Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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ROAD RACER SEAN DYLAN KELLY P88 Interview VOL. 56 ISSUE 16 APRIL 23, 2019 P88 somehow backing you to be able to progress now in that series? Pretty much. Right now—I don't mean to say it in a bad way for anything directing to anything or anyone over there, but it's pretty bad when every rider needs to pay to ride. Kids get kicked off of their team just because another kid comes with more money. So, in that sense, it's not the best. Money wins, which, in life, a lot of times money wins. Unless you're winning races? Unless you're winning. There're six championships, and there are 30 riders in each championship, and there's only one rider that wins each. So there're six that get free rides, and then there's the other I don't know how many hundreds that can't. So where do you get a hundred thousand dollars from? Where do you get a hundred and fifty, two hundred thousand from for a season? So, I definitely didn't have it. I won't for a while. Hopefully one day I'll have it. But it's at that point where it's just very difficult. Let's take it hypothetically and say you do really well in Supersport and you prog- ress on through the ranks. Would you take a Superbike ride here for a year or two to see if you could progress in that area and then try to go back overseas? If the Superbike ride is a good Superbike ride, of course. At the end of the day, if the opportunity is that good of one, like this here in MotoAmerica, especially consider- ing how things are over there. But that's actually exactly why I said you never know what can happen because things can change so much from one day to the other. Also, just, things are much dif- ferent here and much different in Europe, so you never know. I still have opportunities for Europe, too. It doesn't mean I can't do two things at the same time, either. You look at somebody like Cameron Beaubier who had prospects and everybody thought he might make the jump to GP, but he's in a position now where he's making money here, good money, and it's really dif- ficult to leave that. Then you have somebody like Joe Roberts who maybe could have stayed here and maybe gotten a superbike ride and battled for a championship, but he's over there sort of struggling. Is it more impor- tant for you to be winning races or have the potential to win races, or is it more important to be in a world championship event? The thing is, I'd rather be win- ning in the world championship. That's my thing. I'd rather be living well, getting money and winning, but if I can do that in MotoGP, why not? Of course, it sounds a whole lot easier when I say it, but at the end of the day, why not? If that can happen. But like I said, no one wants to be on a bad team struggling in the back either. Have you had any discus- sions with Wayne [Rainey] or someone like that, who has good contacts in GP racing and has an interest in getting more Americans over there? Actually, the best guy I would say right now is my boss, John Ulrich. I think that's one of the reasons he had his eyes set on me for already a while now because I believe he really wants to do something. He's already given me such big support just getting on this. He helped John Hopkins. Absolutely, and [Kevin] Schwantz. So they're very, very good examples. We know he knows. I actually haven't even met Wayne yet. I look forward to it very soon, hopefully really soon. Hopefully, together we can do something good for the future. CN