We recently connected with John Short and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, John thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I’m John Short 27 years old from pilot point Tx. I have always been passionate about two wheels and currently compete professionally in the monster energy AMA Supercross series. As you can imagine racing super cross is not an easy career you just happen to find yourself in. This has been a dream of mine since I started riding as a young kid.
I learned how to ride at a basic level when I was three years old in my backyard. It was Just my family and I and it was all for fun. I took to riding quickly and from then on that’s all I wanted to do. The most essential part of developing your skills as a motorcycle racer is to put time in on your motorcycle in order to learn the skills necessary to ride at an ever evolving level. It takes the development of your motor skills, balance, cardiovascular strength, muscular endurance, and the mental capacity to handle what’s coming at you. as a racer you have to be able to handle the pressures of making split second decisions that could potentially put you in harms way.
When I was a teenager I had ridden as a hobby for a handful of years and I decided I wanted to take a shot at trying to become a professional racer. At this point I had to prioritize and sacrifice a lot of time and give up experiences that most teens get in order to make make it happen. No after school sports, no parties, no school events etc. As you can imagine with the cost of living these days finances largely stood in the way of chasing my dream.
It’s expensive to maintain, buy and keep your motorcycles performing at a level that is safe enough to compete on and practice on. At this point in my pursuit every expense was out of pocket and my family and I weren’t very wealthy but we all worked hard and sacrificed to keep me going.
Aside from financial hardships, things like injuries and just not being good enough became a huge hurdle and challenge. Motorcycle riding, especially motocross/ supercross, is an inherently dangerous sport and when you factor in the pressures of earning competition results and pushing your limits in practice to gain speed and the attention of factory race teams accidents tend to happen.
Making it in this sport requires the ability to stay healthy, continuously searching to learn and improve your riding, and constantly striving to improvement your fitness and diet etc.
I learned a lot about riding thru practice, working with certain trainers, studying the professionals that race and breaking down how they do it. A lot was learned through studying and trying to apply what I see to my craft.
supercross truly is one of the most unique and physically demanding sports on the planet and there is only a small fraction of people that will make it to the elite level of competition wether they have the talent or not.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

Becoming a professional athlete on any degree is not easy to do especially in my sport, supercross. Their is only 10-15 people that will be able to find a team or an avenue to sustain a living. I always dreamed of racing, but without manufacture support rom a factory race team it has been a difficult road to go down. My journey has taught me so many valuable life skills thru the adversity. Instead of just training to win and showing up to race, I have often times put my own program together. Running and organizing my own racing program takes a lot money time and has allowed me to learn about business and finding balance. It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out how to achieve everything without much physical help. In large pursuing partners to find funding and sponsorship is the toughest part. Whether it is companies within the industry of motocross or local business that want to advertise thru your racing campaign it takes funding to get a race program going. Finding sponsors, planning and scheduling events, building race equipment, making sure you have the appropriate parts as you need them, thinking out the logistics of the race season, hiring personnel, and also creating time to prepare yourself as a racer have taught me a lot about marketing, time management, mechanic work, fitness, budgeting expenses, public relations and much more.
The main thing I have learned from my line work is that if you want to achieve something bad enough and are willing to make the sacrifices you can achieve your dreams and goals.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

For the past seven years I have competed professionally I have always taken pride in the relationships i have built and maintained along the way. I have been fortunate enough to have great friends that have shared advise with me that has helped shape my outlook on how to build better relationships with sponsors. I have always tried to treat people with respects first off. Whether you are someone that could benefit me or a random person I have met for the first time my goal is to treat people with the kindness and respect i would want to be treated with.
I think another valuable tool that gets overlooked in my industry is gratitude. So many people burn bridges with sponsors, friends etc. and do not realize how small the industry is. You do not want to burn bridges or build a bad repour. I believe by going out of your way to show people you appreciate them you build a solid reputation with people and it makes them want to be apart of what your doing.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I grew up racing as an amateur never won much but I showed decent speed. When I turned pro The first couple events where a struggle for me and I did not ride with confidence. I trained to compete in my first season of pro Sx and I had support from a small team and weeks before the event I fractured my back in a practice crash. This definitely had me thinking of pursuing something else since I did not have any more opportunities from teams. I decided after careful consideration to not give up and pursue one more season even though I did not have the support at that time. I trained like I was going racing and thankfully I had a sponsor step up 2 weeks before the first event 6 years later I have continued to build myself up as an athlete and have found small successes and built relationships I never thought I would have.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://racerxonline.com/2022/04/12/privateer-profile-john-short
• Instagram: @johnshort43
• Facebook: johnshort43
• Linkedin: John Short
• Twitter: @johnshort43
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR3kHeDG9RxE8znWg99xtog/videos

Image Credits
cody david