Other than that, I would say that exposure wise we seemed to get a lot of media attention in the magazines, and I think a lot of that had to do with Damon Huffman, along with Justin and Andrew Short. The magazines seemed to like us for some reason and they gave us a lot of attention. So, from an exposure standpoint I would say it was a huge success. We really got a lot of press and a lot of respect in the industry. From a results standpoint obviously I don't think there is any team out there that could say they were 100% satisfied unless you had Ricky or Bubba!
Q: Now that this is the off season, what does your daily week look like?
PL: I have been thoroughly enjoying my time at home but actually I'm just as busy as ever. A lot of people think that when the season is over we just go golfing or something. It's a really busy time trying to plan for the next year, orchestrating the testing, getting the new products, painting the semi, doing photo shoots, new graphics, new gear - basically everything has to be redone.
Luckily in our case, we are keeping a lot of our existing sponsors who are really important to me because I've always been loyal to my sponsors throughout my whole career. I really love to keep relationships long-term rather than jump around every year. I've found a home now at Suzuki and we're very happy here - and we want to be here for a long time.
I am also constantly working on teaming up with outside sponsors, which is now everybody's big goal in this sport. So the only difference for me right now is that I'm not getting on an airplanes every Thursday or Friday. It makes me really happy to get to spend some time with my wife and kids at home, do a little riding myself, and getting caught up on office work. As far as the Monday through Friday work though, I'm just as busy as ever, if not more busy.
Q: Is it difficult to juggle your family life with your work life?
PL: No, not at all, because I'm one of the lucky few that gets to work from home. I have a home office so I get to spend time with my family, and I'm not commuting back and forth from an office. But then again there are times when my daughters Hailey and Morgan are playing and running around while I'm trying to get some work done - but I wouldn't have it any other way.
Q: You used to do a lot of racing - how much riding do you do these days?
PL: You know I'd had myself convinced that I was completely done and over with riding, but Motocross is like a drug and it's hard to get it out of your system. I'm 33 now and I've been racing every year full time since I was seven years old. This past year I didn't put my leg over a bike for 10 months, but when the season ended I found I missed it, so I took one of the race bikes off the truck after [AMA MX finale] Steel City and brought it home and did some riding.
