 Hey everybody, I'm Greg Hancock and you're watching Talking Dirt. We're standing here in beautiful Rostlap, Poland, where I just started my new role as coach for the Betard Sparta Speedway team in the Polish extra league. I'm here to coach the youngsters and also to help the more advanced guys in the team as well, but we want to improve the skills of the young riders. We want to bring them up to a high level for the future and make them successful. But more importantly, we want to win a championship. So follow me along here for the next day. I want to show you a day in the life of my new role and check out what this beautiful city is all about, Rostlap, Poland. Of course you can. I think he said he called the dog Darcy Ward or D.W. or something because he was from Torrin, but that should make good content right there. So how do you feel about retiring? That's a good question. Well, the time was right, you know, the timing was right, and I miss it every day, you know, it's just the word retirement is like, that's a tough one, you know, I never imagined myself retiring and retiring. That word in general kind of scares me, you know, but yeah, it was a hard decision, but this is life and things happen and for me, family comes first. So under the circumstances, you know, we did what we needed to do and but after having a year off, I was ready to make the comeback and Jenny was doing great and everything's looking good, but there were still some things going on for another few months and started thinking, gosh, that's going to postpone my return a little bit more. And I started thinking and at that point, when you start thinking, I believe it's a sign, you know, and it's the risk versus the reward at that stage. And I think for me, that's where it came to that. I know I can beat these guys in my head. And I know that I've still got the ability to do it all. And I've definitely, I'm younger than most of these guys in the head. I think as crazy as that sounds. But reality of it is that, you know, where I am in my life and what I've done, what I've achieved, I'm super happy. I don't regret anything. I just want to do it more and I want to win more and I want to keep going. Now I'm at that point where I'm going to go win in another way and I can use my head in another manner. So I love this part of it now because I'm still riding. I'm still testing. I'm still very, very much involved. And I feel like I could still go to the tapes. So doing that, what do you do for Tai? What do you do for Magic? What do you do for Artem Laguda? These dudes are some of the best riders in the world. I have a lot of things that I would do if I was them, but I'm not them and they have their own program. So I'm there if I can offer any advice or maybe sometimes they just want to bounce something off you. But these guys are pretty well organized. And you can just be there to sort of, you know, if I have an opinion, I can just say, Hey, you know, if I were you, maybe I would do it like this or at least try it, you know, but it's hard that these dudes are mentally, they're there. But Gleb Juganov, Dan Bule, been a pleasure working with them so far. We've made a few adjustments to their bikes that were very minor and have given them a few pointers of things they could do to just kind of adjust themselves as well. And it feels like they've made some some good improvements. But the kids, the ones that are coming up, the juniors, the number six, seven and eight and in the team, these guys, you can shape them, right? They're in the prime time of installing the software. So I've come in, I've tried to establish trust in the team, which came really quick, thankfully. They're all very open minded. They're like sponges, they're taking everything in. But we look at the motorcycle. First of all, I look at their height, you know, how they are and let them ride on the track the first time to see how they ride. You know, for the first couple of days, I just watched them just to kind of, and if I pick something up quick, I'd go address it quickly with them and say, just try this. And slowly but surely we started digesting their bikes so that they are basically one with their motorcycle that you don't sit on the bike and you look like, you know, Magic Johnson trying to ride a mini speedway bike. You've got to make it so where everything is in proportion, you know, it's got to fit right. So you can see these kind of things, they don't happen overnight. But in the first few weeks of the of the training and, you know, we found like three weeks into training with these guys. And personally, I am super impressed with the improvements they've made with their scope, their interest, their inspiration. Every one of them leaves the track with a smile on their face, no matter what has happened. And for me, that's a win. Two perfect starts, perfect starts like the motor goes for young riders that could be watching this. What's your biggest tip with building a bike? It's building a bike for you. The biggest tip you can have is building a bike for you. It's not all about monkey see monkey do as I always say, you know, you can just buy what everybody else has got. You've got to kind of, you know, when you're young, you buy what's hot and what everybody's running because it's cool and whatever. But as you start to develop and you start to figure out your own style and find the rider that you really like and you like his style and you want to ride like that, or you want to have a little bit of a similarity to what he's doing, you will never ride identical to your hero, but you can adapt to it, you know, and you can pick pieces up from everybody along the way. And that's when you start building your bikes to suit your needs and always try to think outside of the box, you know, don't just buy what's available, try to, even if you need to make it, you know, you got to go to that next level to try to make something that's a little bit different than the rest and a little bit better than the rest. But it's only you that can decide that. There's so many things you can do. I mean, it's all about weight these days. You see the riders are a lot more thin, a little bit lighter on the bike. They're really well trained and their motorcycles are becoming lighter, but they're also becoming more colorful and cool looking. So that's tailor made to your style, your number, your desire or your sponsor. So build it. So what's the fastest color? For me, the fastest color is blue. First time in Rotslav would have been 96. Anyway, late 90s. We have to fact check. Coming here for the first time was it was amazing because this stadium has got a lot of history. It's got a lot nostalgia, prestige. I mean, it's an Olympic stadium. It was built for the Olympics. You can see when you drive in here, you drive through this long tunnel of trees, and that sticks in my mind from day one. The first time I drove down that thing, it was just, there was something different about this place. You get a different vibe, a different adrenaline, a different feel of nerves and excitement and on the borderline of being scared because it's serious when you get here, you know, and now you got to perform. But people in general were always very welcoming. Obviously, the fans love this place. They support it. And all the years riding here for like seven years and then getting a good feel for the management, for the people, for the fans, for the riders and management, et cetera, it was insane. It was an insane education, learning a major, major part of my whole racing career developed right here, you know. So it was another big step coming out of just racing in the UK and coming to Poland for a couple of years, getting my feet wet. Coming here was another step in my career. So seeing where it is today, the new stadium has been rebuilt. I remember when they put the new safety fence in this place when I was still racing here and now they've redone it completely and it's phenomenal. You know, it's just really Polish Speedway in general is growing heavily and this place is, yeah, it's very, very exceptional. You come as for 2021. What do you reckon? Yeah, I think I'm going to do pretty good. Okay, all jokes aside. Well, you know, you got no surprises really in my eyes. Robert Lambert, it was only a matter of time. You know, you look at Oliver Berenson, too. I mean, he's another one who's, it was a matter of time, although he's, you know, he's had to work his way really hard. He's a little short guy. I think no matter what you say, this guy has to work extremely hard to try to fit in to be one with this 500 cc motorcycle, you know, he's he's he comes up to like here on me and I'm not a big guy. So he's a little dude, but he has got so much ambition. He works really hard. He probably, he's more hard on himself than a lot of riders. He can really beat himself up bad when he's had a rough day. I think he's a guy to watch and no matter what, this is going to be at the most massive learning experience for Oliver and I think that he will he will raise his own bar and he will definitely open people's eyes at periods during the year. Then you have Andrew Thompson, who, you know, he's he's not a super young youngster guy in the in the group, but another one of the Danish mob that's just been growing and growing and becoming super fast, super ambitious. He's a he's a hard guy. He's not afraid of rubbing elbows and has a little bit different style than a lot of the guys. He reminds me a little bit of the style of like Magna Zetterstrom the way he rides with his leg back and sometimes that can hurt a rider in certain instances on certain tracks, but it doesn't seem to affect this guy and he's gung ho. And then you got guys like Max Frick, for instance. I mean, he had a great year last year winning his first GP and he's going step by step. He wants to be a world contender and he's lightning out of the start, you know, and it's I don't know what it is if he's got a lucky ice cream or a lucky underpants or what, but that dude, um, he's definitely shown that he's a world class standard. So 2021, how do you reckon it's going to go? Well, you know, looking over the last year, 2020 was an interesting one. You know, there was a lot of different winners early on too, which made it really exciting and seeing what's happened this year and the delay and the cancellations of events and things like that, it kind of makes you wonder what's going to happen. There's no racing anywhere except for Poland. Well, in the beginning of the season anyway, and looking at it now, Smarzlik by far is the guy to beat. He's just, he's setting the pace. He's, he seems like he's just really raising the bar all the time, but there's a lot of good competition out there. You know, I have, obviously I've, I'm a monster guy too. So I have high hopes for Ty to begin with and, you know, Freddie Lindgren being a part of the team as well. This is, um, this is a big deal, but you know, I also have a special place in my, uh, in my life or my career too with Magic Ginovsky and, and I've been training that kid since he was young and working with him and looking where he's at now. It's, the doors are wide open for a lot of these guys, but I have to say that overall, um, Smarzlik will be the guy to beat, but I think Ty, you know, fitness wise now getting him back in shape and looking at where Magic's at, those three guys for me are, are definitely the heavy hitters. This is going to be an interesting year overall.