Welcome to Momentum, a motorsports podcast powered by High Gear Success. I'm your host, Heather Wilson Schiltz Here we share the stories and strategies that keep the world of motorsports moving forward. And joining me today is Bill Heras Director of Operations for Monster Energy AMA Supercross, which is promoted by Feld Entertainment. I'm really excited to get to chat with you about your career because I was thinking back to when we first met. I think it was... Probably 2015 at Arenacross in Tampa is when we first met because I went down there to cover a story for the magazine. Yeah, no, it's great to see you, Heather. It's been a long time. So I've kind of come full circle here. Yeah, and you've been with Feld, it looks like almost going on 15 years now. Yeah, 15 years in a full-time position. There were two previous seasons to that where I was a seasonal employee as an operations crew guy and actually truck driver at one point. So when you got your start with Feld, was it with Arenacross? It was with Arenacross That's when Arenacross was divided into uh a regional series and a national series, which I believe the national series was televised and the regional series was more of a support series. uh And they kind of operated in different locations. yeah, was Arenacross 2008 was my start here and kind of kicked it off for the next 15 plus years. How did your transition working with Feld go? So you're working with Arenacross and then kind of what was the next step? Did you take different roles within that series and then eventually moving on to Supercross? Sure. so Feld had owned originally when I started, was Arenacross and Supercross at the time had been owned by Live Nation, the concert promoter. And so that was my first year. And then I think it was like end of 2008, beginning of 2009, Feld had bought ah the motorsports package from Live Nation. So when I was with Arenacross, my second go around in 2010, then it was under the Feld. Ownership at that point, but it felt very similar It was a lot of the same people that were running it and keeping you know keeping everything basically the same in the operations on you know boots on the ground type of aspect And so I started Arenacross as a operations crew guy then I was a truck driver ah And then I became the event manager of Arenacross Kind of worked my way up there. I became director of Arenacross and then subsequently Arenacross went away with the Feld brand in 2018. And then I became the director of Supercross Futures. And that was at the time when we had all of the amateur classes that would race on Sundays after Supercross. And then subsequently COVID put the end to that and then moved up to Supercross as tour manager and now finally director. So now in your current role, you oversee the track construction for all of the Supercross races from bringing in the dirt to tearing everything down. So kind of even before we get to the event, can you break down all the pre-season planning that you have to do before you even get to an event location? Sure, and that's the stuff nobody really understands. I mean, you see the cool track on Saturday and it's the cool aspect of the job when all the riders are there and fans are pouring in. But like today, in the middle of August, it's all the paperwork, it's all the backend stuff getting prepared for not only the SMX World Championship races that are coming up. but also Supercross in 2026. We've already started going to new venues that we're going to go to for 2026 and just going doing field visits to make sure everything's going to work out the way we're starting to plan it or vice versa. We look there, we take measurements, we take photos and then we plan out the event. So how are we bringing dirt in and out? are all of our operations 18 wheelers going to get there, get unloaded? Where are they going to park? Where are we going to put all of our set carts that have all of the tough blocks and the finish line structure, all the carts that hold all the banners. mean, it's endless the amount of places we have to figure out where they're going to go once we get on site, making the connections with the building and getting internet set up and make sure we have enough locker rooms for all of our staff downstairs. Setting up the FanFest area, making sure we have adequate space for all the teams to park and they're going to be parked in such a fashion that we have access for. the fans to come in and come out, and how easy is it for them to come back and forth from the stadium to the Fan Fest? Is the fire marshal happy? Are the lanes gonna be wide enough between the trucks so we can have egress for people to flow around, but also in the event of emergency, we can get a firetruck through. I mean, it's all these things that have to be thought about. um Getting a permit for a fire hydrant to have a bike wash so that the Jett Lawrence's mechanic can wash his bike between races. So it's definitely a labor of love. all summer and fall as we're working towards the next season. um But we've been doing it so long, we kind of see where we can kind of, I don't want to say cut corners, but speed up the process. And then other things when we go to a new venue, it's like this year we went to Pittsburgh. So they don't understand what's coming on our side, even though we show them, we tell them, they don't really understand until it's in their lap and we're busy trying to plan. every little detail where every nut and bolt is going to go and land. And it's fun. It's like a puzzle, right? And it really makes it exciting, especially when you're more successful. we have everybody at every level is really professional what we do to bring Supercross or SMX to any of these cities. But it is definitely a labor of love. A lot of hours go into it. Yeah, I would imagine probably checklists and like SOPs are your friend. Yeah, numerous lists. I'm definitely a fan of making lists and crossing stuff off. I have three lists going right now. It's the paper, post-its everywhere. each one of my team members that's full time with us on Supercross, they all have their list of duties that they have to check off. And we do weekly check-ins to answer questions, give direction, kind of walk through different scenarios or what the plan's going to be. Obviously, security is a big deal at at these events with going to just an open parking lot and having to fence it in and have security access points. So we have to walk through each phase of the event internally, Feld as a whole, and then we have to go to each venue and have multiple meetings, phone call meetings, to walk through maps, security plans, fan egress, ingress, how the trucks are gonna come in and out, what the plan for bringing dirt in, dropping off. bulldozers and skid loaders in the beginning of the week where they're going to go all the way through the event and then how are we getting out of the event? And that's a whole other thing that people don't see. Is once a checkered flag flies and everybody walks out and grabs their last t-shirt and hat on their way back to their car, we go, we change our clothes back to our work clothes and we're taking everything down that you see that's on the field. All the tough blocks have to come off the track and go into three trucks. That's three semis full of foam. padding that has to get put away. All the banners have to go away. The finish line has to come down. The manager tower, the score tower, the starting gate. Everything you see inside the stadium has to get packed up and put back in a truck and then sent down the road to the next venue. And then following that is all the dirt has to come out. So local trucking company has to be lined up and ready to go. Our track operators, either DirtWurx or the Feld Track Construction starts loading dirt and taking it out of venues. it's a long process for... for basically the entire week. We're in town for a week for each event. How many staff are you managing or like what number of people are on the Feld team that you're interacting with? So in operations, there's about six or seven of us that are full time that we're doing all the planning week in and week out during the season and then the off season. There's other departments that feed into that, like our global partnerships department. They are the sponsorship arm of Feld, so they are the ones securing the deals for like the tough block covers. Like if they say Oakley on them or Honda. They do all the signage, they secure all that. That's a pretty big team, maybe 10 people on that side that's handling that. Our track construction department that we deal with is three or four people, but then we have DirtWurx on the road, which is another six guys. And then our team on the road probably swells up to about 40 or 50 people. And that's just operationally on the floor. And then we have our TV department. ah There's only a few, maybe three four people in that department full time and then that swells up to a team of about 100 each week on site. So as we get closer and closer to event day, there's more more staff that are pouring in ah behind the scenes to help make the event successful. Yeah, you talked a little bit about the trucks full of tough blocks and stuff, but how does the equipment get from venue to venue? Are you leasing equipment at those specific locations? Are you also trucking equipment to the No, all of the track construction equipment is local to that market. So we work with cap dealers primarily across the United States to secure the skid loaders, the front end loaders, the bulldozers, excavators, whatever we need to move the dirt. We use a lot of forklifts to load and unload the trucks, bring the tough blocks out to the track, take them off. We use a lot of generators. We use a lot of light plants out in parking lots where we know it's going to be dark and we're going to need light. midnight one in the morning as we're loading out. So everything is local to the market. We have to secure dumpsters to throw out garbage. All the plastic covering the seats has to get taken off at the end of the night. all of that big kind of stuff that we wouldn't carry that stuff around with us is just secured there in the market. People always ask, is the dirt the same in every city? And I can understand if you're not used to it. You would ask that question, but we're looking at five to six hundred dump truck loads of dirt. So there's no way you can transport that around the country. So all the dirt is local to each market as well, ah which is fascinating to think that we own piles of dirt in every city across the entire United States. Yeah, and then where is that dirt being stored then? I mean, you guys obviously probably have these huge storage facilities and is it being used for other things or is it exclusively your dirt? It is, that's a good question and it's kind of ever changing. So sometimes the dirt is stored on stadium property. ah If they have extra room, we can store it near the stadium somewhere. In Philadelphia, it's stored underneath the highway right behind the stadium, I-95. Some markets it's stored at the trucking company's facility. Maybe the trucking company has a uh chunk of land and we truck all the dirt right back there. So it varies from city to city. But, uh you know, it's definitely a unique aspect of the business because not only do we use it for Supercross, but we also use it for Monster Jam too, which is another Feld property that we own. we try to, if people notice on the schedule, if you look at it like in Anaheim, for instance, last year it started with Monster Jam and then it went Supercross and then Monster Jam. And I think Supercross again, then there was a week off and then Monster Jam. So we leave the dirt in for like a whole month and a half in Angel Stadium. And we'll take dirt out from Monster Jam and then put more dirt back in for Supercross. Supercross requires more dirt than Monster Jam does to build their obstacles. But it's just, we're just moving a little bit of it rather than take it all out and then put it all back in for Monster Jam. We try to save the cost and book the shows back to back where we can, when it makes sense. Yeah, when you are laying the dirt down in the stadiums, are you laying plywood or some sort of plastic down before you even put the dirt down? Yeah, typically if there's a field in, we'll lay down just plastic first, like rolled sheet plastic, ah and then we'll lay two layers of three quarter inch plywood. ah So that's a lot of plywood. I don't know, three or four trucks worth of plywood, and then the dirt will go right over the top of that. Is that plywood stored locally as well with the dirt or is that trucked to different locations? is it goes on to flatbed trucks and then that plywood is typically kept regionally so there may be another stadium we need to use that wood in so that those trucks may jump ahead to a stadium two weeks down the line as we go to a different stadium ah but that plywood usually stays somewhat regional we won't truck that plywood all around the country As far as some of the biggest logistical challenges that you face, of course, probably weather is one of those, right? Maybe regulations or different venue constraints. Like what comes to mind for you for challenges? is the biggest one. ah As anyone knows, they've seen the rain races. We had them this past year and the year before. I think it rained on us every week, whether it was race day or leading up to race day, which, you know, we have a strong group of men and women that work out there in the dirt and they just grin, you know, just grin and bear it, which is great. Yeah, the logistics in these cities. We went to San Francisco two years ago. That was a big challenge with being in the in the city, you have different regulations like you're saying on what you can do in the streets. Is there dirt coming out on the motorcycles, on the sidewalks that we have to keep clean? So every city is different, but we've gone to them so many times at this point that, you know, we kind of... I guess it doesn't feel like much of a challenge anymore as we know what we're facing. You know, we need certain permits or certain inspections in various cities ah that, you know, we're just prepared for it. And the team is, my team's fantastic that helps get these balls rolling. So if there is rain in the forecast and you can cover the track ahead of time, is your team the one that's pulling all the tarps out and pulling them off? They are, they are. And I'll reference Philadelphia from this previous season, 2025 season. We knew rain was coming. We had just got done with Massachusetts. And if anybody remembers Massachusetts, it was the absolute, one of the worst mud races I've ever been involved with. So we leave Massachusetts and we go to Philadelphia. And as soon as we get there, we left Massachusetts on Sunday. Monday is a day off for the crew guys. And then Tuesday we start work. So Tuesday, they start washing everything. I mean, everything we were watching the insides of trailers out because they were just covered in dirt and mud. The tough blocks look like big Snickers bars coming off of them. And they're probably so heavy too. So heavy, so, cause they're saturated with water and mud and we don't wash them before they go in cause we have to get out of the stadium and get moving down the road. So we washed everything, DirtWurx did a fantastic job. They got all the dirt in. The dirt is very dry there because it is stored underneath the highway. So it rarely sees any water. ah So the dirt was brought in dry, added a little bit of water to it to get it to shape up. We got all the tough blocks out there and then we covered the track before the rain came. I think they covered the track. Wednesday night, so they built everything in like two days. uh Left the track covered, didn't touch it. Water was pooling up on the plastic, that's fine. And then race day, got there a little bit early. We used brooms to like sweep the plastic off or we'll pick the plastic up so the water all sheds as much as we can to the sides of the track. Pulled the plastic, everyone on social media was saying it's gonna be a mudder, it's gonna be another Massachusetts, and it wasn't. And it was actually dry. out there with the water truck and water it. So hats off to the Feld Operations team and the DirtWurx team for working together, communicating, watching the radar. I mean, we're all in group messages, you know, watching our own weather apps to see what's happening, consulting with the building, looking at what their weather uh station is saying. So we can make the most informed decision to make the best racetrack possible. Yeah. And you guys obviously have a very strict timeline to adhere to with schedule with fans coming in and TV programming. We don't want to delay unless there's something severe, lightning or something else, but we want, that gate's gonna drop, you know? And so we want to make it the best experience for everyone. When it comes to track layouts is... responsible for designing those different track layouts or is DirtWurx kind of doing that or who's deciding I guess the overall features of the tracks of the different venues? So we work in conjunction with DirtWurx very closely. I'd say Alex with DirtWurx does the primary track design, which he's very good at. And then we have meetings. Once we get preliminary designs, we'll have meetings and say, hey, let's change this or change that, or we like this, or hey, the track's kind of oriented wrong in here because we're going to use this tunnel to load the bikes as opposed to another tunnel. And then he'll go back and he'll tailor the tracks. There's a lot that goes into track design, I don't, which most people aren't obviously gonna understand just looking at any one track. ah But we have to into consideration how the bikes are getting on and off the floor, how a water truck is gonna get on and off the floor, where equipment is being stored in tunnels or under the manager tower, and how it's gonna access the track to groom the track between practice sessions, qualifying, and racing. How... uh Doc Bodnar and Alpinestar Mobile Medic Unit is gonna access and traverse around the track. Is there enough room for their buggies to get around in case a rider goes down and they have to go pick them up with the buggy? Can they get around obstacles or down the sideline with the buggy to go get the riders? Is the track far enough away from the walls where it gives riders an area to run off and there's not an obstacle that they could potentially hit if they do go off track, so. We have to take all of this stuff into consideration ah when building a track, which makes it challenging. fortunately, social media, you get a lot of opinions on there, but there's so much that goes into it. And we have to account for all of this stuff. And that's what we did a couple of months ago. Alex had all the tracks and we sat and we went, we picked each one apart. How are we getting bikes on and off the track? How do we get medical access? And we walked through all of these things, made slight changes to stuff. uh but it allows for a more efficient program once we get on site. Do you feel like track construction has changed in the past decade or the years that you've been there, whether it's tools, techniques, technologies? Yeah, I think it's changed a lot. When I first started, uh the tracks were still being hand drawn, like a blueprint with pen and pencil. Now obviously with the advent of CAD and being able to get exact scaling of our structures, where the podium has to sit and how far that's going to stick out versus where the track's going to end. We've definitely honed in and made a lot tighter program in terms of designing the track and make sure all of those pieces fit into the puzzle before we get there and surprise, we're not gonna be able to put the starting gate where we thought we were. We have to shift it now. So it definitely has improved. oh The CAD equipment is obviously fantastic. And as they're coming out with new machines, it's just faster and more efficient. Like I said, these guys can build a track in two days, um which is... phenomenal considering how much dirt that is that they're having to move around. You mentioned also having to build the finish line. So how many people does that take and how many hours does it take to put together kind of that frame? that's interesting. When I first came over to the Supercross side from Arenacross and Supercross Futures, the finish line came apart. Literally every nut and bolt came out of that entire structure, which is gigantic. And it all used to go on set carts, so carts that it would all strap to and then would pick it up with forklifts and put it in trucks. And that would take, it would take, what, at least four or five hours to get it down and get it on the carts to put in the truck. And then I had this vision, why don't we leave it together? It comes down, we'll take the towers and the signs off of it, and we'll just leave it together and put it on a flatbed. So that's what we're doing now. So it's significantly less parts that have to go together. But we can get that, we can take it off the truck, put it on the ground, and probably have it in the air in probably two hours, two to three hours. We'll lift it up, the top portion is basically on motors, so it'll jack itself up in the air, and then we fill in the center with the dirt once it's up and set. And then just the reverse for coming down, we'll dig the dirt out of the center, it'll lower itself, take the signs off, take the two tall towers off, pick it up, put it right back on the truck. Yeah, it's definitely a wonder to see that thing go together. And the number of guys, Typically four to eight guys to put that together. So not overly cumbersome. There are some heavy pieces where we need a lot of hands to kind of get things set. The signs, the big monster claw to get that up there. So. Is there a time that you can recall when something just went totally awry on site? Whether it was weather, equipment failure. How do you handle it? Because I mean, the show has to go on, right? Yeah, yeah, the show has to go on. Oh my gosh, what have we done? A few years ago, a skid loader broke one of the hydraulic pistons that runs the bucket and there was hydraulic fluid coming out. So we couldn't start the machine because the hydraulic pump would just start pumping all the fluid out. Fortunately, it broke and we were able to shut the machine right off. So it wasn't a mess. But we had to get, I think we either had to get a bulldozer or a front end loader to drag it off with a chain. I mean, and We keep these things handy. have uh a recovery strap or recovery chain close in case something happens. I mean, if one of those pieces of equipment dies, it's so big and heavy, you have to move quickly. So we do have enough heavy equipment that we can use the other heavy equipment to get that item off the floor. I mean, we've had power outages, we've had, ah taking down the finish line one night in Minnesota, the controller stopped working. that operates how it comes down. And fortunately, I found out it was a bad wire, but here we are. We have to get this thing out of here. It's stuck up in the air. It's a gigantic structure, the size of an 18-wheeler. And so I was like, okay, we need to get this lift. We need to get this forklift over here. We need to get a guy up top, start taking the signs off so we can lower it with a forklift. And then fortunately, figured out it was a bad cable. We were able to keep going the normal route. So things do happen. It's about being resourceful and using the other brains that are on site, right? There's a lot of people there that have a lot of experience moving in and out of these uh stadiums with all this equipment and have a lot of ideas on how we can remedy a problem. So start picking up the phone and making phone calls to solve problems, if they're really big, you know. So, but everybody that's on tour is great. I mean, we have an electrician, he'll dive down the electrical rabbit hole if we got an issue. And then there's usually an electrician in each stadium that can also assist too and make sure we're getting power to whatever the thing is that we need to move or take down or set up. We talked a lot about moving in and moving out, but what are you kind of operationally during the show? So during the show, the guys and girls that are actually putting the structures together and putting the tough blocks on the track and building the starting gate, a good portion of them are the guys in the helmets out there with radios running around picking up bikes or directing riders around a down rider. You'll see them out there. They have yellow gloves on or helmets and moving tough blocks out of the way that get kicked out on the track. So those guys are busy doing that. We also have some guys behind the scenes in case a banner falls down or some of the plastic on the seat gets ripped off or there's a problem with the starting gate. We have guys on radio that would say, hey, we need you at the starting gate. We gotta fix one of the loops or we need you up in section 125 to go fix the dung off banner. So when the racing has happened, each person has their little thing just to keep the show moving. Obviously, like you said with TV, we have to hit a lot of times dead on, so we want to make sure that everything can flow smoothly. ah Me, during the event, I'm kind of overseeing my full-time staff who are also on radio running the show, uh calling out areas that need to be maintenanced on the track, or uh overseeing what's being played in venue ah on the video boards. uh So it could be anything. Maybe there's a problem outside with traffic and my guy Justin's out there dealing with the paddock and he has to move fence lines out of the way so that we can get, you know, be ready for when the fans come out of the building. So everything is just trying to be a little bit ahead of what the actual fans are seeing on the racetrack. We're thinking of what's the next step so that we're ready for it, whether it's something in venue or something on the parking lot with the paddock. So it's as your mind is always going. So when that checkered flag flies and everything's been a success, we kind of take a big breath before we get into loadout. Yeah, because of course you would love for things to be routine and you kind of have the schedule, but you never really know what's going to happen until it's happening. there's always a wild card. mean, especially if like weather pops up in the middle of a show and there's lightning, right? We have to stop. We've had to evacuate the seating bowl before and just have everyone shelter inside the stadium. It's actually happened too often in the recent past. ah But yeah, it's just being ready for the problem. this is, I tell everybody like, this is just a job of solving problems. And once you solve one, you're just waiting for the next one. Because there's always going to be the next problem. So that's how it goes. Do you have a favorite city and it doesn't necessarily have to be for the track or the job? there a favorite city that you love to go to? A favorite food place maybe you like to check out when you get a small break. Yeah, no, that's good. And I'm glad you phrased it like that because the tracks are always the tracks, right? I mean, Glendale has a giant floor. So the tracks always gonna be a little more unique there. Anaheim's a baseball floor. So that's gonna be a unique track, which is always cool. But I think sometimes I'm a little too close to that. I'm like, oh, it's another dirt bike track. But yeah, I love Seattle. I just love the area, the water, everything's green there. We do go to a little... seafood restaurant called Chinook's up there. One of the guys from Deadliest Catch took us there a few years back. Yeah, so we go there. We actually got to go on, I believe it was the Northwestern. Oh, very cool. That was cool. San Diego's cool city. Go to Miguel's Cantina down there. I'm from New Jersey originally, so going up to East Rutherford is like going home. I got to go to New York City this year and see a bunch of stuff, which I didn't really do when I lived up in New Jersey. ah I mean, AT &T Stadium's impressive, just as a stadium in and to itself. Salt Lake City's gorgeous. You get to go up in the mountains. each... Each place we go to, have my, like you're saying, my own little restaurant or the one little thing we get to do, which is always, you know, a fantastic bonus to being able to go do these events in these awesome cities across the U.S. Yeah, so you mentioned being from New Jersey. I think at one point you were stationed in Chicago, right? Yeah. Yeah. Before moving to Florida. Yeah. Yeah. the locations that you've been in. Yeah, so when I was in New Jersey, that's where I grew up. And when I was a crew guy on tour for Arenacross the first year and the second year, I was based out of New Jersey, but traveling on the road full time. When I got hired as event manager, I had to move to Aurora because that's where, I'm going to call it the motorsports package, was located. That's where Arenacross Supercross, and Monster Jam, that was the headquarter in Aurora for years and years and years through all the different owners of the properties. So I was in Aurora for four years and then once Feld Entertainment purchased the Motorsports package, we moved to Florida. So in 2010, I moved to Aurora and then in 2014, we ended up moving down to Florida as Feld Entertainment has a huge headquarters down here for Ringling Brothers Circus, their Disney on Ice program, some other shows that have come and gone over the few years. So Palmetto, Florida is now the new home of Supercross and Master Jam. I feel like even though you live in Florida, you probably don't spend a lot of time there though, honestly, cause you're always out. I mean, it's right after the season. so basically May to August, I'm in Florida, uh you know, week in, week out. And then, and then we're on the road for the SMX world championship, all basically the month of September. And then October, November, December, I'm here in Florida. And then January to May, it's flying in, flying out every week. So there are some, sometimes when I'll stay out on the road, like when we're out West, the Anaheim race is San Diego, Glendale. I usually just stay out there rather than fly back. back and forth time, you just lose too much time. And then when we did that Northeast swing in 2025, it was Massachusetts, Philly, New Jersey and Pittsburgh. I stayed out there as well. Got to catch up with some family and friends in New Jersey, but it's just easier, easier on the body rather than flying back and forth. know, people always ask like, how's the travel? But it's become such a standard of life. It feels the same as I don't want say it's same as being home, but I try to keep a similar routine. Try to eat healthy on the road and work out a little bit and get the right amount of sleep. Same as I'm doing here at my house. It's just a different bed. Do you have people at the company that book all of your flights and lodging or is it on you to find that as well? So, us full-time staff, we book our own travel. The company does give us that liberty to book our own travel. Obviously, within reason, you can't be booking first-class seats here. But we book our own flights and rental cars. We are under contracted hotels when we go to each market. So, one of the girls that works for me, Kaylee, she puts together the hotel contracts. collects all the rooming needs from all the departments who's ever going to Supercross event and she'll put them into a master list and send it off to the hotel. So the hotel's taken care of. I don't have to go find a hotel room. Yeah, I mean that can be like a full-time job in itself is just to plan travel and lodging. It is. It is. It's significant. now for our staff that is, I'm going to call them seasonal, right? They just work January to May for us. We have to book all their travel, which again is part of Kaylee's duties and is a lot of work ah to get all of those flights booked. Fortunately, our operations crew that are just traveling from city to city and not going home, they're relatively easy because you book on We might book them going to Anaheim and then they're going to drive to San Diego. It's only a few hours and they're going to drive back to Anaheim. Then they're going to drive to Glendale. So, you know, right there you cut off a whole bunch of travel because we know that we're just keeping the rental car for four weeks. and then when it's time to go from Glendale to Tampa, okay, we book a group flight, which we do through our travel agency that we work with and say, Hey, we need a group flight for all these guys. And they'll just book them all. Yeah, it's a lot of work. It is, I mean, this is all part of it. People don't understand how much goes into each piece of this business. Taking a step back a little bit before you even got started in this as your career, did you have an interest in motorcycling ahead of time? Were you a rider? Were you a fan? Yeah. absolutely. started, I was interested in dirt bikes from, gosh, probably the time I could walk. My brother had a little Honda XR 75 that was in our shed and my dad would ride me around the yard on that. And then I got my first bike, which was a Honda QA 50 from 1970. And I was a trail rider up until I was about 12 years old and I had gone down to my local dealership, ridden my bicycle there to go buy something. And there was a poster there that said, you know, motocross race at Englishtown, New Jersey. And I'm like, I want to go race that. So my parents let me load it up the station wagon and off we went down to Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey and went to my first motocross race. I had no idea about any of it. Nothing. Nobody had helped me. We didn't know anybody that race motocross. Nothing. We just showed up blind. And that's kind of where it all kicked off. It was like 1993. And so I raced for the next, gosh, don't know, 12, all the way up to probably about 25, I was racing motocross through college. College I started to slow down racing a little bit. But primarily up in the Northeast, just amateur events, nothing crazy. Never made it to Loretta's even though I tried. That was challenging, more challenging than I thought. But yeah, I always loved dirt bikes and riding and anything with a motor that I could get on. and go was always exciting. yeah, definitely have a passion for the sport. think anybody that's involved needs to have some passion for a motor sport. Otherwise the job's not going to make sense. ah I went to school for electrical engineering, which I graduated and I was doing some engineering jobs. I actually worked with the World Trade Center for a short stint and I was doing some medical construction at another phase of my life, putting in medical imaging equipment like MRI machines, CAT scan machines. X-ray machines but ended up finding my way back into motorsports and uh you know it's been It's been a good a good long journey so far. So and I still love it Right now. I only have mini bikes right now I have sold my last big bike, but hope to get another bike and get back out on track soon Yeah, it's always hard once you get into this industry to find time to ride because you spend so much time working and traveling. So yeah, people have asked me if I've been out riding a lot this year. Sadly, my answer is not that much. Um, cause sometimes it's like you're working and then you just want to do nothing. Yeah, I have a Vespa motor scooter that I ride around the neighborhood. That's my two wheel fix right now. It's just easy. You can just get in the garage and just drive out of the driveway. But I also, I ended up getting a boat now that I'm here in Florida and the beaches and the islands that go out on a boat. So it's phenomenal. So when I get home from a race or from tour, I'm like. Yeah, heck yeah. You know, so I've seen dirt bikes all week. I want to get out of this. Absolutely. Cool. Well, let's tell people where they can connect with you online and where they can connect with the Supercross brand. Sure, I mean you can follow me on Instagram, at Heras34, it's spelled H-E-R-A-S. And then at Supercross, we got the SMX World Championships coming up in Charlotte, St. Louis, and Vegas. Tickets are still available. So come out and see us, come see these tracks. you know, these are, SMX is, they're even bigger than a Supercross. They are definitely a bigger undertaking, especially the unique. Venues that we're going to these these drag strips st. Louis this year. It's gonna be in the dome Everyone thinking it's gonna be Supercross. It's not gonna be Supercross It's gonna be different a little more of a hybrid grid track It's gonna go into this back hallway and come back out which we've never done before ah So and then of course Vegas is is gonna be a giant track out there on the drag strip so these these races are definitely exciting and I you know It comes at a time when it's a, I'm gonna call it a downtime in our season, but it is, they're definitely fun to see and see all the fans come in and see what we put together for these races. So tickets are online, supermotocross.com. Come out and see the races. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me and thanks to everybody for tuning into Momentum. This has been a production of High Gear Success. If you want to connect or recommend a guest, head to MomentumMotorsportsPodcast.com. Until next time, keep the momentum rolling.