AMSOIL Swapmoto Race Series Racer Profile | Austin Schott

AMSOIL Swapmoto Race Series Racer Profile | Austin Schott

Age: 30

Hometown: Evergreen, Colorado

Class: 30+ Intermediate, 250 Vet Intermediate

Sponsors: Swapmoto Live

Austin Schott is a designer at Thor Motocross and a good friend of the Swapmoto Live team, so we invited him to participate in this year’s 2020 250 Shootout. A former professional racer, Schott has a good feel for the bike and excellent feedback. Last weekend, he showed up to compete in his first race in years!

This is your first Swapmoto Race Series event…what are your thoughts?

Well, aside from being a little bit embarrassed about my performance, it’s pretty cool! It’s good to be back on the gate and it was cool to pull a couple of holeshots. I don’t know the last time I was behind a gate, so that was pretty sweet, then falling was awesome. That was about it.

You had a brief professional career back in Colorado?

I did! I turned pro when I was 21 then right after my first Pro National, I broke my back and that was it. That was 2010.

Was it just a broken back or was there temporary paralysis or anything? What made you stop?

I crashed when I came to a corner. I actually broke my ribs into my stomach until my stomach lining opened, and I was spitting up a bunch of shit. That was pretty much what caused me to stop. Initially, they told me I just had that damage, but I went back into the hospital because I couldn’t do a sit up and my feet kept going numb. Then I found out I broke my L1 and my L2. That was that!

The magnitude of that injury…you were just over it?

I think that’s kind of what it is, like my back still hurts to this day and it is such a mental trip for me to go out there and push the way that I used to, that I almost ride just tense. It just scares me these days.

How long were you off the bike? Because I know when we met you at the TransWorld Industry Cup that was your first time riding in a while…

That was my first time riding in 7 1/2 years.

What was it like getting back on the bike and what got you to get back on the bike?

I think I just knew that coming back into this industry, that not riding wasn’t going to be an option. You know we are all addicted to this stuff, so for me, the minute I got back on a bike, it always feels good, but now it’s just a little different than what it used to be.

Tell me about your job within the industry.

I’m a lead designer at Thor Motocross. I specialize in racewear design. I’ve been doing that for about three and a half years now. I’ve deen a designer for 10+ years.

You’re formally educated in design then?

I am formally educated in design, both my parents are. My mom used to be a professional photographer and my dad was an architect, so I just kind of got that artsy gene in me.

Have you always done gear design?

Actually, I am more attracted to advertising and photography, but I happened to get a job at Thor designing gear. But it is pretty cool, it’s something I wanted to do when I was younger so I’m stoked to be able to do it, but I’m more attracted to the ad and photo life.

Now, designing the gear, are you in charge of the cut of stuff or is it just the aesthetics, the graphics?

I’m not in charge of the cut, but for example, the Prime Pro line…I was in charge of all of that. So I built the way it performed, the material, how it functions on the rider, and yeah graphically, I’m in charge of that too.

Is it hard to design graphics if you’re not involved in the other parts? Like, do you have to know what stretches and what doesn’t?

Yeah, you go into building gear thinking that the sky is blue. You’ve got every single option in the world, but then as you start developing it, you’re like, ‘Okay well I can’t put any artwork on this panel, but I can with the other one.’ So the designs start changing, but most of the time I try to make sure that I’m using a material that can either be sublimated or dyed, its just kind of an everyday thing. Some high-end racewear is nylon-based so you cant sublimate on it, but for Thor stuff, we make it with different material and it can be sublimated.

What set of gear did you have the most fun with and that people will recognize?

I think the one that I like the most is the floral kit that came out for 2019. I think that for Thor, it was kind of their biggest impact, you know they were kind of in the shadow a little bit for a while and I think for them to allow me to come up with something that was so anti-race, it just felt cool. I knew a lot of people were talking about it and then it’s kind of progressed the lines since then.

The stuff you’re wearing, I like that a lot. It looks like it’s got some streetwear influence.

Yeah, it was definitely influenced by streetwear. The whole idea behind it was just to get away from motocross and push more towards what’s trending right now in fashion, fitness, and all that stuff. So, I wanted to kind of bring another aspect of design into our sport.

I know in the past, Pete Fox says he drew a lot of inspiration from surf. What do you look to as your number one source for inspiration then?

Anything aside from action sports. So, I try to get out and look at fashion and what’s trending there. I look at modeling, I try and just see natural elements, flowers, photos, textures, stuff that I feel like wouldn’t be brought into our sport.

Okay, we see you’re on a KTM 250 SX-F, what do you like about it?

I like how fast it is, so the power is epic. However, I feel like I’m dancing everywhere on the bike. It’s just a little bit of a learning curve coming from Yamaha onto that thing, but sooner or later I’ll get confident on it, I guess.