Troy Dog
Notice that this column now has a sponsor? That’s right! Troy Dog joined the Blu Cru and you should too! I have one in my garage right now and I can’t wait to go shred it! Thank you to Yamaha for believing in my ELITE columns on this dirt bike website enough to sponsor me. What a dream come true! BTW: Have you seen the all-new YZ450F? OH. MY. GOODNESS. I can’t wait to test that bad boy.
If we’re looking for a legit contender for 450SX Rookie of the Year (if that award still exists), then we should look no further than Hawaii’s own Grant Harlan. He stepped up his program in the offseason, signed with ClubMX and competed in the World Supercross Championship, bought his own 2022 450s (which he’s still riding), and signed on with the Rock River Yamaha Racing team for this season. It’s been a standout year for the 21-year-old. He’s really starting to find his stride after a season high 14th at Daytona. I had to catch up with my day one Troy Dog Squad Athlete to ask him the real questions. You can catch the cliff notes below, but catch the audio of the entire interview as well.
Vurbmoto: It’s Monday after Detroit Supercross where you had another fantastic finish in the 450 class with a 15th. Talk about your main event.
Grant Harlan: My start was awful after the heat race. The heat race start was great and the main event start was awful. I feel like I went into the corner in 15th or 16th and then I ran into the back of one of the yellow bikes because it gets pretty chaotic there and I almost stalled it. I ended up pretty far back and was just doing the laps. I got up to 14th behind Cade (Clason) and last lap, believe it or not, me and Cade ran into some lapper issues. I ended up landing on the back of Cade and going down. I got the shoretest end of the stick, but luckily the leaders lapped back up to 16th, so I got 15th. We’ll take it. With AP being down there was a potential 12th on the board, but it was a 15th night and we’ll take it.
After that heat race, obviously you’re a great starter from time to time, you’ll have flashes of brilliance up front and that heat race was one of those times. Talk about how you got out of the gate so fast and what it was like running with the factory guys.
Honestly, my jump wasn’t great, but like I got off of the gate smooth and out of the dirt pretty good. I kind of was in the right place at the right time. I got some clean air to go on to the tabletop out of the corner where everyone else was rolling it. That’s how we went from third or fourth to second. Then after that I was just trying to hit my lines and let the guys going at that next level around, so that I didn’t get caught up in it. Obviously I’m not running that pace and trying to run that pace in a transfer position doesn’t make much sense to me. I just did my lines and got it into the main.
Yeah, but at the same time, you held third for a bit, and then fifth for a while. You weren’t falling back fast and you were running at their speed. Was it a different kind of pace? Did you learn anything from that?
Not really, like I said, I was hitting the lines I was hitting. I was getting through the whoops pretty good, which helped me stay up there. When Barcia was behind me I’m like, alright dude, just go around me. You don’t have to hit me. Just go. I think they got it on TV like I gave him a lot of room there. My pace wasn’t really too bad. I was making some mistakes in the rhythms, just thinking about it too much. I was trying not to do that, so I didn’t have to worry about not making it. The pace wasn’t anything special, it’s just comfortable up there, really I think.
Listen to the entire interview below:
Main image: Jessica Reed
