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ADLER CAUDLE
With most of the 2019 season spent recovering from injuries, Adler Caudle was determined to make an impression at Mini Os and get himself quickly back up to speed. The rider out of Oklahoma immediately showcased a solid pace on the supercross track, but he was able to find even more of a scintillating speed on the outdoor track. Caudle won a few of the first motos and put together consistent podium finishes, allowing him to come away with a 3rd place overall in the 85 (9-13) class as well as multiple top-five finishes in his other classes. He was able to keep up the same sort of form at the beginning of the 2020 season, but not at all satisfied with his results as he’s working hard to keep constantly improving in preparation for Loretta’s. Caudle has been using this extra free time during the lockdown to focus more on his training and he’s already working on his endurance-based fitness to get ready for the long motos at the Ranch. We caught up with Adler to chat about the beginning of this racing season, riding at Robbie Reynard’s, and his plans for the remainder of the year.
What have you been doing to keep yourself occupied during the recent lockdown?
You know, I've still been keepin' busy. There are still a couple of places to ride. Obviously, you don't ride in big groups or anything like that and there are no races, so weekends are a lot more open. I've been puttin' in a lot more time working out and stuff like that, but I'm still getting a lot of riding time. My sisters are home (from school), so they keep me pretty busy at home.
What have you and the family been doing to kick back and relax?
Well, in our neighborhood we have a couple of ponds right by your house, so we go fish and stuff like that. I ride my scooter and ride my bicycle. We'll watch movies sometimes, just hang out and do normal things.
How have you been approaching your riding and training not knowing exactly when we're going back to racing?
I'm tryin' to keep it pretty much the same, you know. We don't know if there's going to be any Regionals or if we're going straight into Loretta's, so I've kind of just been getting ready for Loretta's mostly. I've been working on my endurance instead of working on that short, sprint Regional style stuff. You just gotta be ready 'cause no one knows when it's going to open back up.
What's your training situation like at home? Obviously all the gyms are shut down, are you still able to do your normal routine at home?
Yeah, I actually didn't go to a gym or anything before. I do everything at my house. We don't have a lot of equipment, but I do a lot of bodyweight stuff and I just use things around the house, like the pull-up bar and a lot of weights. I do a lot of running, but mostly bodyweight stuff.
How often have you been able to ride and where are you able to go? We saw you were ripping some laps at a sand track recently.
There aren't too many places open. Yeah, the sand track was just on the side of a river, just a little spot that we found down in Shawnee. We've been riding there and it's good and rough. We ride at Robbie Reynard's a lot and we ride with Gregg Albertson some, he kind of bounces around to different tracks. A lot of the public tracks aren't open right now obviously, so there's only a couple of options but we found some new places.
It's cool that Oklahoma is kind of turning into a little midwest hotbed for riding and training with the places that you mentioned.
Yeah, the dirt's good down here, too. It's always good. Even if it rains, you can take the tiller and cut something in the grass and it's good. We just have good dirt!
What's it like for you to go out to a place like Reynard's and soak up as much as you can from the pros?
Yeah, it's a good experience, you know. You get to watch what they do and how they train, you pick up a lot of tips. Even if we're doing a moto or something and one of them passes me, I see them taking different lines and doing different stuff and I'm like "Obviously, that's what they're doing, I'm gonna try it." I can learn from them, even if it's just for a second. Some of the things they do, you just don't think about and it makes it a lot easier to be out there with them.
You had some really good speed last year at Mini Os coming into the new season. How did things go for you there?
Yeah, well I didn't have a good 2019 at all. I got hurt a bunch so Mini Os was really the only full major race that I did last year. I felt like I had some good speed in some motos, there are a couple of things that I would've changed about it. A couple of motos didn't go good at all, but I was really hoping' for a title. I feel like I could've gotten one outdoors, but it didn't work out. I did end up with one podium, so I was happy with that. But it wasn't bad considering I didn't race at all last year.
What were your expectations like coming into Mini Os without having much seat time throughout the year? Did you surprise yourself with your speed a little bit?
Not that it surprised me 'cause I go practice and ride with the big bikes, so I see if I'm going fast or not. The nerves were obviously a little bit higher not knowing where you're at, 'cause you know everybody else is gettin' faster, too. You just don't know how much 'cause you haven't seen 'em all year. It didn't surprise me, I showed up and felt like I was there where I should be.
Did you do any Supercross Futures at the beginning of the season?
I did St. Louis and Arlington this year. St. Louis was not great, I don't know...it was the first Futures I've ever done 'cause last year, as we just talked about, I was hurt a bunch. I was good in some spots and struggling in other spots, so we figured out what I needed to work on and I ended up with two 3rd place finishes there. I qualified for Monster Cup so I was like "Alright, now we'll go to Arlington and work on stuff and fix what we were lacking." I ended up winning both of my classes there so that one went a lot better.
What do you think of that stadium down there? It must've been cool to race in.
Yeah, that stadium was pretty cool to race in. It's way bigger from the floor than it is in the stands. It was definitely a fun experience.
How did things go for you at the Daytona RCSX this year? Starts were really important there this year as the track was kind of difficult to make passes.
For some reason, I just wasn't goin' fast at Daytona. That's really what it comes down to. Like you said with the starts, I think if I would've gotten some better starts I could've done okay, but even in the motos that I did get a start I ended up getting 5th. I was just off the pace.
Did they give you some extra motivation comin' into Spring A Ding Ding?
Yeah, it did. I was just tellin' myself "Alright, we're done with supercross so let's get into some outdoors. This is what I grew up riding." I actually started riding supercross a lot later than a lot of kids, so I was telling myself that I'll be a lot closer there. It still didn't go as I would've liked. Just like Daytona, I was just off the pace, you know. I turned my starts around, I was just off the pace of those top guys. After that, I was goin' to Freestone and that obviously that didn't happen so we came home and I was like "We got some work to do before Loretta's if I want a shot." It was an eye-opener for me.
What're your thoughts on the different options they've laid out for Loretta's and what might happen there?
There is some crazy stuff. As of right now, I'm kind of hoping for the Super Regional plan. I don't really wanna do the two-week-long Loretta's, even though it would be little bikes one week and big bikes the next. Loretta's is more of an experience and I just don't think it'd be normal and there'd be a bunch of people there, lots of heat -- I just think it'd be kind of chaos. So I'm more hoping for the Super Regional thing.
What're your plans for the end of the year following Loretta's? You were registered for the Supermini 1 class at Spring A Ding Ding but decided to not race it.
Yeah, I was going to race it just on an 85. They raced it really late the first day and I had an early 85 moto the next day, so we decided to go back to the hotel and rest up for the class we're goin' for. The second day it ended up raining during the Supermini 1 moto, so we just sat that one out. After Loretta's, we don't really know yet. Next year I'm going to move up to the superminis, but we don't know if we're going to move up right after Loretta's. We might race Mini Os on 85s, we just know we're racing superminis next year. I still have one more year in the Mini Sr. 2 class on 85s, but we're just going to go ahead and move up.