Trail Bike Adventure Magazine

5 Questions With Josh Strang

Wednesday, 28 July 2010 11:53

FIVE QUESTIONS WITH: JOSH STRANG

Interview: Ben Foster

After dominating Australia’s Off Road Scene at an early age, Josh Strang (son of Australian Motorcycling industry mogul, Vince Strang) headed stateside to tackle the earth’s greatest off road racers in the infamous GNCC series. Not since the days of Shane Watts toweling up everyone on each bike in KTM’s range, has Australia seen one of our off road riders succeed at an international level. But, times are changing and after a stellar start to the year that included a streak of round wins, Josh is now sitting pretty on the top step of the championship podium. With a massive break mid season, we caught Josh surfing the net and nailed him down for a quick five questions over Skype. Here’s what he had to say:

1. Season so far? It has been pretty good. The start of the season was awesome for me and it really took the pressure off for good results every race. I wanted to have good results every race, but I had a few bad races and I was lucky to have that points buffer.

2. Best and Worse race this season and why? The best would be the first round for me. I think every win is good, but to get the first one of the year was unreal  I was kind of under the radar a little at the start, just from being out in California (there series is predominantly East Coast based) and came in and won it, so it was definitely good to get that one.

The worst... I dunno, there is three that are bad, the worst though maybe the round I crashed in, which was round six.  I was leading and just clipped a tree that pin balled me into another few trees and I just hit a big one straight on.  It’s just the worst because I had a gnarly crash and it kind of took the wind out of my sails.

3. How's the pressure of being the one guy everyone's trying to beat? The pressure for me is not to bad, I enjoy being that guy and if I’m the guy that everyone is trying to beat its one more thing for them to worry about other than racing.  I think there is more pressure to win the championship for Suzuki because I’m the only guy on the team.

4. Are you missing home, or is life just too good in the states right now? Right now I’m on a big break, last year I went home and I would have liked to have gone home again, but  I really enjoy it over here now and I don’t miss it that much.  Dad is coming over for the last two rounds so that will be good.

5. What’s the one thing you’d change about the GNCC series? Oh geez, I dunno. The GNCC series is one of the best off road circuits in the world, I wish we had more pros line up on the start line each weekend, just for more depth, I think it would make the series so much bigger with more sponsors coming on board and more spectators and more racers.  Its hard for the pros who have to pay there own way though.

All photos courtesy of www.joshstrang.com