Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW just like last year was. Last year was a great battle between the five of us as far as the championship battle with all the lead changes in the points standings. It was like a big rotation. Guys would drop down and everyone took their turn at the top. With the way that you finished up last year, it must have felt like a really long off-season. What did you do with yourself during the past six months? Yes, it really was. It was like, gosh, I wanted to go racing in ovember. I was ready to go again in three weeks. But in the off-season we went in and fixed the body. I had a complete knee reconstruction done to my right knee where they went in and put a new ACL in - it was completely destroyed. But it (the repair) has given me a lot of confidence. Two hours after surgery I was back in therapy, and two weeks later I was back on a motorcycle - play riding, not getting too serious. Scott Parker and I went out west, but I didn't get to do any skiing because the doctor told me to not even think about that. Yeti sent me some of those studded Extreme Game tires for my mountain bike, so I put those on and went up some of the hills and would just come bombing down. ['d get going really fast and then, wham! Ground-sky-groundsky-ground-sky (laughs). I did a lot of mountain biking and a lot of rehab on the knee. Sarah Stanton (wife of Team Honda supervisor Jeff Stanton) hanclles my therapy. We also did some ice riding, though the ice was kind of shitty , this year because it kept getting hot and cold, and that's bad for the ice. I've been riding the motocross bike since February. We're pretty focused. You've been accused of lacking focus sometimes, and sometimes it has been said to be because of things that go on in your personal life. 0'0 you think that's a fair comment? I don't think that anything personal has ever really bothered me on the race By ScoII Rousseau t's funny how good things can come out ofa bad sihlation. Take for example, the rainout at the Mineral Wells Half Mile in West Virginia. As 1strolled into the lobby of the race headquarters, Amerihost Inn near the West Virginia Motor Speedway, I pondered what would become of the pages that were earmarked for coverage of the event in Cycle ews. With the race rained out (see In The Wind), there was little to do but hape that the boss and the rest of the capable CN staff could fill the space that Mother Nature had .seen fit to wash au t. But then I saw Total Control Racing's Kevin Atherton over in ti,e corner of the lobby. The normally upbeat, smiling youngster from Michigan was clearly bummin; so 1 decided to go have a chat with him. But before 1 did, 1 ran out to the old rent-a-dent al/d grabbed my tape recorder and a notepad to see if we couldn't fill a COl/pie of pages all our own .. We sat down in a corner of the lobby and winged it. 1 asked whatever questions came to mind, he answered, and a good thing came out at it. I got Kevin Atherton. His thougllts of the moment and for the upcoming year. For him, it all revolves around being the man to beat Scott Parker. You have to be. a little disappointed over this cancellation after all the momentum you carried on the big bike last year. How is this going to affect you mentally? I don't know how it's going to affect me. We had really planned to go racing. We've had a couple weekends off, and we've been itching to go racing. I mean, you can ride motocross bikes and all that, but we really wanted to go, and it's tough to come to the first 750 race of the year and sit through a rainout when the next one's not scheduled for two more weeks down the road. It's disappointing, but at least Harrington is coming, and we'll just have to get the mindset back. This week I'll just go and be out on the (motocross) bike and be training. You got a win at Mineral Wells in '93, so you know you were a contender. Yeah. I love this race track. It's a neat design. It's high-banked, and it's fast, and the guy with the biggest "ones" is going to win it. So then what do you think about getting your start at Harrington? How have you done there? I like Harrington. We struggled there in '95, but last year we were fast, and then it got rained out - here we go again, huh? But like I said, we struggled for most of the year in '95 and then last year we got our chassis dialed in and everything went well. I'm looking forward to going to that one too. Let's talk about the second half of last season. You were on fire. You won five races and finished on the box in 10 of the lastll. What were the factors there? We just had a lot of momentum and I learned an awful lot. The bikes were working to my riding style, basically. You know, I've always known that I could go fast and win races, but sometimes the track didn't suit my needs or the motorcycle didn't suit my needs. ow we've got the motorcycle working to my advantage. That's what gave uS that huge step up last year, that momentum. I want to carry that over into this year really bad. That's the biggest thing - that we've found the combination that works best for Kevin Atherton. And now I just have to go ride the race track. Once you get the motorcycles working good, you can make them work anywhere. . The motorcycles are dialed in. How about your relationship with your team? You're in your fourth year with the same program. How would you assess the progress that the TCR team has made? The team has made a huge step forward. Now every time we do things, we're not looking for stepping stones. We've established a solid base, and now everything we do seems to help the pro- gram out whereas before we would make this change or that change and not really be sure where we were going. Now we know exactly what's going on. We haven't even changed the bikes that much for this year. Really, why should we? We do have some new tuff going on that we were hoping to try out today, so that's another bummer. But we've basically got the same equipment as last year with some new stuff that will hopefully make it a little better. The things are working really good, so I don't know how much further forward we can go. So if you see yourself being as strong as last year, and in fact once again fighting for the championship, who do you see as your main competition for the crown? Obviously Scott Parker, and? Obviously Scott Parker... Will Davis, Rich King and Joe Kopp. That's going to be the group. It's going to be a hell of a season, and I just can't wait to get it started. It's going to be a great season track. Personal things within the teams, maybe, like when we're not communicating right and misjudging the race track - that can be a problem..But as far as my person.al life goe~, that doesn't matter. When you go to a race track, you go there to race. It doesn't matt~r what went on the day before. It doesn't affect me. Some people may think that way, and that might be a way for them to make excuses. But I think that I'm pretty laid back. We're having fun, and we can still go race motorcycles on the weekend. You're still reall)! good friends with Scott Parker, and you were always looked upon as his protege at the factory. Are you satisfied that you've finally stepped out of his shadow? Are you satisfied that you are your own person and are recognized as such? Yes, but that really didn't happen until last year. I mean, I won a few races here and there, but everything was still "Scott Parker." I learned so much from .. Scott, but it's time to put that (association). behind. I am my own person, and I

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