Hunter Yoder had a breakout night last week in Anaheim. The ClubMX Yamaha rider led his heat race early, then went on to run well in the 250SX main and eventually finish eighth in just his first race with ClubMX Yamaha. We spoke with Yoder on press day in San Diego about A1, his team dynamic at ClubMX, and what he expects moving forward in 2026.
Racer X: Great starts last week, especially in your heat race! You didn’t get freight trained either man, you held onto it. What was the feeling like leading at A1?
Yoder: Badass. One of my hometown races, I grew up 45 minutes from Anaheim. I went to that race as a kid watching guys like Chad Reed, who’s now my trainer at ClubMX. It was awesome. There’s not much more you can really ask for at the beginning of the season. It filled me with a lot of confidence I can use the rest of the year. I think it’s something I’ll be able to carry on for the rest of the year, especially when my knee starts feeling better [Yoder is dealing with a partial tear of his ACL]. Hopefully it’ll start happening more and more often. The more I can get up there, and feel comfortable up there, the better the result will be.
This isn’t something we’ve seen from you in the past, and that’s not meant disrespectfully at all.
Truth is truth [laughs].
Well what can you attribute it to?
Just confidence. Confidence plays a big role in supercross, and I’ve gained confidence through my team. Between my mechanic and every other guy who’s part of the team, all of them are willing to do whatever it takes to get that extra one percent out of me every day. I have good teammates to ride with too. Max Vohland and I have been going at it for the last three months in boot camp, every single day, every single moto. You just said you haven’t seen me up there much, but he has been up there. Me being able to ride with him, there are days I’m faster than he is, and days he’s faster than I am. But if you look at the results from last year, from him to me, it’s a big difference, and me being able to ride with him and build that confidence is a big thing for me. Being able to run up front and stay calm if a guy passes me, or if I get into a battle.
It seems like the team dynamic would be pretty strong with all you guys out there at ClubMX all the time.
Yeah, Max and I are boys. We’re super tight. We get along very well, we ride all day together, and we go to the gym afterward. There are a lot of days, after training, we’ll hang out at my house or go to dinner or something. The dynamic is strong. We’ll spend weekends together riding dirt jumps. There aren’t many people out there who can say they have a teammate who cares about you. Devin Simonson, I rode for a while with Devin, and Coty Schock, they care too. Between the four of us, we all just want the best for each other. There are no egos. We’ve all had our hard roads and struggles, and at this point there are no egos and we just want the best. However we can make each other better, that’s what we’ll do because in the end it’ll make us better as well. That’s the dynamic.
Talk about having Chad Reed on board as a coach. What’s it like having a multi-time champion in your corner?
It’s very refreshing to come off the track and have someone like that tell you, ‘That’s what it takes to win races.’ When you do some quality riding and that’s the comment you get after the moto, it’s hard for me to not gain confidence.
Especially from someone of that caliber.
Exactly. I would say that’s the biggest thing. Anyone can tell me I’m good enough to win races, but not many people are good enough to win races, and tell me I’m good enough to win races.
Goals for San Diego?
A little bit of last weekend, get out front. If I can be out front, good things will come.
