“To me, it feels like the Tour de France in a way. It’s like everything is sort of in one place and you’re in it for the long haul.”
One month ago, virtually to the day, this write phoned up Monster Energy Yamaha racer Justin Barcia and asked him how he was doing in riding out the pandemic lockdown. “I’m in Florida, man,” offered a then sorrowful sounding Barcia, obviously bored out of his skull. “Just been at home. I’ve just been going from my house to the track. It’s all pretty much completely locked down so nobody can go to the track or go anywhere. It’s pretty much just me and parents. You know, honestly, we’ve just been super-to ourselves. I haven’t seen anybody and haven’t really talked to anybody since Daytona.”
But as of this very weekend, all that was then and all of this is now as the 2020 Monster Energy Supercross Series is about to get back into gear tomorrow afternoon inside Salt Lake City’s Rice-Eccles Stadium for what will be round 11 of the ’20 450SX title brawl. And that’s a very good thing for Justin Barcia. Immediately after the running of the Daytona Supercross last March, Justin Barcia held down an impressive fourth spot in the in the Monster Energy Supercross Series. His ’20 season beginning with a big win under the lights Anaheim round, Barcia, 12 years into his professional career, came back to place a very strong second at round two of the series at St. Louis. And on it went, top five main event finishes becoming the norm, Barcia averaging a 4.3 finishing position. Up to speed, controlled and displaying surprising consistency, Barcia truly was a part of the ’20 flying foursome that also included Tomac, Roczen and Webb. A title contender to be certain, even the GOAT himself has pointed out Barcia’s potential to win come Rice-Eccles Stadium tomorrow afternoon.
“Whether it’s to Eli Tomac’ or Ken Roczen’s benefit, there are a couple of riders that can really get in-between one another here in Salt Lake, so it’s going to be exciting to see just what guys are going to take advantage of everything that has went down and the opportunity to come out and excel,” explained Ricky Carmichael on Friday night. “For instance, can Justin Barcia come out and get another win and his second win of the season?”
Well, we’re all about to find out. Stoked to get things going as well as to get a current lay of the land around Rice-Eccles Stadium and Salt Lake City, on Saturday morning, we caught up with Barcia who was operating out of a campground in the vicinity. Animated and in good spirits as always, it was quite evident that Justin Barcia is happy as hell to be back at it!