Troy Dog
Welcome to the offseason and our new ongoing “Team Previews” column. Every week from now until the Monster Energy Supercross season starts in January we will be profiling a big team in the sport. We’ll go through the changes that have been made, analyze results, and give each team a grade on all of their offseason moves. This week we have Team Solitaire/Heartbeat Hot Sauce Yamaha and you will find the full schedule below.
Who’s In:
#76 Dominique Thury
#83 Cole Thompson
Who’s Out:
Robbie Wageman
Ryan Surratt
Last season’s Supercross Results:
Robbie Wageman – 9th 250SX West
Ryan Surrat – 17th 250SX West
Last Season’s Motocross Results:
Team Solitaire doesn’t race motocross.
Offseason Grade: B
The Rundown:
Ah, last but not least, Team Solitaire/Heartbeat Hot Sauce Yamaha. Twitter’s favorite team. If you don’t follow them on Twitter or IG then you are missing out. They interact with everyone and they oftentimes like to try and steal me away from my lifetime deal with HEP Suzuki.
This team confuses me. When I originally put out the team preview schedule they weren’t on the list. Look, I only have so many weeks in the off-season and covering every team was possible I guess, but I left some off and I’m sorry, not sorry for that. Well, Team Solitaire bullied me so bad that I made a very special spot for them the week of Anaheim 1. They’ve told me that they don’t care if I write about them or not, but it seems like they really want me to. That’s the way I see it and I set this up so that they destroy me on Twitter because I called them out. Insert crying laughing face emoji.
The Team Solitaire crew are a rad group of guys from Ryan Clark and Chris Elliott to the mechanics to the atmosphere they build with their riders. The Solitaire pit is the place to be. They even have Pulpy the Beaver as a team mascot. I’m petitioning that they change the name of that beaver to T-Dog, but I’m having no luck so far. I’m also petitioning to get this team to go into massive debt so that they can race the East Region. Follow us on Twitter to see how that goes as well.
The lineup for 2023 is all new with Dominique Thury and Cole Thompson up in the mix. Thury has improved his SX skills with each passing season and had a good season with the ClubMX team in 2022. Cole Thompson is a veteran now and his SX skills have never been a question. Both of these riders will be dark horses for the top ten each weekend. The bike that the Team Solitaire team has built is a solid platform for any rider and it was a great stepping stone to further Robbie Wageman’s career as he’s signed to BarX Suzuki for 2023. Surratt will not be returning to the team because he is racing off-road instead.
These guys have been at this game a while now and they know how to build a great bike on a small budget. Props to them on that. The goal of this team is that they want their riders to get factory supported rides and they do everything they can to get them to the next level. We’ll see if these two riders get that chance at a factory bike at the end of this season, or maybe they will continue to be force fed Easy Mac and ketchup by our friends at Team Solitaire.
Thanks for reading my series of team previews for the coming season. If you’d like to talk about these or any of the other stories that I’ve written you can email me at [email protected] You can also reach me on Twitter/Instagram: @troydogvurb.
Team Preview Schedule:
10/27 – Troy Lee Designs/Red Bull/ GASGAS Factory Race Team
11/3 – Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing
11/9 – Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Team
11/16 – Monster Energy Kawasaki Factory Racing
12/9 – Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki
12/14 – Muc-Off FXR ClubMX Yamaha
12/22 – Pipes Motorsports Group (HEP Motorsports Suzuki)
1/3 – Team Solitaire
Main image: Team Solitaire
