While many competitors from the ACSS tour are off racing motocross or building into their pre-season training programs, two members of the Scheuring Speed Sports team have chosen quite a different way to spend their run up to the Fourth of July. On Thursday, team rider Robbie Malinoski, along with crew chief Tony Clement, loaded up a big rig and headed to south Georgia to fight wildfires. Scheuring operates a heavy equipment business in the off-season and has a standby contract with the National Forest Service. With the wet spring it had been a quiet start to the season in northern Minnesota, but the phone rang last week when assistance was needed at a hot spot near the Florida border.

Malinoski and Clement will take turns running a dozer for 12 hour shifts 24/7 for the better part of the next week. We did get to drop in on The Thrasher for a Klim photo shoot the night before he was set to head out and learned that he also has been hitting the gym on a regular basis and has just recently started doing work on his KX450F.