Ezra Lusk on Pulp tonight

Ezra is a legend 

Ezra interview starts just after the 1hour 33minute mark of the show. https://pulpmx.com/podcast/show-639-ken-roczen-levi-kitchen-ezra-lusk-with-trey-canard-skip-norfolk-and-kris-keefer-in-studio/

Lots of red light talk. 

I had no idea teams were complaining as much as they were about riders going off the track and re-entering.

Ezra talks about how they are working to rewrite some stuff in the rule book to better clarify.

Great interview. Riders are fortunate to have Yogi advocating for them. 

A+ interview for sure. Good to learn more about what an asset he is to the series, and his transparency was very appreciated. 

How did he get the name “Yogi”?

He literally was a “fury” little kid…had the nickname since a lil tyke.

They said he was hairy as a kid like yogi bear. 

I thought it was great how he talked about telling Levi the right way to take someone out. Awesome interview. He's a great asset for the AMA.

I always thought the AMA should have a rep call in to a few of the bigger weekly shows and explain penalties or why something wasnt each week. At least they give us some explanation on the broadcast now. But man, listening to Yogi talk about it was great. 

He used to practice on his factory Honda at a local track in Atlanta back in the day. He made the local fast guys look like newbs especially in the corners. 

Underrated as a rider both indoors and out,  one of my fave's for sure.

Wonder if Yogi and RC talk at all? Remember reading RC”s mom put an end to their training together?

I saw an interview with both of them last year. It may have been tied to the new Triumph intro rides.  They seemed to get along great and reminisced quite a lot. 

From listening to that seems like Deegan is in lusk pocket 

And the ama rule book is a joke btw. There technical inspections before and after the race are a joke as well. These ama people are too good of friends with managers n team staffing to make the tough calls 

I'm sure someone will tell him never to pull the curtain back that much ever again.

As for the red light discussion, they need LED spotlights that project onto the face of the jump and the run up to it, turn the entire racing surface all red, would be no missing it and no disputing it. 

That's a great idea. Our forklifts have this blue LED spotlight that projects onto the ground about 15 or so feet away when reversing, that thing will show up on any surface like a solid color. 

Yogi talked about how the penalty was given to Kitchen by the book; a warning for first offense. Deegan was given an aggressive riding warning during supercross. Does the note in the rulebook mean that aggressive riding penalties are accumulated during the calendar year and entirety of the SMX season or by individual series? They could both be looking at a 5 (or 15) point deduction if cited at the Vegas final.

I think the problem with the rule book is it's applications are very inconsistent. One guy gets a penalty but there's multiple example of other who didn't etc

Also pretty much all the rules are subjective. They're not black and white. 

They also can't/won't carry out the penalties in real time. It's a delayed response after the race is finished. Of course there's going to be confusion and frustration. 

I think it's calendar. There was something a coupe of years ago (before SMX, I think) where either Barcia or Anderson was warned for a take-out in SX, and it was mentioned during outdoors that he still needed to keep his nose clean or he'd get a harsher penalty. 

Yep both Deegan and Kitchen have written warnings now. Deegan really has to keep it cool around Shimoda this weekend otherwise he could lose on a technicality. It’s going to be wild because even if Deegan wins, he needs Shimoda to get 3rd or worse so it’s going to be extremely tempting to stuff him like he has other riders on the past. 

He also made it sound like many of the teams just sit there and submit video of everyone all the time. Mutually assured destruction. If you enforce this on my guy you're going to enforce it on everyone and here's the video proof. 

Unfortunately thats probably a result of the situational and inconsistent way the rules are applied. Plus it also seems as though the rules mostly apply when it's a critical moment or to significant riders? 

Riders in the back are rarely penalised. 

Great interview!

I was glad to hear them acknowledge that riding off-track gives an advantage outside of time/position. The physical/mental rest aspect

First it was hairy like a bear, then it was Yogi bear, then it was just Yogi. I think that’s a line from Terrafirma 3 or something along those lines. 

Dammit , I though the liked picnic baskets 

He said that in a Honda commercial back in the day. 

Really good listen. Trey on the show was A++

yes that was a really good interview, loved how Lusk really explain how things happen in the background and their challenges. Actually made me go back to watch some of his 1998 battles with MC. Was a big fan of him on the Honda with his black and red Fox gear.