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/127870
Is it easier or harder to ad jus t the 600 to get it to work for you? I think it' s har der, becau se you' ve got to keep it p rod uction-based. There' s a lot of th in g s th at yo u kn ow that there's potential to make it be tter, given what w can d o to our superbikes to mak e it better. We ca n't do tha t. We 've go t to ke ep it stock. It ca n be fru s tra ting at times. You say you find that a motivational thing? I try to make it a motivat ional thin g. What else motiva tes you? Trying to win a fourth title on the su perbikes is somet hing to shoot for, because if I could do tha t, I' d solo myself ou t from the rest of the guys. Tha t wo uld be kind of neat. And it's no harder now to get up and go racing than when you started? It' s a lways go in g to ge t hard er. It ' s never going to get easy. You might hav e a time or a moment or a race when you get everything right and you can clean . the guys up pretty good. But tha t' s not how it's going to be all the time. You 're always going to have new guys coming up an d more guys coming in, which is good. I like to be in it because it's going to im prove everybody out there as a rider, to a level of competition to compete wi th everyone else. And I think it's good for the series everyw here. Wh a t about wo rking w ith T o m my Hayden? It' s hard for me at times beca use I kind of feel I ha ve a hard time ex plaining so me of th e th in gs. I know w ha t he's talking about and what he feels, but to try to come ou t and explain it the-best I ca n - I have a hard time with it becaus e I'v e ne ver ex p lai ned it before . I've a lw ays done every thing for myself, on my ow n. It's kind of nice to have somebod y to tr y to help teach yo u' all th is stuff and, given the situation, let th em carry it on for you. I d on't know - I think I need to be a better teacher . Is that what you plan to do when you're done racing? Possibly. You never know. If I give it up in the next couple of years, I feel I would hav e quite a bit le ft to give as far as helping someo ne you ng who's coming up . I cou ld unders tand and rela te to a lo t o f th e st u ff they mi ght be hav in g trouble wit h and, in turn, possibly get them sorted out quicker . i1'Vho do you see for thi s year being the competition? The same guys as last year - plus more. 'Las t year it was good, because Miguel (DuHarn el) was there, Mat (Mlad in ) ca rne on p re tty s trong on the Duca ti, and Aaron (Yates) on the Suzuki came on p retty good midseason as well. This yea r yo u ' ve go t the sa me guys, plus we've got (Mike) Hale coming back on the Ducati, we've got (An thony) Gobert on a Duca ti. 1 think with Gober t there now, Thomas (Stevens) migh t ste p it up 'a s well a nd beco me o ne of the front guys. And there's Richie (Oliver) on the Y a m a ha. It ' s goi ng to be tou gh . It ' s good. I'm looking forw ard to it - to see if Vca n s till ge t up ther e a nd han g w ith them. How do you step it up yourself? A number of ways. You tr y to fo cu s mo re on wh at you 're doi ng, wh at you' re trying to get the bike to do for you on the race track. I' m always trying to make th e thing be tt er - not so mu ch faster lap times, but easie r to ride to do the lap times more consistently. I think if you can do that and alwa ys have a little bit in reserve, you ' re better off. If you need to try to make a break at the end of the race, you 've got that little bit extra . Rob M uzzy says that if they put the right bike under you, you 're tou gh to beat. Anyone can be beaten on an y given da y. My whole go al th e last two years is to focus on try ing to get the bike to wo rk as easy for me as I can possibly get it, an d in turn it makes the ridi ng a little easier. Why don't more people do tha t? Tha t's hard to'say . A lot of gu ys can go fast for a couple of lap s, but th ey d on't know ho w to adjust for th e tires going off, and they can' t change their riding styles to accommodate it, to allow for the change. The lap tim es are inconsistent. I change how I go 'th ro ug h a race. At th e sta rt of the race , you don' t necessarily ha ve to go in real dee p, beca use you've got good grip so you ca n ca r ry a lot of s peed th rough th e corners. O nce t he ti res s ta r t to go off, yo u've got to m a ke that time back up somewhere. The easies t way to do it is to ge t in on the brakes harder - as long as you don't overshoot it. If you can get in quicker, stop sooner, you 're slow e r through the middle, but you' re hurrying everything up in th e begin ning - then the times stay good. Does an yone else have the same sort of approach you ha ve? Migu el (Du l-Iarnel), I think, has come a long way in the last tw o years. Before, he could just go . There were good rid ers, but not what we have now . Just this last year , his style has chan ged quite a bit to whe re he' s con cen tr atin g on th e setup for the end of the race, rather than just to go in the be ginnin g. Ma t's (MIad in) the same wa y. He's constan tly after keeping his head d own the ent ire rac e. You ' ve go t to d o th a t, bu t you al ways want to keep you rs a little bit better than theirs .just to have that little bit of cus hion . What's the strength of you r team? Tha t's hard to say . I do n' t think we do any thing spec tacula rly better than any of the other guys. I just think we' re a little bit more thorough and we're all out. to accom plish th e same thing . A lap time or qu alifying o n pole is nice, but the ma in deal th a t you' re ther e fo r is Su nd ay's race..You have to be the re at the en d . A nd that's what everyo ne is striving and working for - that one setup for Sunday' s race. It seems that your tea m suffers fewer problems than other teams, eve n if it's just dissension . Yeah, you' re always going to have problems . It's hard to have a perfect team. I don' t think anybody has a perfect team , bu t you've got to be able to get through tho se prob le ms a nd kee p everyo ne wo rking togeth er. Everyone's got to d o th e sa me thi ng and be enjoyi ng them selves. You can 't have friction there. What could you do better as a team? As a ride r, you alwa ys think you need more su ppo rt, mor e parts, more peo plebu t that' s not always going to help you . You need to hav e the right people. More people are just going to cause confusion if they don't know what they're doin g or what they need to be d oing. Par ts go the same wa y. If you' ve got too many things to try, you' re not going to know where yo u ' re go in g to be o r wha t you 've got for Sunday' s race. On ano ther subject, what do you think of the series? It' s corne a lon g w ay in the p ast few yea rs . It's a . nice change , especia lly with me ge tting older. I feel pretty fortunate to be able to make a decent living her e a t horne. When I was cornin g up , the first chan ce I got to go over to Europe, I was out of here - ju s t becau se th e re jus t wasn 't any money here. And that tended to hurt ou r se ries, because all our good guys would up and leav e wh en they got a chan ce to do something else. And no w, wi th all. th e ma nu facturer s invol ved, I think we're g o ing to ge t some potential outs ide spo nso rs for the series as well. It's kind of nice to see all that.kind of take a 180. Now we' ve got Eu rop ean guys corning to the Stat es to rid e ou r series, w hich is kind of a nice change. How could they make it beller? It's always going to get bett er if you can get high er-p aying purses, more races. You th ink more races? We need more races. How man y more? I'd say closer to 20 wou ld be nice. You'd really like to race that much. I wo uld n't mind it. That's like every two weeks. Which is fine. Tha t's what we d id in Europe. Well - 15, 16. It works out about the same. You've got the flyaway races that norm ally are consecu tive , but once you' re in Eu rope, it seemed that we raced every other week - w hich is nice. I wo uld n' t care to s tay off the bike more than two weeks d uring the season anyhow. If we hav e tha t long of a break, we norm ally go testi ng. As a rider, yo u lose tha t ed ge; you' ve got to stay sharp. And if you can't ride th e bikes, p ractice and rac e bikes, it' s hard to stay sharp and keep that edge. It would do everybody good. I do n't think t he cos t of run ning that many m or e races - you're talking about maybe six or seven more races - I don't thfnk it'd be that mu ch more. Maybe another motor or two just to put in the rotation. But there aren't tha t many good race tracks. The re a re . We've got an other one in Florida here - Hom est ead. It' s a reall y g oo d tr ack . Al b uq uerque' s prob ab ly a good tra ck. There' s an ol d o ne th at ' s no t too bad . We're going to Willo w agai n, w hic h I always th ou ght was a n o ka y track, but, agai n, w here ar e the specta tors goi ng to wa tch that one? Portland , p ot enti all y, m a ybe; it's no t so bad . Top eka. They're there - it's just trying to get the people to go there. How do you do that? It's a hard deal. It seems like the races that do good have gotten to be like a trad itional sort o f thing - Mi d-O hio, Laguna Seca, Elk ha r t Lake. Th ose are a ll rea IIy g rea t tracks. Bu t, on any of the other race tracks, yo u can have just as good a race. What makes a good race track for racers? A nu mbe r of things. I think the bigge st disadvantage or downfall of some of these tracks is just the track length itself. The shorter tracks you would think put on a better race because the bikes could be more equal, but, in turn, it separates the gu ys more becau se you're into the tra ffic soo ne r - you get spread ou t. It's harder to make up time on the short track than it is on the longer track because it's so hard to d rop half a second on a mile-and a-quarter track, whereas on a 2 1/2-mile track, half a second is not that bad . Are there any tracks yo u go to now that you wish you didn't have to go to? Yea h - th e short ones. I wasn' t really fond of Colorado. Lou d on - I've never reall y liked the new layout; the old layou t I thou ght was grea t. It was a good ri d er 's track. Persona lly, 1 jus t di slike short race tracks. Anything 2 1/2 miles or mor e - I d on ' t care, norma lly it's a p re tty good rac e tr ack. Bu t we need mo re races, so we have to kind of d eal with the shorter tracks jus t becau se they want races. Do you th ink th e ri ders ha ve enough say in wh ere you go and how th ing s get done? No, beca use we do n' t r eall y have enoug h to choose fro m to say yeah or no. I think we need to take eve ryt hing we ca n ge t and try to wo rk w ith th e track owners an d promoters to make it better and build it up. It's kind of frustrating to kind of get stuck at a place when they don' t want to do anything for you. Then you get upset about it. But if the g uys a re willi ng to w o r k a nd change s tuff for yo u, then it's ok ay. Pomona wasn't too nice of a little race tra ck, but th e guys tried hard and we got some people there so they put on a legitimate race. I d idn't reall y ca re for tha t p lace so much because it was so bumpy' - bu t we ha d some pretty good racing. Do you think the riders in general have enough say? No, and I d on' t even think th e guys at th e Grand Prix lev el d o. There' s not e nough of them at th at le vel to ge t together a nd voi ce tha t k ind of sa y . Every body is alwa ys going to be ou t for themself. When I left in '90, to when I ยท carne ba ck in '95 , they' ve taken some trem endou s steps forward . It' s nice to be part of some thi ng tha t' s expanding and d ra wi ng mo re in terest. You really ap pre ciate yourself and what you do a lot more when you see all this gro wing around you. fX fa B ~ 21