Five Minutes With Dean Ferris

CDR Yamaha’s newest recruit, Dean Ferris, currently sits third Overall in the MX1 class of the 2016 New Zealand Motocross Nationals. Racing under the guidance of Josh Coppins at Altherm JCR Yamaha, Ferris is just five points shy of the leader, Honda’s Cody Cooper, and a couple of point behind Suzuki’s Todd Waters in second. Transmoto’s Chris Ritchie caught up with the former MXGP star ahead of this weekend’s fourth and final round at Taupo.  

Chris: How did your first race in New Zealand at Woodville go for you? Good to win the feature race?
Dean: Woodville went okay. It was good to get a race under my belt before round one of the New Zealand Motocross Nationals. I had a few things to work on, like starts, bike set-up, that kind of thing. I won the feature race but had a couple of hiccups in a couple of motos, which we sorted out pretty quick. All-in-all, Woodville was a good meeting.

Tell us about training and working with Josh Coppins?
Josh has been great. He leaves me to my own devices but he’s quick to help when I reach out for some advice. I spent a week at his farm and got some quality riding in between Woodville and round one of the Nationals. Josh runs a good little team and I’m stoked to be a part of it.

You’ve been on the YZ450F for a few months now. How has the switch to the Yamaha gone for you so far?
The switch has been really easy. I loved the bike immediately and it seems I always ride the Yamaha well. JCR and CDR have been great to work with. When I want to try something new, they jump straight onto it and that’s been our strength so far.

Tell us about your clean-sweep at round one of the Nationals at Timaru.
Timaru went great. I qualified in first, got the holeshot in all three motos and went on to win all three. The track was really rutted and technical which is my forte. I put in a big sprint on the first two laps of each race and controlled it from there. Craig Dack and Ray Howard from Yamaha flew over for that round, and it was nice to win while they were there, but more importantly, it was great to find out how we all operate together on race day.

You dominated round two and held onto the red plate, however, round three at Rotorua this past weekend didn’t quite go to plan. Tell us about it.
I qualified first, then got third in moto one after a little tip over while pressuring Cody Cooper for the lead. In moto two, I got it all wrong going down the hill. I stacked it pretty big. I rode around to salvage some points. Then in moto three, we had a three-way battle, and with two laps left I put in a big charge and passed Todd Waters and Coops to take the win. That was important to claw back some points. There’s five points in it now between three of us with one round to go at Taupo. I’ll take it one race at a time.  

Are you where you want to be, looking ahead to the Australian MX Nationals, now less than a month away?
Certainly. Everything is going great and we have refined our bike set-up recently, too. My physical program is guided by Guy Andrews and that’s perfectly on track, which is nice. All together as a team, we’ll keep charging forward.