Jordan Bailey | TiLube Honda Deal For 2020

INSTAGRAM | @jordanbailey.39

It became clear in the later rounds of the 2019 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship that Jordan Bailey would not return to the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing team for 2020 and beyond. Signed by the factory squad as an accomplished amateur, Bailey made it through the initial part of his pro career with solid finishes and no major injuries, but a series of bike issues and a lack of podium results were not enough to merit a contract extension (Bailey is still close with everyone on the team, as he said he talks to his former mechanic Jed and the other staff members).

With no certain plans for 2020, he returned home to Orlando, looked at enrolling at the universities in Florida, played golf, and called team managers to see what was available. “Being only 19 years old, I was on Husky for three years and had never been in the situation where I needed to look for a ride, so there was a month where I had nothing,” he explained. “It almost looked like I was going to go to a university. There was a good three-week window where I was content with the fact that I was done racing.”

Just over a month ago, things started to come together and Bailey worked out a deal to race the East Coast region of the 2020 Monster Energy Supercross Series with Buddy Brooks and the TiLube Honda team alongside rookie prospect Grant Harlan. Instead of just getting a bike and doing laps, Bailey has helped work out sponsorship deals and talks with the team’s technical partners to improve the performance of the CRF250R. As soon as news of the ride became official, we talked with Bailey about leaving Husqvarna, the time off the bike, and how the situation changed his outlook on the sport.

The news is official now and you are with TiLube Honda and Buddy Brooks for 2020. It sounds like this deal has been in the works and we’ve seen that you have been riding a Honda for a while, so how did this deal come together?

I fell into the deal because Buddy had an opening on the team. I knew Buddy previously and I reached out to him over Instagram just to see if he had anything going on, and he had that spot open. We got the deal done shortly after, but we took some time to make the announcement because we are working on the fine details of some things. I’ll be on the East Coast for Supercross and I’m really looking forward to it.

Was it a stressful offseason? You had known for a while that going back to Husqvarna wasn’t going to be an option, but it sounds like you hit the ground running on things as quickly as possible.

It was definitely stressful. Being only 19 years old, I was on Husky for three years and had never been in the situation where I needed to look for a ride, so there was a month where I had nothing. It almost looked like I was going to go to a university. There was a good three-week window where I was content with the fact that I was done racing. I had some people start talking to me and I turned down the first deal I had gotten from a satellite team to do 250 West Coast Supercross, it wasn’t fitting what I wanted. I got lucky with the TiLube Honda team, it came about and got done pretty quickly, so that will be my future.

Being 19 years old and with a limited pro career, what was it like to realize you had put in all of this work through your life and that it could have been over?

It was difficult. I’m only 19 and devoted 14 years to racing. Signing with Husqvarna was a big opportunity for me and my first year of Supercross was safer than I expected, I didn’t have too many rookie mistakes and I got 10^th overall in points. Outdoors didn’t quite go the way I wanted, we had a few bike issues and things like that. Being in the situation of not having a ride, I felt like I had done the hard part in my first couple of years as a pro, so to be kind of left out like there were no opportunities at all or was basically treated like I was a nobody from some people was an eye-opener.

As amateurs, Jordan Bailey and Mitchell Falk signed with factory teams for the initial years pro seasons, but both were not re-signed by their teams for 2020. Bailey has joined TiLube Honda for the East Coast region, while Falk has signed BWR Engines/LTEC Underground/SSI Decals/Fly Racing for the West Coast.

You, Cantrell, and Falk are all guys that came into factory rides from amateurs and then had nothing at the end of last season.

It’s funny how it goes and we’re in a difficult sport as far as rides and opportunities. There are a lot of rumors as to why I possibly got dropped off of the team and it’s because I came in as a high-paid amateur to the pros. I won both titles in the B Class, had a lot of offers, and ultimately chose Husqvarna, which resulted in a high-paying contract, but I didn’t meet the expectations with results based on my pay. That’s my perspective on it. It stinks to be in this situation, but it’s turned out to be good where I am at. There’s no anger towards the team and I understand that I didn’t compete for a championship or whatever they considered my goals to be. But this year I am going to be competing up front and I’m excited about it.

Moving ahead to now, you have some time to get ready before Tampa. What has the workload been like? Is there a lot you need to test with the new bike or do they already have it set up the way you want?

Honda is the only bike that I had never ridden, and I had never really ridden a 450, so I started to ride that and then I got the TiLube Honda 250. I’ll be honest that I was a little bit nervous, because coming from a factory bike you don’t know what to expect really. When I got it and rode it, I was extremely impressed at how fast the bike is. We are working with Factory Connection on the suspension, and I worked with them in the past when I was on SuperMinis so we have a good relationship. We have a very good direction and I’d say we have a head start on some people, as far as chassis and bike setup. I’m very comfortable on the bike already, which is good, and we have a little time until the opener. Now is the grind time of the year, when we put in more effort off the bike in addition to laps on the bike, instead of finetuning the bike. We will finetune things with the bike here and there, and do it a little closer to the race, so that we don’t get lost in it. I feel like some people get lost, but I think we are in a great direction ahead of Tampa.

You’ll be staying at MTF the whole time?

Yeah, at MTF the whole time. I’ve been here since High Point of last summer.

That team has had guys at MTF before, so they know the program of what goes on down there.

Yeah, which is good. Buddy and the team already have an understanding with MTF. I think the sport is kind of heading towards team trainers that you are pretty much obligated to use, which is good, and MTF is like home for me. I’ve spent time with a lot of different trainers, like I was with Tim Ferry and Tyla Rattray, and I learned a lot from each of them. But MTF is where I can be my best and do my happiest training.

Steven Clarke’s TiLube Honda from the 2019 season. For 2020, the team will consist of Jordan Bailey and rooke prospect Grant Harlan.

What will these next few weeks be like? Will you really have to ramp it up to get in shape or have you stayed sharp this whole time?

Everyone calls it a boot camp or whatever, but we don’t really call it that. At this point in the preseason, Martin Davalos and I are really hitting it heavy with laps. I luckily got a head start on my fitness in the offseason, because I took two weeks off completely, then came back into the gym and told them I needed to gain five to ten pounds. Usually, I am around 150 pounds, but now I’m 155. I gained weight and some muscle mass, and even though I took three months off from riding, I kept at it with my fitness and since I got back to riding, I haven’t stopped since.

It looks like you enjoyed the time you spent at home and played some golf. Did it allow you to mentally reset and maybe even a different appreciation after some time off?

Oh yeah, absolutely. People have a negative outlook about being dropped off of a factory team, and in a sense it is, but the two months of not having a ride gave me a new perspective on racing and gave me the opportunity to use that time to figure out what’s next if it isn’t racing. I had that three-month window to say, ‘If I’m not racing, this is what I’m going to be doing.’ Golf is something that I love to do in my spare time and I met Henrik Stenson at a Hugo Boss event, and that let me venture off into some different aspects of the real world. In motocross, you are somewhat removed from the real world in a sense. It’s not a novelty sport, but not a lot of people know what it is. So to live a couple of months of being a normal person, looking into universities, and how much it would cost to make my own team, it gave me a better perspective on how the sport is run and how I can make money as a privateer.

You’re very into golf, a lot of people know that, and you post about it every now and then.

I devote so much to motocross that I enjoy playing golf for what it is, and I don’t want to take that fun away. Most riders spend their week riding Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, so on Wednesday I enjoy getting my workout done in the morning and then playing golf. Most of the people at the golf courses aren’t into motocross, so they aren’t asking, ‘Hey Jordan, did you get a ride?’

At that time it was very difficult at MTF to train in the gym and be around the kids that asked about I was getting a ride, because everyone wants to know, but it got a bit mentally demoralizing when it went on for months and I didn’t have an answer. So, I just went home to Orlando for a month and a half out of nowhere, just went home to figure out what was next. I talked to my dad and it was to the point of moving on, and it sucked. Then the opportunity came up and I was all into it, so it worked out.

I know that you follow other sports, see what’s going on, and know that you need to make a “brand” of yourself. You have to be well-rounded and connect with the right people.

Exactly. We are professional athletes on any scale and to have a conversation with other professional athletes, you see there are a lot of things that are very similar but just in a different playing field. I talked to Stenson about injuries in golf and he’s had two knee surgeries, shoulder surgeries. I always hear how golf is safe compared to motocross, and it is, but still. I don’t know how much people know about my background, but my parents are financial advisors, they both graduated from college, and I went to a normal school until halfway through tenth grade when I switched, so growing up I was racing motorcycles but my parents wore suits and ties every day and I was more accustomed to interacting with people outside of motocross. And I think that’s why my decision for a while was to continue posting about clothing with Hugo Boss and show people that I’m still around.

When you looked at universities, did you have a plan to go into something financial related because you know the background from your parents, or did you want to use your experience and pursue something in sports marketing or as an agent?

That’s something I really thought about, what I would study and everything. I don’t have a great understanding of all that my parents do. My dad sets up retirement plans and my mom is a business banker that advises big companies. They are very corporate jobs and I don’t know if based on where I am at right now in life, if you said I wasn’t riding dirt bikes, that it would be something different. If I had the choice of the two, I would definitely be an agent. Not having a ride helped my abilities to talk to teams and meet people on the golf course that wanted to sponsor people, instead of me begging. I told myself that I am a good enough rider to where I am not going to beg. If a good opportunity was there, it was there. I didn’t have an agent, so I called all of the teams myself. I got the contract with Buddy and actually read it over well before I sent it to my dad, just so he could make sure everything was alright. And before, as a high schooler, I wasn’t able to do that and my dad was in charge of all of it. But now I can take it into my own hands and understand it.