzuki deal when I was nine years old, ten years old. I think they had the RM65 at that time that I was racing. It's crazy. Obviously, like, it's not the same people, but it's the same manufacturer, and it's really cool, too. This nostalgia is really cool for me, and especially if I'm able to turn this into a new era of my career to be able to do well in as well.

I like going back to the roots. Suzuki, we we make fun of it or whatever the fans whatever because of the kick start and it seems like it's old technology. But yeah, seeing what Kenny's done three wins I think in the last few years on it, it clearly is capable. Obviously, the kickstarter can be a little bit of a hindrance if you happen to go down and stall the bike. But recently Japan seems like they're much more involved in wanting to make this program back up on the same level as all the other OEMs. So I think it's a good time to get back in.
Everyone talks about the motorcycle being old or they need it updated. But if I'm being completely honest, the bike's pretty damn good already! I'm like, I don't know how much I would like to change it. Obviously, like electric start would be nice, but I don't know, I think the motorcycle is really, really good.

When switching teams in your career, there has to be a lot of factors that you have to think about, like whether some people may think about the financial side, or personnel within the team, the equipment. So for you, what are the primary factors that you use when deciding, hey, it's time to do something different?
You know I think there's also another aspect to it, too. Sometimes you maybe need just a change of scenery, just to be motivated, you know, riding a different test track, seeing a different front fender color, seeing other personnel, that stuff helps it feel fresh. But at the same time, you want that personnel to be good. From a fan's perspective it's very underrated how important the clientele is from, you know, your team manager to even the people who are funding the team and everything like that. That's important for me because I need to be able to feel vulnerable, to give them the right information to make my bike better, and to put me in the right headspace to do well. Then the motorcycle. You obviously need some sort of a base that you think is in, in the ballpark of doing well. You want to be able to test the bike before you sign and make sure you're like, okay, I feel comfortable and I have the skill to achieve what I want on it. And luckily when I hopped on the Suzuki, I was very happy with the motorcycle and the clientele. I mean, they all are all pretty chill so far, but I'm sure once we get into racing, we'll have like, little things here and there, but that's that's how any relationship goes. So.

Were there other offers that were on the table that you considered that you can talk about or willing to talk about?
Yeah. I don't know if I necessarily want to say, but I've had a crazy silly season. Like the, the craziest!Ii could have ended up so many different places at so many different times. [Laughs] This was kind of what I thought was going to happen, you know is being at Suzuki, but at the same time, I definitely had offers from other places. And then, I mean, as you guys know, you know, the team I was on, it was kind of getting crazy there towards the end, so I didn't even know what was happening there.

Right.
Yeah! [Laughs] So you know, I'm happy where I'm at. I'm excited to do this World Supercross thing. And I think being able to do supercross only will extend my career even further. And like I told you, I said three years, but you never know with us. I mean, we say this, we say that but when it comes to the point where we have to have nothing to do, we're like, "Well, might as well train and ride and race."

I've got a few more for you, a couple listener questions, and we'll let you go. You mentioned being a little rusty for World Supercross, but I see that if you're going to race that whole series, I can see you as being the title favorite. Is that motivating to you? I mean, to race that full series, maybe get a, you know, a World Supercross title or is it kind of like, really the most important thing is getting prepped for AMA Supercross 2026.
Right now I'm looking at it as prep. I think if I can keep that perspective...yes I want to win, I want to do well, but I've got to keep the main goal of progress in my head. I'll tell you this much. If we would have went to Malaysia, my whole plan was to just ride behind Joey [Savatgy] the whole time, you know? But. But now that we got that extra, you know, instead of racing on October 15th, we're racing in Argentina in November 6th or something like that, that definitely means that I want to go to Argentina and win. So just  that amount of time I think is actually going to help me quite a bit. Because, you know, I'm still learning a lot. I've never ran KYB. I'm learning a lot because I've never worked with the guys that I've worked with. And and my team is still doing SMX and MX of Nations so I haven't really had all the people at the track to make progress on certain days because they have to go to the races.