Rusty Malinoski on Reno
“For Reno, I took a different mindset to everything, sat back and let it happen. I didn’t get so uptight about making sure I got a proper eight hours of sleep or whatever. I just went with the flow and let everything happen, and every time I left the dock, I went out and rode like I know I can ride, and everything came through and ended up working out perfect for me.”
“To sum it all up, it was just my day. Everyone has their day, and Reno was my day, I guess. I took it one step at a time too, getting through Sunday’s semifinals. With Andrew, Tino and Chad, it was a really hard heat again, and I made it through that, and then I had Andrew again right off the bat, and I just took it one step at a time and didn’t get ahead of myself in thinking “Hey, this could be the day that I win.'”
“The last trick was the skeezer right at the end, and I knew I needed to stick that skeezer to make it pretty clear. I knew I slid better than Ike, but he still had quite a few wake tricks. But he fell on his double-up, so I knew I needed just that crow mobe at the very end. Once I hit that, I had a quick glance over to all the boys and everyone seemed pretty excited and I was really excited. Then the double-up — I knew the roll to blind is pretty much 100 percent for me normally, and I figured that if I got any amount of pop off the choppy double-up I could do it, and I ended up hitting the good portion of the double-up and got good pop and landed it.”
“It was an awesome feeling. I’ve never felt that excited. I’ve raced motocross and won things in hockey as a team, but nothing was as exciting as knowing I won my first pro tour stop. I’d never felt that excited about anything in my life before.”
“It’s an individual sport, but there’s always just like, if you screw up, it’s only because of you, and if you do well, it’s because you did good that day. It’s all on you for those two passes. We do our tricks every day, and I mean, you see us fall on them ever other weekend. Out here on the lake, you can stick a crow mobe 100 times in a row and then, like in Reno, last trick of the pass, I fell on it, so I don’t know. I think I put a lot of pressure on myself too, which I think I need because if I sit back too much, I don’t perform.”
Danny Harf on Rusty at Reno
“It’s totally a test of endurance and mind control, and it takes a lot more skill to win an event out there, so I would say mad props to Rusty for holding it together for the whole finals in those conditions.”
