2020 Anaheim One Supercross | Star Racing’s Decision

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2020 ANAHEIM ONE SUPERCROSS | COMPLETE COVERAGE

Brad Hoffman has a big decision to make tonight. The manager of Monster Energy/Star Racing/Yamaha told his four-man roster of riders to go through their offseason prep with the aim to be ready for Anaheim One, but now he has to decide if Justin Cooper or Shane McElrath will be put on the track alongside defending 250 West Coast champion Dylan Ferrandis. Hoffman had both riders take part in Friday morning’s press session, a small practice that seemed to make the choice even trickier: he feels all three are title contenders. So, does he put the strongest of the two on the track now and run the risk of pulling possible points away from Ferrandis, or does he save them for the start of the East Coast region? They will need a rider on the track in Tampa, as it’s not certain if Colt Nichols will fully recover from his shoulder injury in time to be in fighting shape.

During a few minutes under the Star Racing rig on Friday, we asked Hoffman about his current situation, why he told everyone to be ready to race Anaheim One, why Ty Masterpool is sitting out Supercross, and what the future holds for Dylan Ferrandis. 

There’s all this buzz about teams not announcing or saying who is going where, but you just said there is a big reason for it and now you are in a position of, ‘What do we do?’ If you have one of the two really strong guys on your team out there, it does hurt your title contender.

Yeah, there’s a lot of situations that go into picking the coasts. There’s A. is everyone ready? And B. What do the coasts look like? For us, it’s tough when there are three championship contenders because you’ll have to have two of them fighting each other. It’s hard to make that, because there really is no easy call.

It’s 10 AM on Friday morning ahead of Anaheim and you don’t know what you are going to do yet. There will be a lot of thought between tonight and tomorrow morning. What is the cutoff time for your decision to the AMA?

As far as I know, we don’t have a cutoff time, we could literally practice with three guys in the morning and then decide. As long as you don’t do a qualifying practice, you can change coasts. They are all still signed up and ready to go. We have a Plan A and a Plan B, really two ideas.

You’re a guy that has been around the Star team for a while and has seen it grow into a powerhouse. Not in a disrespectful way to anyone, but you guys are now what Pro Circuit was in the past, as far as having a strong lineup that is ready to go. Was this the team’s most successful offseason yet?

Yeah, for sure. If you look at our guys, yeah Colt is injured but if you put him in the mix he’s going to be racing at some point, every guy on our team has been a legitimate title contender. They have all won races and had lots of podiums. I don’t think we’ve ever had that happen before, having them all be legit title contenders in Supercross and some of them outdoors.

There is a lot of wondering why you don’t just tell the guys what they are doing for what races. If you tell Justin or Shane tonight that they aren’t racing in Tampa, they have another six weeks to prepare. But it’s also six more weeks that you don’t want something to happen, the guy to get burnt out or plateau. You want them to be fresh when it’s time for the East Coast.

Yeah, and the hard part about this is that if we make a decision early and told everyone, ‘Hey, you’re doing East but be ready just in case,’ the guy is not going to be as ready as if they were really unsure. We have all of these guys set, Shane is just as ready as Justin and he’s just as ready as Dylan. That wouldn’t happen if you’re telling the press and everyone that they’re probably East but should still prepare for West. And then they could be made if you switch them. But now none of these guys will be mad if we switch them, because they know they are ready. It’s not like we’re just telling the press we don’t know.

It’s a strategy.

And part of it, and it really might not mean anything, but we’re not the only ones doing it. We might have gotten here this morning and seen something that we didn’t like match-up wise and can still change something. We feel like all three of these guys were the best guys out there and some of the tougher competition didn’t look very good to us. So we’re pretty happy.

With Dylan being the defending champion, will there be a chance of him lining up on a 450 during the East Coast at all? Or is that so far-flung now?

I would say there is a chance. At one point Dylan really wanted to do that, but I think when it came down to doing this he got less interested because he knows what’s at stake for the championship. It is something that he wanted to do, but I have seen less interest in him now that it’s actually here.

This is his last 250 year and I have heard the rumblings about how factory Yamaha would want him on a 450, but I’ve heard that he would actually rather stay here and be a 450 guy with you. The team goes to all of the races anyway. Is that something that has been tossed around?

It’s been discussed a little bit, whether we would have a 450 or not. That’s about all I can say about that.

The last question I have is about Masterpool. You had him all last summer, so why the decision not to race Supercross?

We just made the decision because if you look back, he turned pro and had only ridden one B Class on a 250. But Jerry really didn’t see the point of training for amateur events, because it’s like five-lap races, so we agreed to let him turn pro early knowing that he was going to be ready for outdoors but that Supercross would be rushing it. We said, ‘Hey we can do a little Supercross and see how you feel, but if you think you’d be better off in a year, we are fine just doing outdoors.’ That way he can be way more safe and ready the next year, instead of sacrificing the outdoor season a little bit. We’re flexible and that’s the benefit of us having the fifth rider, that we can have a different approach. We think it will be a better long-term approach with Ty.