Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127722
.INTERVIEW Will Davis y Donn Maeda Photos by Kinn ey Jones and Maeda ts been a long time since Will ' } D av is firs t threw a leg over a motorcycle, and now - at 30 years of age - Davis feel s that his time ha s finally come. Sure, there have been several times that the friendly North Carolinan has been the fastest racer at the track - six, to be exact - but Davis looks at the .'95 season as the year that it will all come together for him and the A&R Racing crew. Th e team, comprised of owners Craig Rogers and Louie Aruta, tuner Dennis Town, and racer Davis, field the Grand National Championship Series' most competitive Honda RS750s and hope to become the next privateer effort to dethrone the mighty HarleyDavidson factory squad. After blitzing the competition at many of the ea rly-week events held during Dayto na Beach, Florida's Bike Week, Davis turned in a surprisingly low - for h im - ninth-place finish at th e seriesopening Daytona Short Track. Nevertheless, he remains optimistic about the remaining 24 rounds, and is de termined to realize hi s d ream of becomi ng the AMA Grand National Champion . With the Daytona Short Track behind you, what are you r thoughts about the upcoming season? Well, I definitely feel like this year is by far going to give us our best shot of winning the title. I actually wanted to do better than ninth place in Daytona, but th at place is really tough. You have to win your heat race, get th e start and hold your line to win. Nobody has ever come from the back to win that race. I feel like I've had a big atti tude adjustm e n t over the winter. Like Co li n Edwards, I've been listening to motivational tapes. No matter how corny it sounds, having a positive attitude is what can make a big d ifference in my resu lts. That's what the biggest problem with the sport is, period. All the riders, the mechanics, every bo dy, they just don't have a positive attitude; they're jus t so negative about the who le deal. So I figure if I can change my attitude and m ake sure it's positive, only positive thi ngs will come of it. I feel like I can win it. So you're sa yin g t h a t in the past, you've had the wrong outlook? I d on ' t t h in k it was a bad a t titude toward anything in par ticu lar, it was just a neg at ive a tt it ude if so me thing would happe n. If I did bad, I'd leave the track with a bad attitude. If we have a bad race track to race on, all the racers gei a bad attitu de all day long. I know that you can't sit the re and be positive all the time whe n things are bad, but if yo u sit the re and get d own on everyth ing, ho w are th ings ever go~ na get any better? How can the series get any bette r if everyone is being negative? The way I look at it is, hey - I could be working at McDonald's eight to five everyday. But I'm no t doing that. I'm racing every weekend. I'm eating, I'm making my house payments. I'm doing what [ wa nt to do. Why should I be negative about that? I'm doing what I really want to do, and it could definitely be worse. Where d id you get th e idea to listen to th ese tapes? , Well, I used to sell motorcycles at a deal ership around here , and we used to go hear these speakers telling us how a positive attitude could help us sell mo re bikes. Bu t to tell yo u the tru th, I read that article th a t Cycle N ews did with Colin Edwards, and about how it helped him. Now that I've star ted listening to them, it's helped tremendously. Even in everyday things. Every team out the re will have disagreements - even the factory teams. So I've told the team, forget all th at , we're gonna just be positive about every thing that happens. I left Dayto na wi th a ninth-place finish, and [ was pleased. Tenth cou ld have been wo rse. I could think of a lot of guys who would have loved to have my ninthplace finish . I got six points. Some of those guys didn't get any. So I'm going to go to Pomona rea dy to win . There's not a single race out there this year that [ don't think I can win . Oh, wait. I'm gonna have to scratch that. (Laughs) [ don't think I'm gonna win the Peoria IT. But we're going to do better there this year than we ever have before. You sai d that going into this se ason you feel as if you can w in it all. }tas there ever been a season in th e pas t that you felt the same way? To tell you the honest truth, no. Going into every year I've told myself that I can win races, b ut deep down inside I've known that it would be tough to win the whole deal. People might say that I'm just dreaming, thinking I can win the series. But [ fee l like [ can, I know I can . My new attitude has worked so far - look at the results from Daytona this year. [ went to that Florida series and won the first three races in a . row. Scotty Parker wasn ' t there, b ut everybody else was. [ just feel like we really have our motorcycl e working good, and ou r team had been toge ther now for four years. We know how to work together. I think that's the key. Parker and Bill Werner have been together forever. They know how to work together. Chris Carr will miss the ma jority of the se ri es thi s ye a r. Does that fact con tri b u te to you r hopes of winning the title? . Chris will be at several races, and I'm sure he'll outrun us at seve ral races. But in the end, [ don't think anyone will look a t the champion and say, 'Well, Chris Carr wasn't there: Because, hey , Kenny Robe r ts ain't th ere, Carroll Resweber ain 't the re, Bart Markel ain' t there either. You can only outru n whoever was th ere . Tha t's h o w it is . (Laug hs) I figu red that by the time [ was 30 years old, I wou ldn' t even be racing. But hell, now I'm 30, and [ feel better than I did when [ was 18. With age comes experience . Now I know how to win a race. Before, I could go to a race trac k an d be th e fastest guy there, but th en [cou ld never u nder stand w hy I didn't win . I know tha t we've got a sho t now. I ca n remember several rac es when