Behind The Bars (S1 E1)

Whoa, buddy, why are you going so slow? I mean, I ain't even going that fast. All right. A little backing in. A little warm up. Yo, what's up, guys? As you can see, we're out for a ride today. Kind of talk about how our test at Daytona went. Oh, first of all, big news coming. All right. Huge news. No, it's not that huge, but it's pretty big for me. Me and Lenky are stoked. We have a title sponsor for the YouTube channel. Somehow we've gotten good enough at this YouTube stuff that we have a title sponsor giving us like, you know, good money to sponsor the channel. And I am so stoked. I called Nick last night. You guys will find out soon who it is. Contract's not done yet, but it's coming soon. And I am stoked. This is a company that I've been working with pretty much my entire life. I mean, yeah, like almost my entire life I've been using this company's product and I couldn't be any happier to actually have some type of deal with them. It's not even through racing. This is just for YouTube. So I feel like me and Nick are finally starting to make it on the YouTube stuff. Last year we weren't super consistent with it, but this year, you know, with the sponsor coming on board, we need to be more consistent. We got to at least put out one to two videos a month for these guys. I'm pretty sure like in the contract it's going to say one video for sure per month, but my goal is to be uploading at least once a week. So if Nick's not available, this is what I'm going to be doing. I'll be finding people to go ride with on the streets and I'll be making street riding footage. And if I'm not doing this and I'm not shooting with Nick, I'm going to be doing GoPro footage of a track day that I'm at or supermoto footage or a volley footage. Just something. I'm going to give you guys content once a week on YouTube. I broke the news to Nick last night. He was stoked. We can finally get Nick out of his car. He's been living in his car doing YouTube content for me for like the last four years and eating fresh and lean meals that were leftover from my fridge. No, I'm just kidding. He's living alright. I pay him when I can. He does the best video work ever. It's so good, but most of the time he's doing that stuff for free for me. I don't know if you guys know that. We've talked about it a little bit, but his editing is insane and he's one of the nicest people I've ever met. He's got that Euro humor. That's the only negative thing about him. No, I'm just kidding. Nick's funny. But yeah, I'm excited to finally be able to get him money and I'm not having to hustle for it every time. It's like, hey, we have this set amount for the year and this part is mine and this part is yours. So it's great. It's going to work out perfect and I'm stoked. I'm excited to be able to pay him back like this. It's not as much as I want to give him. We need to find more. I'm still hungry. We're going to push harder to get more budget, but this is a good start and it's a great company to add to our resume, I guess you could say, whenever we're kind of working with other sponsors, potential sponsors, to tell them companies that we work with. I'm stoked. Couldn't be any happier. Yeah. For those of you who don't know, I'm riding for the War Horse HSBK Ducati New York team on the Ducati Panigale V2. Obviously this is not my race bike. For those of you who don't know, I race Moto America, which is a professional race series in America. So the Arma series is a club race series that was going to Daytona and we are racing the Daytona 200 this year, so we figured it'd be a really good idea to just, you know, go and ride the race bike at these club races. We didn't get that much track time, but it was really valuable for us because this race bike is new for us and we just needed to get some time on it. You know, this is the first time that I've rode that bike in race trim, so I needed some time on the bike and I also needed some time with the crew because I hadn't, haven't worked with this crew yet. Just needed to get some time with them. I flew with my new mechanic, Fuzzy. I landed in Daytona. We went to the hotel. I walk in the lobby and I'm just shocked at the amount of guys from Ducati Italy there are in the lounge. So I have two American mechanics, a race winning Moto2 crew chief, Ducati MotoGP mechanic that was also helping at the test, who will be the super bike mechanic for the unnamed rider. But there's a lot of rumors right now as to who my teammate will be on the super bike. Scott Reddings, crew chief from the past three years for factory Ducati World Superbike team. Engine builder for the World Superbike Ducati team that was there. We also had a MotoGP data engineer, Bobby, who's a team owner. Paolo Ciabatti there, the head guys for Ducati MotoGP. We had Ferracci there. Ferracci is one of the most well known team owners. So if you don't know who Ferracci is, you know, you need to do a Google search and just look up Geraldo Ferracci. I kind of talked to him at the test just about his past. He won some Italian championships back in the 60s. He worked for Ducati, he's worked for MV Agusta, and he's won plenty of super bike championships. So if you haven't heard of him for sure, look up Geraldo Ferracci. So to say the least, it was pretty nuts like walking into that lobby and seeing all those people and hearing what their job titles were at Ducati and knowing how serious Ducati is about this V2 program, not just here in the States, but also in World Supersport and all the domestic championships. So it's pretty nuts. The test was a perfect opportunity for us to get to know the bike. Obviously, like I said, it was my first time on the race bike, get to know the team. It was my first time meeting almost all these guys. So we had three days of riding. Friday we had about five or six practice sessions that were 15 minutes each. But Daytona, you know, on a supersport bike is almost a two minute lap time. I mean, the fastest lap time that we did there was a minute 49. So you're not getting a ton of laps in that 15 minute session. And then Saturday and Sunday we had three races each day that were six lap races. The speed differences in me and even the second place rider at this event was, I mean, you're talking, you know, they're obviously on maybe some bikes at a disadvantage, but, you know, I think Nate Kern was the second fastest guy and I think he was doing like 58. So you're talking nine second lap time difference, which is, that is nuts. And that's the second place rider. So by the third lap, I was already lapping people. And the speed differences on the banking were just insane. I mean, I'm talking like 70, 80 miles an hour. I felt like I was playing frog or swerving in and out of people on the banking. So it wasn't the ideal place to go for, you know, fast lap times, but we were able to, you know, get a couple in. And obviously this being the first time on this bike, first time racing this bike, I think I need to go straight still. Yeah, first time racing this bike or, you know, riding this bike in race trim, I should say. There was a lot of, you know, growing pains as expected. I mean, it's the first time these guys are all working on this bike. So they're trying to figure stuff out. And so track time was just very limited. I think we got down to the 51s. You know, it was just all about getting time on the bike. There was a lot of stuff that I needed to figure out. This is not only the first time I've ever rode a Ducati on the racetrack in race trim. I obviously, I rode the V4 SP at Laguna, but that was just a stock bike. Single sided swing arm. You know, I don't know what the shock difference is being mounted like this. But it was, you know, first time that I've rode a bike with a shock mounted like that. So I don't know. I'm not a suspension guy, but not an engineer or anything like that. But I know that there's got to be a difference. So all that stuff was very new for me. Sunday in the races, we were actually able to get down to a 49.8. So I was really happy with that. I think the team was happy with that. For how much stuff we had to go through, like testing, trying different things. I think it was a really successful weekend. We have, I think, one more test before we actually go and race the Daytona 200. So we got, and that'll be, I think, you know, a track rented to us. It will have a, you know, a lot of time. Should be a lot of time for us to actually try stuff. I told Bobby going into it, which is the guy that runs the team. I told him this year needs to be all about having fun for me. I obviously want to win races and I'm going to take it serious, but I need to have fun. That's the most important thing for me. And this weekend was a ton of fun. Not only because I've been talking to the team before going and I've been riding this bike on the street, so I kind of have a feeling for it. So not only was I, I was excited to leave the house. I was bummed to leave Griffin. You know, I got a new son. He's four months old. So I was bummed to leave him. I was bummed to leave my wife at home, but I was so excited to go and ride this bike at Daytona. And when I met the team and hung out with them, man, we had dinner every night. That's not normal for me. Normally when I'm at the racetrack, I ride all day. I'm tired. I want to go to the hotel. I want to go just get some fast, something fast to eat. You know, usually I bring a fresh and lean, heat it up in the hotel and just call it a night. Well, we actually went to dinner with the team every night. You know, the team had drinks. We were having a good time and we were just, it was, it was just good. I mean that it's so important to have a good time at the track to motivate you to ride hard. And I haven't felt that in a long time. I've obviously been motivated to win races, but when you have that relationship and I'm not saying I haven't enjoyed my relationship with my, my crew in the past, I have for sure, especially working with Will and Fernando again last year, you know, that was great, but, but there's so much more involved in it. And you know, these guys just seem, I don't know if it's because they were Italian guys or what, but I went into the weekend thinking that the two American guys, Fuzzy and Cody, were going to be the most entertaining guys on the team. And I could really feed off of their energy and nothing against Cody and Fuzzy, but the most entertaining guys were by far the Italian guys. Like we had so much fun. We were joking around the whole time and it was just, it was a great time and it makes it so much easier for me to, to want to push hard and not only push hard, but I wanted to be at the track. I wanted to be riding. I wanted to, you know, when we were done riding on Friday, I wanted to get back and ride on Saturday. When we were done riding on Saturday, I really wanted to get back and ride on Sunday. And when I left, I was, I was really bummed out. I just wanted to be riding and I wanted to be hanging out with the team. So I was super happy with the way that the weekend went. My crew chief, Marco, was a blast to work with. I learned a ton from him. I also got a lot of confidence from him because, you know, especially last year, I was told numerous times, like, not to use the rear brake. For whatever reason, Richard did not want me using the rear brake on the bike. And that took a lot of confidence away from me. I had to learn how to ride like that and it just, it wasn't good for me. I couldn't figure out how to ride the thing without a rear brake. And so one of the first things that Marco said to me, he said two things to me. He said, hey, why aren't you using the rear brake in the middle of the corners? I said, to be honest with you, I was taught not to. You know, I was never a big rear breaker, but over the past couple years, I've learned to use a rear brake and I think it helps me. But last year, I was told not to. So I learned, you know, how to ride without it again. And he said, no, I want you to use it. And I started using it again. And man, it was a huge help. Obviously, going to the right, it's impossible to use the rear brake. I mean, for me, I couldn't get my foot down while it was turned to the right. I don't know if anybody really can. You know, it was pretty hard. I tried it. I couldn't do it. I couldn't ride the right way while doing that. So, you know, we're going to look into some type of thumb brake or lever brake to try and help that out. But the other thing that he said, you know, at the beginning of the test was, hey, how do you feel on the bike? Are you dragging the elbow? You know, how do you feel hanging off? And I was like, man, this was so refreshing because for the longest time, I would tell people, like, I would come in and say, hey, I don't feel comfortable on the bike. I'm not able to drag my elbow. And I usually know that when I'm dragging my elbow, that's when I'm comfortable on the motorcycle. And it's weird. It's like people would look at me like I was bragging about dragging my elbow or thinking that it was cool. Like, I need to drag my elbow because it's cool. But really, in reality, it's a way of knowing that you're comfortable on the motorcycle. And if I'm not dragging my elbow, it just means that I'm not comfortable getting off the bike. And that's very important. And, you know, being able to get the thing leaned over that far and get your body off of it, in my opinion, helps with turning the bike a lot. So it was refreshing to hear him say things like that. And it just, yeah, it just felt so good. And I just have so much confidence in him. Another thing that he said, actually, that we talked about, you know, I told him, I said, I want to be able to come in and give you feedback about the motorcycle without, you know, hearing an explanation of why you're doing it or what you think will happen with this change. I want to just tell you what's going on. And then you take over and just do what you need to do. I don't need to know about it. I don't need to. I don't need to know anything that you do to the motorcycle. I trust you. You know, these guys I trust in my life. I'm obviously going super fast on this bike and we have to trust these guys. Otherwise, you're not going to do good. So I told him, just make your change and I'll come back in. I'll tell you how it is. And he was so happy to hear that because he's worked with so many riders. He said, they always want to know why you're doing something or they want to have, they want to tell you, they just want to know too much information and they want to be too involved with it. And I think maybe there's some riders that are, can be good at that. But for the most part, a rider needs to just not be distracted. It needs to be focused on just riding. And whenever you're worried about, you know, knowing why the bike's going to do this whenever you make that change or why it's going to do that when you make the other change. I think it just makes it so hard for the rider to go fast because you can't, you can't be thinking about all that extra stuff. You need to focus on riding. You know, I think most motorcycle racers will tell you that they're not that smart. I don't consider myself to be that smart. I got good street sense, but I'm not the smartest person in the world. And, and I know that. And I think of a lot of it, a lot of my success in racing is due to that because I'm not overthinking things. And when I try to overthink things or not even, I wouldn't call it when I try to overthink it, it's just when I do, when I'm trying to think like, what is this doing to the bike or, Hey, when you make that change, what should I feel? I'm just automatically losing focus on riding. So he was super happy to hear that. And I was just pumped that I felt comfortable enough with him that I could, I could just tell him that and be honest with him. And I think it helped us out a lot. So I think this year is going to be awesome. There's obviously a lot of talk about us riding this Ducati in that class, they changed the rules. So this is, you know, a bigger CC bike than say an R6 or a GSX R600. So there's a lot of talk about them, you know, reducing power. I really hope they don't do that. Obviously, you know, a lot of you are thinking, well, yeah, of course, because you want to win, but I, this bike is great, but I don't see it being a huge disadvantage. Like everybody's saying it's going to be, uh, you know, I've, I've rode all kinds of bikes at Daytona and, you know, I could tell you if something was a huge disadvantage and it's not, I think, I think it's going to be a good matchup. I hear that they're maybe going to allow the GSXR 750s in the M4 might be riding those. I don't know how it's going to be. We'll see. But no matter what, I'm going to have fun this year. I'm going to smile and be happy to be racing. I love this team so much. Everybody I love, I mean, Bobby's fun to work with. The Naples, who are the family that, that owns a lot of the sponsors that you see on the bike. They own Ducati New York. They own Warhorse. They're just a good family. They're both Louis and his dad, Louis. They're just good people, fun to work with, fun to be around. And, uh, yeah, it's just really refreshing. I keep using that word, but it is. Racing needs to be about having fun. And that's what we did at Tona was we had a lot of fun and I'm just really looking forward to it. And, uh, yeah, I think, I think we can have a lot of success if we all just remember that we need to have fun. I'm going to do a little bit of riding up this mountain. Just have some fun and, uh, yeah, hopefully you enjoy it. Don't hate on me for, uh, for riding a little crazy. Ride, uh, ride how you're comfortable. Don't ride how I ride. I'm, I'm just doing me. Okay. So let me know if you want to see more stuff like this. I just thought it would be a good idea. Like, you know, I, I wanted to kind of talk about Daytona, but I don't like just sitting in front of the camera. So I thought maybe, wow, I can start talking about, uh, how my race weekends went tests while I'm riding the bike. Like, wow, this sounds like a good idea. I also hung out with a chase on two wheels. I don't know if you guys know who he is. I'll put a link below, but he helped me out with just trying to figure out the motovlog set up where to run the audio and stuff like that. So shout out to him for helping out and kind of getting me motivated to get on the bike and film like this. I have a lot of fun doing this. The only thing is like, it's hard because I'm trying to yell over the wind and my, my voice just gets all scratchy and yeah, that's the only, you know, not so fun part little passenger peg wheelie action here. Ah, no. Damn it. Whoa. Don't use that Nick. Dude. I just slammed my nuts on the tank. Holy ----. Do you guys have these things where you live right in the center divider? Not only is there bumps on this whole painted line, but there's these holes where every reflector is ******* driving nuts. I know I shouldn't be riding over there, but when there's no cars coming, I feel like using some of the track like right here or the track, some of the road. I want to, if you think we're doing good work and you want to see more content, of course, it helps if you subscribe, hit the like button. I hate saying that, but it is what it is. But also if you want to support us even more buying merchandise from the link below jh2 merch.com, you got stuff like this. So you got this logo on t-shirts, sweatshirts, beanies. We'll have stickers soon. If you want these socks for your brake reservoir covers, let me know. We can get those. So if you want to support by, by buying some merch, you could do that. Or if you wanted to, you could join our Patreon. I'll also put a link below. Patreon is pretty new. We only have a few members on there now, which makes it a little bit more cool in my opinion. I don't know. Maybe not. Maybe it's lame. But basically you're going to get access to this content that I'm posting early. You're getting access to our discord chat channel, which will only be on there. I got notifications to my phone. So as soon as you write a message, I'm responding, trying to respond as quickly as I can. We're also going to start doing giveaways this month. So it'll be, you know, who knows, maybe one month you'll have a helmet for me, or you'll a pair of gloves that I, you know, from Alpine Stars, or maybe you'll have some tools. We got weird tools. If you haven't heard of them, look them up. We got weird tools, giving us some tools to give away for that. So I'm super stoked. It'll be something like that. Or it could be as little as, hey, you're getting a beanie and a t-shirt and some stickers this month. But my goal is to put some big products in there to, you know, make it worthwhile. You guys aren't just getting my content early and getting to talk to me. I know that that's not, that's not always, you know, what people want. It's not like the cool part of it. So I'm going to try and do Patreon only events. I'm going to try and do Patreon only videos and giveaways. So, and also on the Discord at one of the levels, I don't, I forget which one I put it at, but click the link below and check it out. But one of the levels, you can, we're going to do live videos and I'll do, you know, some riding advice for you and whatever you want to do. So I think we have, you know, I'm not saying this to be cocky or anything, but I have an advantage over some of the other YouTubers that do these Patreons because I have professional racing experience. So I can, I can help you with your riding and stuff like that. You know, you can ask me questions. If you, if you want to become a racer, I know the steps to go through. I know, you know, I know all that stuff. So it's, it's a little bit more information, I think, than a lot of the people that are on the Patreon game. So make sure you check it out. I'm not, I'm not begging for your money. If you don't want to do it, no biggie. I'm still going to be posting on YouTube. And I love just that you guys are watching my videos. I'm not, I'm not asking for a handout. It's just, if you want to support it and you have the extra money, you know, it helps us out a lot and it helps me put some money in Nick's pocket. I'm not, I'm not just pocketing this stuff. I, you know, my plan is to put, put money back into our program. It's not, it's not just to keep and go buy, you know, buy stuff, you know? So like I said, we, we really appreciate all the views. If you're not in a situation that you, that you can afford it, or if you're like, **** you, why would I give you money? If you can hit the like button and subscribe and share with your buddies, that, that would be huge. You know, we, we appreciate that a lot and, and it goes a long ways. Thank you guys so much for watching. Peace.