Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

obvious, but I'll ask it anyway: What <1.0 you feel is your greatest racing accomplishment to date? It would have to be winning the Nevada Rally in '95. It was a lot of work, and it all paid off. It was pretty exciting. Do you know if Casey Folks is going to do any more rallies? I heard he might do a three-day rally. think he has a three-day, dual sporttype rally planned out. It's total road book. I'm going to plan to go to it. In '94, when I first rode the (Nevada) rally, I didn't know how to navigate. I just kind of got thrown into it and they said, "Here, go learn." It was a total learning experience. Then, the next year, I came ~ack and I had to beat all those guys. IS this year your first attempt to qualify for the International Six-Day Enduro? Yes, this year we kind of made some tentative plans to try to go to the !SDE. It will pretty much Pe out of Bruce's and my own pockets to go, because our pre. gram really isn't structured to go to those races. It's just a personal goal. What about some foreign rallies? Are Iihere any of those on the horizon? I5d really like .to try that avenue, ride some rallies in Africa and Europe. It just kind of depends on what kind of deals come up. When a good deal comes up, I want to go and try them, because I think r, can navigate real well. It's one of my goals, but not an immediate one. There are some pretty big Casey Folks races coming up. Are those your immediate goals? Yes, I plan to do Mesquite-te-Ely solo. A lot of Casey's courses now are some of the evada Rally stuff, and a 3OO-mile race is just like one day at the Nevada &ally. I kind of have a mental mindset to where I can race 300 miles in Nevada, no problem. I just trunk if I ride with anybody else, they're just going to slow me down. You rode a Grand National Cross Country race last year. How did that go? (Laughs). That was a total learning experience. The riding is really neat if y_ou want to go riding. That's what I like to do. I would call that hard-core trail tiding. I do that a lot with Jimmy ~Lewis). It rained a few days before the GNCC event and the place where they had the race was alI clay, so that just made it really slippery. It was in Ohio. It was difficult for me, for sure. I was totally out of my element. I basically just ~~pt going and kept going. I didn't have any problems, other than my riding ability in that type of environment. Did you go out there and hang out with Scott Summers? Was that part of the deal? Yes. The whole deal was, I was to go out and spend a week out at rus ranch and train with him and learn how to ride those trails. What's his training routine like? (Laughs). He's everybody's hero as far as I'm concerned. He's warly. The guy really is dedicated to what he is doing, and 100 percent of his time is dedicated to racing. He does a good job and he taught me a lot of things. Before your injury - and right now what do you do to train at home? I ride mountain bikes two to three times a week, whenever I can fit it in. I started weight training at Honda this year. Obviously, I need that (laughs), riding the heavy bike that I do. A lot of stuff I learned from Scott Summers, the way he trains. He has a rigorous program. That helps you mentally and makes you more confident. Also, I try to go riding once or twice a week between races, depending on what's coming up. So, if there's a grand prix coming up, you'd probably go ride motocross beforehand? Yes. Say there was a GP coming up at Glen Helen (Raceway); I would go out there on a Thursday and set up my bike. Before a desert race, I usually go out on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, maybe not even to the area of where the race is, but we usually test in one specific area. I'll go out there and just make sure everything's dialed and set in. Then I ride a 5O-mile loop or so and call it good.. Speaking of motocross, you were in "Terrafirma II" and another video called "What Up?" What was it like doing the "Terrafirrna" video with the helicopter? "Terrafirma" - it was really neat working with the Fox guys. They were a lot of fun. It was a lot of work, though. For that two-and-a-half-minute segment, it took from 4:30 in the morning till 5:30 at night, and it was pretty much just riding the whole day. It took a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun. The footage they did get was great for me, and it showed a lot of people in the motocross world kind of what desert racing is like. I've gotten a lot of good reviews on it. "What Up?" was kind of a lower-key deal. I didn't get that much footage in it. Mark Howard called me one day and said, "Hey, do you want to come out and shoot a video?" and I said, "Yeah,'" and they were able to get me in what they could. I was looking at some old Cycle News issues last night, and I saw that in the 1990 Battle-to-Victory Hare & Hound, you finished 16th overall. Yep. That was my first District 37 desert race on a CR500. I was 19 years old. I rode 250s and 500s back then. I had both. For District 37, you're still riding the Open class, right? You're not riding the Four-Stroke class? When they (D-37) started the FourStroke class, we kind of just told Jeff (Capt, Campbell's teammate at Honda) to ride the Four-Stroke class, and I was to ride the Open class. Before they started the Four-Stroke class in the desert, it had been so long since a four-stroke had won the Open Expert class. [ can't recall. It was probably before I was born; who knows? When the California so-called twostroke ban (emission regulations) starts to show its effects, do you feel you'll have a great advantage over everyone else because you've been on a fourstroke for so long? Yes, I've been riding a four-stroke for five years now. I haven't ridden a twostroke for any amount of time for, like, three years, so I figure I've got way more four-stroke seat time than anybody in the last five years. There have been times when I've been sitting on the starting line of a hare and hound and I've seen you or your teammate Jeff Capt still kicking after the banner has dropped. Do you think starting a big four-stroke on a dead start has hampered your overall performance? Riding a four-stroke kind of has some great disadvantages, but, then again, you have some really great advantages. You just have to learn to use the advan- tages. As far as starting is concerned, Jeff's a real good starter. It's taken me a long time to get good starts. The two-stroke will beat you out of the hole, bu t you make it up later when they're tired from ricocheting off rocks and.. your bike's as smooth as a Cadillac. You can go through a rock garden not bouncing all around. Just go right straight through it. You go to Carlsbad (Raceway), I'll beat anybody on my XR there. It's so hard-packed and slippery. That's what was so great about the evada Rally, and down in Baja when they run the roads and stuff. I can make such good time on my four-stroke, because the thing is hooking up and the twostrokes are just spinning. Honda is still going down to Baja this year. Have you guys made any different plans since Kawasaki Team Green isn't going down there? Is it the same game plan as usual? Basically, we have the same plans to go down to all the SCORE races, whether Team Green is down there or not. You know, if you look in the past, Honda was there long before Team Green, and we'll be down there until there's no more. So basically we have pretty much the same strategies. As we saw at San Felipe this year, the competition isn't as tough, but Baja is Baja. It takes a lot of work and prep to finish one of those races. How many teams is Honda going to field in the Baja races? This year, we'll have one factory team and one support team. The support team will ride our (works) bike, but we're not paying for any of their expenses. Casey Longman, Tim Staab and my brother Jamie are our support guys. We're not really paying for them, we're just trying to help them as much as we can. You obviously have had a lot of support throughout the years, as far as family goes. My dad passed away in '87 when I was 16. I still wanted to race, so my mom supported me. We spent a couple of years racing SCORE race out of her pocket and she spent thousands of-dollars supporting me and my brother. At the same time, r was going out with Faye. I went out with her for six years until we finally got married four years ago. Now she supports me. What are your goals for the rest of 19977 My first goal is to qualify for the ISDE in Italy and earn a gold medal. Some more immediate ones we have are the Baja 500. I want to win Mesquite-to-Ely, Vegas-to-Reno, and then I want to win the 1000. m 31

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