At this point in my career, I have the privilege of choosing my partners. In the beginning, you more or less take what comes in the door – or what matches up with your brand.
My grandfather was very into horse racing, and I found some of his old journals and got into it from there. It has a lot of parallels to skiing. It’s a fun lifestyle, being around the racetrack.
In some ways, that’s the story of my season – when I wasn’t making big mistakes, I was winning races and being on the podium. And when I made mistakes I was still fourth or fifth, just off the podium.
Some of them I probably would like. Some of my fans probably beat their wives or run over little kids and they just happen to watch me on TV and like the way I ski.
I would just fly off jumps and go 40 or 50 meters when I was 6 years old – break skis, smash my goggles and get a bloody nose and go crawl inside for a little while and then come back out and ski more in the afternoon.
