Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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ChellV Trucks Kawasaki's Tonv Meiring By SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS Norn completely blind, a tiger cub takes a mere ~16-18 months before it is a fully independent hunter, capable of making the necessary kills in order to survive in the wild. During that steep learning curve, however, it will make its fair share of mistakes as it is shown the ropes by the full-grown cats with years of experience. Sometimes that means letting its prey get away, but as time passes, the cub's senses become as razor sharp as its claws. With its skills fully developed, it will rank among the most feared predators in the jungle. So it makes little sense to fault Tony "The Tiger" Meiring for the few mistakes that he has made while hunting his first AMA 600cc Supersport title as a full-fledged factory rider. At 18 years old, the youngster from Tracy, Califomia, is still learning how to fend for himself aboard his Chevy Trucks Kawasaki ZX-6R, but he is already showing that he has the tools to get the job done, even if he has let a couple chances slip away. For one thing, Meiring has already been recognized by the AMA as a pure-bred via his marking as an AMA Horizon Award winner in 1999. He has since paid his dues as a journeyman road racer before quietly taking his place alongside teammates Eric Bostrom and Tommy Hayden at Team Kawasaki for the 2002 season. A diminutive 5'7" at just under 130 pounds, Meiring has already shown his voracious appetite for success as he has worked his way from the tail of the pack to a bona fide contender at every AMA 600cc Superport and 750cc Superstock round thus far. He was a solid second at the Pikes Peak round of the 600cc Supersport Series, but rookie mistakes have since cost him two shots at victory; he crashed out of the lead at Brainerd and was running right with the lead group when he dropped it again at Laguna Seca. But Meiring refuses to get upset with himself. He is taking it in stride. To him, it's all part of the hunt. Q A Even though you've had a couple of crashes, it is evident that you have elevated your game quite a bit over the last couple of races as compared to the way you started the year. Yeah, well, at the beginning of the year, everything was so new to me, and so we just wanted to take it slow rather than go big and have everything go wrong. Q 46 AUGUST 7. 2002' cue • e n _ vw drive to the races, and my dad would stay for work and then fly in for the weekend. We were on my own bikes, and I just rode them like I know how to ride, and I guess Kawasaki saw something that they liked. They kept in touch with us the whole year. Then in November they asked me if I'd like to ride for them. [Team Manager] Mike Preston knew a little bit about me from my dirt tracking because we both grew up in the same area, Stockton. was the plan always to go road racing? Well' the way that it started was that we were dirt tracking at Municipal Stadium in Daytona, and Scott Russell parked next to us. And we got to talking to him because he has asked if we had a spare XR 100 carburetor that we could borrow [sic] to him. So we said, "Yeah, we have one." Later, my dad went up to his room to pick it up, and that's when we really first thought about road racing, because Scott told us that we should really try it. He said, "You already know what dirt tracking is like. You should try something new." So we tried it, and it wasn't too bad. It was a lot of fun. I liked the speed of everything. And did you recognize the career potential in road racing? Oh yeah. There are lot of great people in all kinds of racing - it doesn't matter what it is but in dirt track racing there are only a couple of factory rides. In road racing there are more spots available, but it's still tough because there are so many good riders that you have to race against. So, would you have been happy to go dirt track racing if the road racing opportunity had not presented itself? Yeah. As long as I'm racing a motorcycle, I'm happy. But do you consider yourself a dirt tracker who road races, or a road racer who used to dirt track? A road racer who used to dirt track - and still does occasionally. What have been the biggest challenges as far as getting used to the new Kawasaki deal? What has that been like? The toughest thing has been that the bikes are so well tuned that you can feel any little bump, so it has been tough to get the suspension dialed in You kind of slid onto the Kawasaki team rather quietly. How did that all come about anyway? In 2000, I rode the Formula USA Series. It was a good series, but my bikes never stayed together. Then last year it was a full-blown privateer deal for AMA. My mom, my grandpa and I would s