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/127951
INTERVIEW By Scott Rousseau ~ 34 he offices of Cycle News have been receiving a fairly steady s trea m o f letter s a n d phone calls since the beginning of the 1998 AMA Gra nd Na tio na l Cha mp ioship Series season; and all have wa nted to know the sa me thing: Where the heck is Kevin Atherton? To longtime read ers and fans of d irt tr a ck racing, th e question m ay h a ve see med valid enough. After all, Atherton had just enjoyed two stellar seasons with the Michigan-based Total Control Racing team - especially 1996, w hich saw him win six out of the last 10 races Kevin Atherton and stand on the podium in 10 out of the last 11 before finishing second in the standings to Scoll Parker. Then, a fter ru nning well agai n a ll seas on and claiming three more Grand Na tional wins, brin ging his career total to 11, Atherton appeared to su rprise his fans - and even his team and sponsors by a n no u nci ng tha t he pl anned to go road racing in 1998. That an nounceme nt then ap peared to be somewhat substantiat ed by TCR' s announcement of its three-rider team of Will Davis, Pa ul Bergstrom a nd Nicky Hayden, made in conjunction with a name change to Tom Cummings Racing after Cummings purchased the team from Benson Ford Jr. Long time, no see: Reigning AMA Grand National Champion SCott Parker (Ielt) grabs hold of protege and former title rlvai Kevin Atherton (right) at the HarleyDavidson 95th ann iversary celebration in Milwaukee, Just long enough for Cycle News to grab a photo. Atherton is alive and well, and has no plans to return to dirt track anytime soon. A therton was briefly spolled walkin g behi nd pit row on Pole Day for the Daytona 200 du ri ng Camel Motorcycle Week. Then, no Kevin. Anywhere. And the let ters and phone calls began pouring in , a s did rum ors that Atherton was going stock-ear racing or Ind y-car racing . Or was getting ready to check himself into the Bettv Ford Clinic. Well , we found Kevin Atherton - it wasn't that hard to do - and we took the chance to chat with him and set the record straight. So stop calling. So, w hat ha ve yo u been d oing with yourself? Just bein g a no rmal 27-year-old guy, man. An d what is that like? It' s relaxin g. I' m jus t enjoying myself, really. How else can I put it? There's a lot mor e to life than racing motorcycles. I mean , eve r since I was 4 yea rs old, I've been racing motor cycles - every weekend . I rece ntly did one of my first family re unions in a lo ng tim e, went to my cous in's grad ua tion and saw a lot of relatives that I haven't seen in a long time. I wo u ldn't have bee n able to do that if I'd had to go to some race track. But I still rid e motorcycles every day. I just turned 22,000 miles on my 916. I still love to go fast on a motorcycle, but I' ve just been bored with it the last couple of years. I just have no enthusiasm to go racing . I wen t to Milwaukee for tha t 95th anniversary celebration all-star race at State Fair Park. I jumped on the thing and was going fast right after the third lap . I was competitive, but that was just an exhibition race, and nobody had anything to prove. Even then I thought, 'Maybe this will get my ambition going again: But it was like, 'Nope: I turned around and headed back down to North Carolina, w here I'm staying, and head ed out onto the lake to go water-skiing. I'm just re la xi n ' , hanging out with friends and being a normal guy. . It seemed like it wa sn 't long after you left th at the rumors started flying. Peop le were saying tha t they' d h eard you were in troub le wit h a lcohol an d things like that. How do you respond to that? (Sighs) Oh man ... I'm s ure there's all kind of rumors like that goi ng on, but t hey ' re no t true a t all. People sa y th ings, bu t you oughta believe nothing of w hat you hear and half of what you see. Really, they can say anything they wa nt to, and it's not go nna bother me. I don' t ha ve anything to prove to any one. D escribe th e w hole sce n ario beh ind your leaving TC R. A lot of confusion w as b ro ug h t about by yo ur announcing th at you w ere leavi ng to go roa d racing. What really happen ed th ere? Well, it wa s actually in the mi ddle of last year - before Indianapolis - that I just s tarted getting bored with it and wanted to do something different. I thought that I'd like to get on a road race r at the time, but then when I r ea ll y think about it, I d o n ' t e ven want to do that. I don't want to spend every weekend at a race tr ack anymore. So, at Ind ian apolis, I talked to Benson (Ford) about it and told him that I really did n' t wan t to d o it anymore, a nd I talked to T.e. an d Davey (Watls) abou t it befor e the Ca lif orn ia sw ing. It was nothi ng to do wi th the team or any thing like tha t. It w as a decision I'd made for myself that there was mor e to life than racing. Even then, I thou ght that I'd still d o a couple races this yea r, you know, like the TV races. The n, as it came closer to doing it, I deci ded tha t I wasn' t into it. And so that wo uldn' t be fair to a team owner if I went out th ere and wasn't really interested in it. That's when you get hurt or things go wrong. like I said,