Catching Up with...Aron Harvey

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Photos by James Lissimore

In 2008, Aron Harvey of the Blackfoot Yamaha team was a kid whose future certainly looked very bright. Though he was a late starter that season and some wondered if Blackfoot had swung and missed with the Nevada native, he soon proved BF’s faith in him was justified when he went on late season tear to pull within a few points of the MX2 points lead.

But then disaster struck in the form of a broken leg suffered at Moncton. It was, pun unintended, a real bad break but if Aron showed us anything in the season, it was that he could come back from some adversity. Going into this year, Aron certainly was one of the guys that was in the mix for the MX2 title but an absolute disaster in the first round (DNF-DNF) put him behind the eight ball and although he won the Morden national, he finished 78 points back of champion Teddy Maier.

Dropped from Blackfoot at the end of the 2009 season, we called Harvey up to see what was going on with him and if he was planning on coming back to Canada.

DMX: Aron, thanks for doing this and what have you been up to lately?

Aron Harvey: Just going to the gym and working hard, I was riding with Adam Jones, Dustin Miller and some other freestyle guys a while back and I learned how to do back-flips and all that other stuff. It was cool, other than that-just a lot of gym work.

So should we look for you at some supercrosses this season? Is that the plan?

Nah, I don’t think so. I have Dr D helping me out with some pipes, Met-tec Titanium helping me out and that’s pretty much it. We just weren’t ready to go out and do it properly so we decided against it. Maybe next year but for now, I’m up here in Reno and we have some snow so not too much riding going on.

What’s the plan for the US Nationals or are you coming back to Canada?

I honestly don’t know right now at this point. I don’t have anything up there (Canada) to go back so the plan is to race the 450 nationals down here.

Have you talked to any Canadian teams about coming back?

No, haven’t talked to anyone. I was kind of surprised to be honest. Last year I feel like I didn’t show anything at all. I was ready to go but my bike just wasn’t. I was riding in Southern California before the season and I know where I was at, I was riding with some fast guys. I was ready.

Yeah, talk about last season for you. It didn’t quite work out the way you wanted it to huh?

Well it all started out at Kamloops with a double DNF. That put me a bunch of points behind and the bike just wasn’t ready to be honest. I struggled after that with my set-up, the bike never ran the way I wanted it to. That’s the way it goes I guess.

I suppose the question I have is that the 2008 model wasn’t much different from the 2009 one, so what changed from the bike you won a bunch on?

That bike (2008) ran good. It was great, in 2009 though, it never ran good. The only race that it ran ok at was Morden but even then, it never ran as good as it did the year before. I don’t know, something was up with it. It was out of my hands.

Harvey had an off-year in 2009 but a lot of other racers would've loved to have had his year.

What were the guys on the team were saying when you were saying it wasn’t right?

They weren’t saying much. That was the thing, I would tell them about it and what it was doing. I think it was out of their control as well, they didn’t build the motor and maybe they didn’t know how to fix it. I wasn’t just making stuff up either, it wasn’t running right. I’m telling you.

So they let you go at the end of 2009, did you expect that or how did that go because, as much as you struggled, you still finished third in the series.

Well I was planning on riding for them in 2010 but never got any emails or didn’t know what was going on. Their intention was to have an all-Canadian team I guess and they got it. I never would have rode for them in ’09 had I known that. They never told me or anything, it was weird.

So despite that, do you look at your experience in Canada as a positive one?

Yeah, absolutely. It was a good experience. I learned a lot about people, business and how things work in other countries. I can’t dwell on the fact that I almost won the title in ’08, I know that I was fast enough to win it and that is all that matters.

How can people get a hold of you for a ride or whatever?

They can email me at aharvey7z@charter.net.I just want to thank all the cool people that I met up there, my mom and dad, my grandpa and the local people that stood by me around here. I will be back somewhere, just don’t know where or when yet! Maybe I’ll make the drive up to Kamloops for the opener this year.