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/127932
INTERVIEW By Darryl Flack Photos by Gold & Goose f1 aving completed the fi~al day's en d ura nce tire tes ti ng befo re lunc h, Aaron Slight is sitting in th e Cas trol H ond a tr ail er a t Phill ip Island , happily munchin g on the rest of a piece of his favo rite cake. After finishing the three-day F1ammini test as the fastest of the Wor ld Sup erbike men, the 32-year-old New Zea la nder is living proof that you can ha ve your cake and eat it, too. Following ac rimonious yea rs with successive teammat es Carl Fogarty and Jo h n Kocinsk i, Slight ha s yet anothe r new chum to break in, albeit a less hostile one. Du ri ng th is in terview, new teammate Colin Edwards II burst in and cha llenged Slight to get back ou t on the track, to which he answered , "Get real!" Despite beingvery good friends, Slight, a six-ye ar veteran of World Superbike racin g, later volunteered that the sheer dynamics of being teammates w ill inevitably place pressure on thei r relationship. It's a lesson hard learned after a bitter falling-ou t wi th Fogarty, wh ich wa s later followed by refresher courses cour tesy of Anthony Gobert an d th en Kocinski . Rath er than sapping his mo rale , the on goin g ps ychologica l warfare off the tr a ck ha s only s h a r p ened his focu s , made him wiser an d mo re determi ned than ever. Despi te the pr essure of being in h is fift h year in arg uab ly World Su perbi ke raci ng's h ottest hot sea t, Sligh t is gra tefu l for his time in the Castrol Ho nda squad, a nd to th e p und its who consider him to be a conte nde r yet agai n. Rather than being in the tw iligh t of his career,ยท he be lieves he 's fitter a nd L L Aaron Slight mentally tou gh er th an he' s eve r been. Even though World Champion Kocinski has left to try his hand at 500cc Grand Pri x raci ng , Slig h t will confront the usua l sus pects Foggy, Troy Cors er, Scott Ru ssell , Akira Yan a g a w a, PierFrancesco Chili and newcomer Noriyuki H a g a . Bu t h is a p p roach this year incl u des n ot nominating numbers or nam es - his only competition will be his ability to ma intain peak fitness , w hic h he believes was threate ne d by a scia tic p.roblem with his back in 1997. For one who has pri ded himself on consistency, it was a fatal development that coincided with Kocins ki's transforma tion from chump to cha mp . This year, it's a strategy of win ning ra ces an d lettin g the champions hip take care of itself. Desp ite his brides maid tag, Slight says he hasn't deserved to win the title yet - whic h will make it all the more sweeter if he does. Go ing on your preseason form, y ou must be happy. Very happy, The test in Mala ysia went w ell. I was second fastest by a thousa nd th, a nd I was on race tires, too. I went two -tenths faster on them on th e 11th and 12th la p s when most guy s cou ld n't get mo re than thre e or four. It was hot - 38 degrees - and I was consistently fast. What about here at Phillip Islan d? Every day in the morning I've b een fastest bv far, and then in the afternoon I've beer; testing stuff and the ot her people have been catching up. Have the times been a bit slow? Yeah, the track's a bit slo w. The cond itions are good in the morni ng, and then the wind comes up in the afternoon and stuffs eve ry thing up. It's been brillian t wea ther considering wha t Phillip Island can ge t like. It doesn ' t get much better than it d id inthe mornings. Are you fi red up for this yea r, following yo u r well -repo rted mid s ea son slump in 1997? I'm more fired up this yea r tha n I've ever been . I didn' t know who my teamma te was going to be. I went back hom e and had a bit of a rethink, and started my training early becau se if it was John (Kocins ki), I was going to be read y for him. Does it matter who your teammate is in how hard you train? Hell, if it's John , it affects every thing! He was a har d guy to d eal with. . Did you have to deal with him? Oh,yeah. In what respect? Just being aro und . You couldn't ignore him? He was ru nning the team - he was the team boss . I mean , you can' t ignore that. How was he running the team? He just ru led the roost, he did what he wanted to do, and that was n't on . I was looking forward to the challenge again, but he didn't sign so now I have a teammat e I can work with. D id t h o s e epi sode s wi th Kocin sk i affect your motivation? N ot my motivation, it's a lwa ys there, always has been there. I started the year off really well , tryi ng to blank it all out. When I had that bad run in the middle of the year with back problems, he was co mi n g strong, wi n ning at his' ho me track. Bu t tha t was last year; I've learne d a lot from th at an d I' v e gone fro m s tre ng th to s trength w it h so me good testing results. Can you explain the problem you had with your back? I've always run for my general base fitness, and it was all those years of ru nning that started pinching a nerv e and it was getting worse and worse. It was causing a bad sciatic down one side of my leg, and it wasn' t very comfortable on the bike. I could feel it all the time so it was a ma tter of getti ng rid of it, which meant I had to give up running, w hich I based my fitness p ro gr am a round . Tha t was ha rd men tally and physically to give up. Do you do more cycling now? . Yeah, a lot more than I ever d id. I'm enjoying it because it' s a change, too, so, , I've reall y go t into that and that's why I' m a lot fit ter a nd feeling better th an ever. My fitn es s p ro gram h as b een going really well. Can yo u detail where th i n g s went wrong in '97? I had tw o bad races - a t Lag una Seca a n d Brand s Ha tch. Th e ac tual b a ck problem was at Monza, whic h was an okay race; then at Austria I had a seco nd and a third, so it was two bad races. But that was enough to put you out of contention? Yeah, some people think it (the slump) was half the season. A t Assen, I got a couple of fourths, Spain I was second and third, so it was going pretty goo d by th e n - it was jus t those tw o bad results. It wasn't tha t big a deal. I think it was the physical side of the back thing that let everything else get on top.of me. It's your fifth year in the team. Do you think you got sta le at all last year? It was a lot of thi ngs, mainly. physical things. I hope it wasn' t (getting stale). I never gave u p last year, bu t th e od ds were agai nst me halfway through. This year, I just want to be better prep ared . So you feel on top of it now? . Well, yeah, so long as I don't stray from my fitness trai ning progr am and injure so me thing else. Th at means I ha ve to keep away from hig h-impact stuff totally. I've given up the occasio nal game of tennis - all that stop-star t stuff.