Benny Bloss | On The Mend
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It’s a bummer to see Benny Bloss on the sidelines for the 2019 Monster Energy Supercross Series. In December, everything looked great for the 2018 450 class Rookie of the Year, as he was comfortable and quick on his Rocky Mountain ATV-MC/WPS/KTM, and much more confident in his Supercross abilities. That unfortunately changed after a small crash just before Christmas, when a torn ACL put Bloss under the knife for repairs and in recovery until May. Now nearing the end of the process, Bloss is eager to get back on a bike and is shooting for a return to competition early in the 2019 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship.
It’s been four months now; can you give us an update of how it has been?
Really good! I’m finally able to do a lot stuff, so a lot of cycling has been going on and I’m starting to add some weight in the gym Therapy has been going really good and I’m trying to get every bit of mobility and stability that I can. It’s been awesome. Everyone told me how this was going to be the worst recovery and therapy that I’ve ever done, but it’s been a breeze compared to my shoulder surgeries and it’s just a waiting game. I’ve gotten bored, so I’ve gotten to know my XBOX One very well which my fiancé doesn’t love, but it is what it is [Laughs].
What are you playing?
Mainly Call of Duty and will throw in some Madden and some NBA 2K, and Supercross The Game 2 to try to get ready for next season, trying to figure out the lines.
Okay, what did they use on the knee? Was it a cadaver’s tendon, your patella, or something else?
It was from my patella.
Is there anything that they said they had to do different because of your height?
I don’t think so; I think it’s the same. I’m just a little bigger than most [Laughs].
When you go into a doctor’s office at twenty-one or twenty-two years old and have a completely wrecked knee, what do they say? Do they stress about how it happened and say you shouldn’t race or are they fine with it?
Well, my doctor rides motocross and works on a lot of the dudes out here. It’s kind of normal for him so instead it’s a question of, “How soon can we get back to something that’s normal?” He is a really good doctor and did really well on the surgery, so I’m just ready to head forward with riding.
You said it will be a few more weeks until you’re cleared to get back on the bike.
I think it will be three to four more weeks and I’ll start riding very lightly, on small corner tracks or something not too gnarly. I’ll spend my first weeks on that and then at week three will move to a jumpier track. Oklahoma is not like California, there are no Vet tracks, but we have a really good outdoor track and it’ll be tough to stay away from that.
Have you hung out with everyone still by going to the track?
Honestly, no [Laughs]. I think I went three times when I was in California and went back to Oklahoma in February, but I’ve only been to the track two times in the three months. I’ve been working out and cycling and going to therapy so much that my day is pretty full, and when I go out there it’s kind of depressing and I don’t like that. I don’t want to say that I forgot about riding, but I hadn’t been to the track so I kind of blocked it out of my mind. I want to be back and went out there a couple of weeks ago, but since then it’s been eating at me. I need to be riding and watching the races. I’m playing fantasy, which I’m horrible at, so my Saturday nights are more stressful now because I have to rely on someone else rather than myself. We have the Rocky Mountain fantasy with four hundred people in our group and my fiancée was second in the group for a while, but last week had a bad weekend and went to fifty-fifth. But I’m not even in the top hundred [Laughs].
The timeline you said makes it sound like you’ll miss the start of the Nationals.
Yeah, I think the plan right now is to return at High Point. I’m going to go to California the week of Pala to see my doctor and get the final clearance, and then go as hard as I want. Maybe I get on the bike and everything feels great, so you might see me earlier.
It’s been a year to year deal with you at the team, so have you guys discussed anything yet? Or do you need to spin some laps before that comes up?
I think I need to get some results because you have no bargaining power when you’re not out there. I’d really like to stay with this team, I’ve been with them for my whole pro career pretty much, so that’s the goal. I plan to go outdoors, kick some ass, and see what we can do.
Going through all of this, does it give you a new appreciation for riding? Sometimes when this happens it can go one of two ways, either make you love it more because you get a break and reassess what you’re doing, or it makes you hate because you feel it’s taken away so much from you.
It’s made me fall in love with it even more. This weekend coming to the race, I had a super early flight on Friday and I missed waking early in the morning, getting on a plane, being tired all day, and then going to do track walk with seeing everyone. With the riding, it’s kind of cool because I feel like I can see more things than what I could before. I took a step back and am watching, which has been awesome. I think I’m more in love with it now than I was before I got hurt, but before I got hurt, I was feeling better than I ever had. Hopefully, I can get back to that.
Thoughts on the year? Where do you feel you would rank if you were healthy?
I think I would be in the top-five. I was feeling incredible my last few weeks and I rode with Blake (Baggett) before I got hurt. He is obviously ripping and won a race this year, so I think I would have been in the top-five and would have surprised a lot of people. It kills me to have it go out like this because it would be one thing if I made a big mistake and got hurt. But I just slid out and my bars pinned my knee to the ground and it twisted. I knew immediately. Everything settled in and I thought, “Damn, this is horrible.” But the comeback can be better.
As unfortunate as it is, you got one of your close friends Justin Bogle to take the spot. It’s a good deal for everyone because you both spend so much time together, are similar in a lot of ways, and he was in need. How much did you help that come together?
We had been riding together in Oklahoma before I went to California. His program kind of fell apart and he was struggling riding a pretty bad bike. I got the call from the doctor that I would need surgery and that Supercross was out of the question, so the first thing I did was call (Michael) Byrne to tell him everything and ask if they had a fill-in rider. He said they were talking to a few guys and I said I would call Bogle to see if he was available. We live a mile from each other, so we have all of the resources with our mechanic in Oklahoma. I told Justin to call the team and everything came together, and it’s been really cool. To come to the races and go to the track to watch him ride, I think it would be cold if he could stay on the team for the outdoors so we can go to the races together.
