Well, day 1 at the Goat Farm is now history, and what a day it was for everyone in attendance. From the moment we arrived at Ricky Carmichael’s former training facility it felt like we were walking into a motocross dream. Even though the Goat Farm is now the home of the powerhouse Star Racing Yamaha Team you can still feel RC’s presence in the dewy sweet Florida air. It was an amazing day and one that I know I won’t forget anytime soon.
We arrived the perhaps the world’s most famous training facility at 9 am and at 9:30 sharp the Star Racing Yamaha 250 riders took to one of the two SX tracks for a morning of training. For the next two hours, the 250 class riders chased each other around the track under the watchful eye of the team’s trainer Gareth Swanepool and RC’s mom Jeannie. As I watched the riders complete their sprint laps and endurance laps you could definitely see that there was a method to Swanepool’s madness. Halfway through their session, Dylan Ferrandis entered the picture on his new YZ450F to battle with the 250 kids. As you can imagine it was a lot of fun to watch them navigate the technical SX track on their factory Yamaha’s.
From there we moved inside the new Star Racing Yamaha building for the official presentation on the new 2023 YZ450F as well as some words from the team’s co-owner Brad Hoffman. Brad gave us the lowdown and why the team chose to move from California to Florida and also how they came to buy the Goat Farm from RC and his family. It was a very interesting story and as we listened to him it made all of the media wonder why more teams don’t do the same thing. Brad listed the numerous benefits to having their HQ in Tallahassee including the increased access to practice tracks, fewer state and county regulations to deal with, as well as the big decrease in the cost of living, and of course the joy of not having to deal with traffic on the way to the office. The presentation went on for over an hour, but it honestly felt like 20 minutes, and it was extremely interesting.
After the presentation Star Racing’s 450 Team Manager Jeremy Coker gave us a detailed tour of the team’s race shop including the area where the bikes are worked on, the suspension room, the engine room, offices, and the ultra-cool lounge where all of the Star Racing Yamaha Championships bike are kept. The tour was amazing and by the time we were done and walked back outside we were able to catch Ferrandis riding some more motos. From there we grabbed our personalized 2023 YZ450Fs and took them out to the outdoor track for some static photos as well as some video. Although we cannot talk about the new 2023 YZ450F until Monday I’ve included a few photos from what was an incredible day at the Goat Farm. Stay tuned for some riding photos from tomorrow as we begin riding at 9:30 am. Also, keep checking our Social Media (@mxpmag) for photos and updates all day long.