Cycle News

Cycle News 2013 Issue 09 Mar 5

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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INTERVIEW P72 KURT CASELLI I definitely want to go back. Starting the rally it was, ���okay, let���s just get to the finish.��� Halfway through, though, I was going, ���ah, man, I know I can do well.��� I really want to learn more about the navigating and be able to go back and just race and not just ride. I felt like I was just kind of riding the whole rally. You have to be ready to race right from day one. I hope the opportunity comes up, that I can stick with KTM and get back over there and do it a couple of years more. But I really hope to come back, you know everyone is saying, ���it gets in your blood,��� and, ���it���s Dakar, Dakar,��� and you know there is some truth to that, but for me, it���s more that I want to do as well as I can personally. I feel like I can do a lot better at this race and I feel like I have a lot to improve on when it comes to navigating, then I can be a lot more competitive towards the front. With Red Bull and with KTM, they���ve done so much for me with this race, so I want to return the favor in the future as best I can. What would you say was the best part of being here for you? You know, the last few years I���ve really put a lot of effort into just experiencing different things, and the race was great obviously, I had some decent results and this and that, but I always take home the experience of meeting new people and seeing different countries and just the culture, and for this race it was the bivouac and it���s like you���re out camping with a big moving circus for two weeks, and that���s the thing I���m going to remember. I���m not going to remember the stages I did bad in or the frustrations or anything, you know, I���ll get over that and, you know, you remember all the great experiences and the good times I spent with people. The effort we wouldn���t have the results, and KTM wouldn���t have the results that they have had the last five or six years. I am grateful that I am part of that whole structure, and if they say, ���be a water boy��� [the Dakar term for a support rider], I���m happy to do it. It is all cool. Now that it���s over, what do ��� [DAKAR] IS NO DIFFERENT THAN A DISTRICT 37 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DESERT RACE. IT���S THE SAME STUFF.������ team has just been like a family, I met these guys whom I���ve never met before and now they are great friends and hopefully we can continue that relationship for a long time. One of your teammates was Cyril Despres. Were there team instructions as far as helping Despres or anything like that? Yeah, of course there is always a strategy and priority one is to make sure a KTM wins the race. It doesn���t matter who it is or what, but you know at the start of the race it was, ���just go ride and once we���re half way through we���ll see where everyone is at,��� and as a team, we���ll make some decisions from there. Definitely, once Cyril got into the lead, it was, ���okay, let���s make sure his bike stays together,��� and we all do what we can to help along the way, and you know I have no problem doing any of that, that���s the reason we���re all here. If it wasn���t a team you think of Dakar? It���s one of those things where you just have to experience on your own. On the last day of the event, I was driving down the highway in the rental car following Kurt for a while as he was riding the last stage transfer section into the finish, and it was fun to see how he was responding to the thousands of people that were lining the streets and highway for 300 miles and crowding onto all the bridges and overpasses cheering the participants on. He was smiling and waving back to everyone along the way. Later, I saw him continuing being very friendly to everyone he saw. Kurt is clearly a great representative of the United States, is well spoken, and someone we can all be proud of and happy for. For all he has accomplished in his career, he is quite humble and very unassuming about it all. CN

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