Cole Seely is ready to step up his game in 2018.
Seely comes into Anaheim with his injured hand fixed, some good momentum from the off-season supercross races and one year’s experience on the re-vamped 450 Honda.
It all adds up to Seely coming in modtivated and ready to improve on his 2017 supercross season that he wasn’t completely satisfied with, as the humble factory star explained to our Doug Turney during press day.
How is the hand injury holding up?
It’s been good, it’s been a pretty quick healing process. I was off for two or three weeks, it was just getting the hardware out and then getting the flexibility back, the strength back. Everything came back pretty fast, it was pretty painful for a bit but it’s nice to compete with it and know it’s not going to bug me too much.
How was training back Florida compared to previous years?
It was good, I definitely leant a lot. I was there for the summer and didn’t do anything for supercross. I have plans to go back out there again, definitely for the summer. The quality of riding out there and the condition you are riding in, it definitely helps you relate to the Nationals, and all the fast guys making some tough lines and beating up the tracks, it was a huge learning experience for me.
What do you think of the track today after getting some time on it at press day?
It’s good, it’s pretty mellow, it’s pretty easy. I think we are going to be really close on times, we could be within the same tenth of a second. But it will be good, there should be some good racing.
What are your goals for the season?
I just want to improve, last year was a tough one to swallow, I didn’t feel like I really rode that well. Even thought I was riding good and getting good results, I wasn’t happy with it and I didn’t know how to take that next step in my career to be faster and fitter and all that stuff. I kind of plateaued and it was really frustrating for me. I want to take what I did last year and learn from it, build a better race bike, which we did over the off-season and be a better racer this year.
Was there anything in particular with you training that you did that you think will help this year?
I spent the off-season training with Christian Craig, Chase Sexton trained by Blake Savage, it was a lot of fun. That’s one of the big things I was missing was having riding buddies, it’s one thing to go out there and pound laps and put your time in it the gym and on your bicycle but you almost don’t get as much value out of it if you don’t have anything to do it with. I am definitely really thankful to those guys, they definitely helped me take the next step in my career and I think I did that for them too, I think we all benefitted. I am looking forward to watching them race and I hope they are thinking the same about me.
Anything with the bike that is new this year that you really like?
No just developed settings that we learned last year. Last year we went in blind as we didn’t have anything to base ourselves off of which is tough and a little scary. It’s definitely a pretty tuneable bike, we definitely fuond directions to go in. It’s always different to when you get to the race than the test track. We spend hours at the test track putting a 100 laps in and you dial it in for there and then the race is completely different. We have a base setting that is more tunaeable for a hardpack track, softer track, mind of everything, it’s a gerneric setting so we have a good idea of where to go when we show up at the races.
Interview and pic: Doug Turney