Thursday, January 10

Tyler Evans Returns

By Eric Johnson

"Evans beats Pastrana," read the Cameron Steele-produced press release touting Metal Mulisha foot solder Tyler Evans’ 18th-place finish at the opening round of the 2002 EA Sports Supercross Series at Edison International Field. And while Pastrana did experience some bad luck that sent him to the back of the field, it can’t be denied that for full-on privateer Evans, just making the show was a fantastic result. As the only true privateer to make the main, the fact that he had been able to line up against the world’s best riders was indicative of the Salinas, California native’s true talent aboard a 250cc motocross bike. To be honest, Evans has at times been his own worst enemy. After burning a few bridges due to on-track altercations and struggles with various team owners, Evans left the sport last summer to begin a freestyle career. And while things have gone relatively well on the big air/big chances circuit, Evans’ heart yearned for racing. A few weeks ago, word hit the streets of SoCal claiming that Evans was riding and training to make a comeback at Anaheim. And when we saw him roll up to the pit entrance at the Big A with a black, Metal Mulisha-style CR250 in the back of a pickup, the rumors proved true. Later that evening, after an impressive fourth-place finish in his semi, Evans had a place on the gate for the first 250cc main of the season. A few days after Anaheim, we tracked the Mulisha member down as he was preparing to head south for Qualcomm Stadium and round two of the series at San Diego. Here’s what he had to say about his comeback….

Tyler, congratulations on making the 250cc show at Anaheim. You must be pretty stoked…. Thanks, I am, things went really well. I’m really pumped.

Going in, did you think you had a shot at making the main? To be honest, I knew I could make the main because I had done it before. The only thing I was worried about was my conditioning, because it’s pretty poor right now. I didn’t think my conditioning would be up to it. I’ve only been riding for about one month. I’ve been riding and training hard, but I also knew I had a long way to go.

You placed a very strong fourth behind Byrne, Voss and Lewis in your semi to make the main. Was it an encouraging result for you? I was pumped. Nick Wey and Mike Craig were behind me at the finish. I mean, I was on a full-on privateer bike and those guys were on team bikes. I was ecstatic to be able to make the main event.

You’ve been away from racing for a while - was it exciting to be racing in a big baseball stadium again? Yeah, it was. To be able to go out and race on a track was great. It was a great feeling to be on a track and racing in front of 50,000 people again.

You mentioned that you’ve only been training for a month. What’s been entailed in your training program? Actually, I’ve been training with Mark "The Bear" Smith. He trains the Plano Honda team and he’s let me come down and train with his guys. I wouldn’t be where I’m at if he hadn’t been helping me. Like I said, I’ve also been riding every day in the last month. Every day things slowly started coming back to me.

Mark’s a world-class bare-knuckle fighter - what kind of things does he have you guys do during a typical training day? A lot of wrestling. Some boxing. He also has us do a lot of cardiovascular work. We work at different stations. I’ll go down to the Mulisha Compound and he’ll set up stations where we’ll box for a while, wrestle for a while – we’ll run to six different stations. By the last station you’re ready to die. It’s good. I’m glad he’s helping me.

Being a privateer, who has helped you get out to the races? Pretty much three main guys have helped me. My bikes and parts have come from Clawson Motorsports. Brian Deegan and the Metal Mulisha have really helped me. And Matt Wallace did my suspension. It’s pretty much these three people who have helped me get to the races.

When I first saw you at Anaheim, you were rolling through the pit entrance with your bike in the back of a small pickup. Is that the truck you ended up working out of? I took the bike to Anaheim in the truck, but then Independent Suspension had a fun mover in the pits for me to work out of. I’ll be working out of their fun mover for the next four races.

Word is that you’re going to do, at the least, the next four supercross rounds. Yeah, I’ll be doing the next four for sure. If I have help and I do good, I plan on hitting them all. We’ll see how I do in the next four races.

Upon arriving at Anaheim, how were you received by the racing community? Oh, I don’t think the AMA was too happy. In fact, Duke [Finch] said some stuff to me right before the main. I did two tricks on the parade lap and he told me that if I did anything like that again I would not be racing supercross ever again. He’s not too happy with me, but I like that kind of stuff. It fires me up.

Last time I checked, I don’t remember seeing anything in the AMA rulebook outlawing tricks on the parade lap! I agree with you. I made some stupid mistakes last year and I think Duke is over me a little bit. But I don’t think he had the right to say things to me before the main like that. I mean, he jumped down my throat.

How were the racers to you? Some are happy I’m back racing and some are like, Oh no, here we go again. - we have to go out and race him.

What’s up with your freestyle program? Have you put it on hold for a while? Freestyle motocross is going good for me, but right now, there’s not a lot going on. I miss racing and the competition, and I want to come back and do well. With not much going on with freestyle right now, I didn’t want to be at home sitting around and watching TV. I wanted to have something to do, and racing was it. Racing and training and riding, that’s what I know. I’ve been doing it my entire life.

You’ve been chosen to compete at the Winter X Games next week in Aspen, Colorado. With both Moto Big Air and Anaheim II taking place on the same day, it could be a tough haul. Can you pull off both? Yes, I’ll be there. I’ll fly out to Colorado on Friday night. I’ll do the Moto Big Air contest on Saturday morning and then fly right back to Anaheim. Unless the AMA has some hidden rule that says you have to ride practice, it should all work out for me. But I’m sure Duke will have something to say about it.

Do you plan to keep on racing, or is this a type of fling for you? I’d like to keep racing. Once this Clear Channel/AMA split happens, it could open up a lot of opportunities for the privateers. Guys like myself can eat it all up. If I can get a ride, I’d like to do both: race and do freestyle. I want to do as much as I can.

How’s Deegan with all this? He’s pumped about it. He likes to see one of his boys doing good out on the race track and mixing it up with the racing guys. All the guys in the Mulisha have given me so much support. If it wasn’t for these guys, I wouldn’t be at the races. It takes a lot of hard work to be a privateer. It’s been a wake-up call for me. It makes me appreciate what I had before I left racing.

After the main, did any riders come up and congratulate you? Oh yeah, a lot of guys came up to me, especially the privateer guys. They know how hard it is to make the main. Especially if you’re a true privateer. I mean, there are guys that claim to be privateers that make $50,000 or $100,000 a year. I can’t believe that. They’re not privateers. A lot of privateers were stoked I made it. I could give a shit about the factory guys. They have everything handed to them.