Eight-Time GNCC Champion Kailub Russell Interview
Shan Moore | April 29, 2021
It’s not uncommon for a retired professional motocrosser to take up off-road racing, rarely is it the other way around, but Kailub Russell is going to give it a shot.
Retired off-road racer Kailub Russell now has his sights set on motocross—at the highest level.
Photography by Mac Faint
Off-road racers around the world will be tuning into this year’s AMA Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship in hopes of catching a glimpse of the familiar #557 dueling with the likes of Ken Roczen and Cooper Webb. It’s the perfect bench-racing topic, pitting 31-year-old Kailub Russell, perhaps the top off-road racer in the world, against the best motocross racers of the day.
Unfortunately, since our interview with Russell, the off-road star suffered a nasty crash in training that you have probably already seen, or at least the aftermath of it, on social media. This unfortunate incident that left him with two black eyes and his jaw wired shut—which doesn’t bode well for a follow-up interview—will delay his pro motocross debut indefinitely, which was originally set for the opening round at Pala, California, next month. Despite the crash, however, we do know that his desire to race motocross hasn’t wavered.
In 2021, Kailub Russell, who has been with KTM throughout his entire professional racing career, wants to join an elite group of racers/athletes who have been successful in both motocross and off-road. Having just retired from an off-road career that saw him win eight Grand National Cross-Country titles, Russell will be competing under the factory KTM tent, where he hopes to make yet another mark for himself.
Like most off-road racers these days, Russell has spent a big chuck of his off-road training on the motocross track. He’s used to putting in the laps.
“With my success in off-road, KTM is affording me the opportunity to live out a lifelong dream,” says Russell who is realistic about his goals. “I feel like it’s taken me five years to get to this point and ride at a high level on a motocross track. I still don’t think that level is capable of being a top-five guy. I’m just hoping for a few mud races to get up there and throw it in, but I think I am capable enough to have some good results and show some potential.”
Separating himself from former “dual threats” like Rodney Smith and Mike Brown, Russell will be transitioning from off-road to motocross, instead of from motocross to off-road.
“Back in the day when I was growing up, riding off-road, nobody really rode motocross,” says Russell. “The ’90s and early 2000s were weird for off-road. There wasn’t the surplus of motocross tracks either like there are now. So off-road, it’s just different, and I’m hoping to break out of that off-road mold and into motocross. Now, everyone trains on a moto track.”
Russell has already been hard at work getting ready for the upcoming outdoor motocross series.
Off-road racing has always seemed to take a back seat to motocross, but Russell hopes to bring some credibility to off-road where it’s long overdue. Sure, off-road racers compete at an incredible level, but are they at the same level as motocross? Time will tell.
“To go fast in the woods, it doesn’t really translate into going fast on a motocross track,” says Russell. “Woods riding actually breeds a lot of bad habits. I even have to be mindful of this, and I work on it a lot. I’m always covering my brake in the woods because, especially the first couple laps, you don’t know where you’re going because we don’t practice the track. It’s hard to break those habits once you get to a certain age. I think that’s why the translation from woods to moto is so much harder. The guys that ride motocross are used to going fast and not being on the brakes and rolling the corners and stuff, so their ability is a little bit different. It’s like Michael Jordan going from basketball to baseball. That’s about the same concept.”
In order to find out just where he belongs, Russell is thinking about splitting his effort between the 250MX and 450MX classes.
“We might be doing six 250 rounds and six 450s,” says Russell. “It just depends on how well it’s going whether I stay with 250s or not. I personally would like to do six and six, because I feel like I would have more consistent results in the 450 class, but those top 10 guys—in both classes, everybody is really good, all the factory guys and the top 15, even the top 20 guys, are really good. It’s going to be hard for me no matter what or where I’m at. But I ride the 450 a little more consistent. I’m a little faster on a 450 because I can rely on the power. I come from riding in the woods, lower RPMs, not over-revving my bike crazy like you have to on a 250.”
Russell says he plans to start off racing in the 250cc class and then move up to the 450s. He does have one pro MX race under his belt at Unadilla in 2018.
Russell does have one Pro Motocross race, Undadilla, under his belt.
“The theory behind starting on the 250 is mainly because when I did Unadilla, I got sixth and I would have qualified in the exact same position. Granted, I would have had to ride a 250 after all this, but my time was good enough to qualify in the same spot in the 250 class. My overall time for the first moto would have won the first 250 moto. So, my hopes with that are if it’s muddy then I’ve got my best chance to be a podium guy or maybe even win a moto. That odd chance that it might be a mud race, I want to make sure I’m prepared for it.”
Thanks to his background in off-road, Russell knows his best chances are with the more technical tracks.
“I just need to work on the overall riding and intensity and the speed at the beginning, but here in the woods, I’m in my element and I’m comfortable with everyone and everything around me,” says Russell. “I don’t have much motocross-racing experience, so when I get in a cluster of guys, I notice I tend to back off and kind of fall in line, where in off-road I’m searching for the lines and trying to get around people. So, there’s going to be that timidness to overcome. It’s going to be a lot of learning.”
“I think I am capable enough to have some good results and show some potential.”
Russell needs to learn quickly, because he knows he’s only got one shot at this.
“I’m just excited to give it a shot and get out there,” says Russell. “I feel like the East Coast tracks, the ones that are going to rut up, long ruts, they’re going to suit me a little bit better and I’m going to probably have better results there and more consistent rides. The faster, square-edged, choppy, harder-packed tracks like Pala had in the second moto, that’s what kind of scares me, those types of tracks. Those guys can just pin it and throw it into the corners. I’m more of like a precision type of rider and pick my way around the track and not just going all-out down a straightaway and through the gnarly square-edged bumps and braking bumps and then throw it into a berm, but we’ll get there. That’s why when I raced out West [in the WORCS series] I struggled with that, too. Those guys were going so fast into the corners, and I didn’t have that experience. Obviously, that was not a motocross setting, but it was along the same lines that some of the tracks could be.”
As far as conditioning, Russell is for sure one of the fittest off-roaders on the planet. But does that translate?
“It’s definitely a different fitness,” says Russell. “I feel like I’m a pretty fit guy all the time, pretty on point most of the time, especially the beginning of the seasons in off-road. It comes down to if I’m fading back in the motos, it’s because I’m uncomfortable. It’s not necessarily the fitness. The fitness is different. My body is not used to having to manage that high heart rate straight away, straight through it. You get right there to the top of your zone and you’ve got to hold it, where in off-road I work up into that zone and it’s not even to the top of it. The moto guys have years of experience and training their bodies to be able to hold that zone where they’re at and they’re comfortable in that area right there. It’s just a different kind of fitness. Motocross is not really an endurance sport like off-road. It’s an intensity and just a high max heart-rate threshold right there that you have to be able to withstand. Once your body gets into that red zone and your blood feels like it gets thick and your muscles get slow, it feels like you are tired. At least this is how I feel when I ride moto and I’m going all out. I feel like it’s all I’ve got, and I’ve got no more, but then I cool down, come off the track, take a break and I’m fine. It’s a whole different ball game. For me it’s going to be a lot of laps, a lot of riding and trying to get comfortable, is kind of where I’m at right now and what I’m trying to do.”
Unfortunately, Russell recently suffered a hard crash that will delay his MX debut.
As far as bike setup, Russell says there is a big difference from off-road to motocross.
“The only thing the same is maybe the grips, the handlebars, and the cables and stuff,” says Russell. “The factory motocross bike is completely different than anything I ride or really have any time on. So, when somebody asks me if the 52s [forks] are much different than the 48s, I can’t give them the answer because I’ve never ridden 52s in the woods with an off-road setting. I’ve only ridden 52s with motocross stuff, and the stuff is so much more stiff than my off-road stuff. I can’t even compare the forks. I don’t know what they’re doing differently, because this whole setting and the setup and the bike is so much different. I’m learning the bike a little bit better and getting more comfortable and finding the directions I need to go, like when the track goes a certain way that I’ve been riding. Because the bike is so rigid and stiff, the suspension almost seems a little bit more finicky. A couple clicks one way or the other makes a drastic change. I can tell a big change on my off-road bike, too, two or three clicks, but it’s like, we can go a little bit more. Two or three clicks is like what I’m used to going like five on the moto stuff. I think it’s just because the bike as a whole is stiffer. The suspension is beefier. I can jump 50 feet to flat off a 20-foot drop-off and it doesn’t bottom out. It kind of soaks it up. If I did that on my off-road bike, I’d be going to the hospital to get stitches in my chin because I hit the crossbar so hard. It makes it interesting for me because I’m learning something new as I’m doing this.”CN
Saturday, May 1, 2021 at 10:06PM 
