Story by Allison Kennedy
Photos by Jason T. Griffiths and James Lissimore

The last time Brent Pilon tried to qualify for a supercross, he missed the main event by one spot. That was back in 1996 in Minneapolis. Now the 31-year-old Calgary racer has decided that having an Amp’d Mobile World Supercross round in his own backyard is too big of an opportunity to pass up. Pilon, along with his roommate Julian Cerny, will try to make the Supercross main today at BC Place, lining up with some of the best supercross riders in the world. His goals: to be in the big show, to dial in the track and to finish in the top 25 in the Supercross class. We caught up with Brett after practice on Friday.

RXC: How long have you been racing?
Brent Pilon: Since 1984, and I’ve been pro since 1993.

Where are you from?
I’m from Saskatchewan originally, but I’m living in Calgary and riding at Wild Rose. Julian Cerny is my roommate. I live in his basement. We usually run, train and ride together. He keeps me motivated.

You wrenched for Aaron Barr here last year. How did Aaron end up doing?
He finished fifteenth.

You’ve been training and riding a lot lately. How do you prepare for an event like this?
You’ve got to pretty much wing it. A track like this, you’ve got to have something to practice on. It’s so different from motocross; it’s not even really motocross anymore because it’s such a totally different thing. You have to have a track like this to be ready. It’s all in the rhythm sections; that’s where you make up time and on the triples of course. But … we have practice again tomorrow, and the more time I have on the track, the more comfortable I am going to feel as well. It’s still pretty new to us but I think we are going to do okay tomorrow.

So how did practice go?
The whoops weren’t a problem for me; it was just more or less the timing sections. I was just over-jumping or not timing things right, but once you can do each section, it’s pretty easy to put together a pretty good lap … but you’ve got to do all the jumps.

 

Your last supercross attempt was in 1996 in Minneapolis. What happened there?
I missed the night show by one spot. I was a little late for my qualifier and everyone had left but I passed up to the last spot for the transfer. I didn’t make it into the night show … and that is my supercross experience.

Did they have the Racer X Gas Card back then?
No. That was pre-Racer X Gas Card. It sucked.

So you just drove to Minneapolis for the one race?
Yep.

And since then, have you wanted to dive back into supercross?
Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of training but I still don’t have the practice time in supercross. A lot of these guys have tracks to practice on, and it shows too with their confidence in the timing sections. We’re going to wing it tomorrow, and we are going to see what happens….

Do you have a goal in mind for Saturday?
If I can do all the timing sections and the triples properly, I think top 25 is a really good goal. Everyone outside the top 15 is pretty much the same; it’s just who can do all the timing sections right.

Last year, there was a bit of reluctance on the part of some Canadian riders to take part in the WSX rounds. Is it intimidating or do you just say, “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m going to go for it?”
There is a lot of mental [preparation] too when you go into this. They have so much time on this kind of track. If you can follow them and get into a groove, everything comes together and it just follows well. If you mess a section up, stuff doesn’t feel right. As long as you do all the jumps on the track, it’s good. You can get some good rhythm on the track.

Who’s helping you out here this weekend?
Ryan from Anarchy Ride Shop is going to be wrenching for me tomorrow. We’re going to go from there. We have a couple of suspension settings to fine tune … so we’re going to go from there.

At this point, fellow Saskatchewanian Blair Morgan stops by to visit Pilon, showing off his bandaged thumb.
Blair Morgan: The pin sticks out and you can hang things off it … like a Christmas tree. [Laughs]

Thanks Brett. We’ll let you two catch up. Good luck tomorrow.
Thanks.

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