Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Then you went to a Pittsburgh Steelers game the next day. How was that? It was crazy. I have never seen that many people 63,400 spectators. And the people, they are fanatics. They have all kinds of funny equipment, towels, and jackets and shirts or whatever. When you go the first time. there is a game, but there is also so much happening at the game. So you don't see the game, you see all the things around. Those fans, they are crazy. How are you looked at in the press over in Europe? Are you known in the sports world there? Yes, in Europe, in the bikes world, yes, most people know what we do. But most of the regular people, they just follow the ice hockey. That is what is big in Finland. If you're like me, I do pretty good. I know most of the people. I play ice hockey and try to go where the important people are. So they know me, but a lot of the riders, they don't do anything outside of racing. And enduro is very small in Finland compared to other sports. But I know a lot of people from the big companies, and I try to go with them during the week. I just do it because it's nice, it's not to help me, it's just because I do enough with the riding, and I like to do things that are different some times. You seemed to understand GNCC racing right from the start. What did the team tell you about what to expect? Of course, Ron Heben [KTM team manager] was a big help; he has been in the sport a long time. He knows all the tricks. There are so many things you have to learn yourself. I got good advice from Paul Edmondson and others who had been in the U.S. before. But the thing is, you have to find your own way how to do things. So basically, they told me how it is and what I should do. Eventually, I have to follow my own program. Is the terrain here similar to that in Europe? You can find all kinds of terrain and tracks that you can find in Europe. Where I live in Finland, it is more sandy. but we have the forests and roots and rocks, too. But when you go to France and Italy, you get the differ- ent soil, like hard-pack and soft dirt. So the terrain is the same. The difference is the racing. There are so many riders, like at Unadilla, the track was very rough because there were so many riders out there, even before our race. You dominated Europe and did well in your one race here last year. How confident were you before the first race? I did that one race last summer, so I know what to do, but when the new season starts, and you're going to race all of the races, I didn't have any idea. Basically, I just started the race and did the best that I can. I don't have any plans. That's even what I do now. I don't have plans, like, maybe I should follow someone or go faster now. I don't do that. I just go as fast as I can right from the start. Did you think it was going to be easy after winning the first round? It's a long series. Even if you win the first race, it's motorsports, so anything can happen. You can't follow the points standings or things like that. It gives you a lot of confidence, yes, but at one moment you can crash and break yourself and it's over. So you have to keep concentrating until you have enough points for you to win the title. GNCC is a mix of motocrosslike speed with some trialslike tough technical sections. Talk about your background in trials and motocross. Trials is my training when I'm home. When I'm home in the summer. I didn't do too much training in the summer on the motocross bike. I have been riding the motocross bike all year - you don't get any speed during the summer break. So I ride the trials bike. I think that's the toughest kind of motorcycle racing. What about that summer break? You had some problems at Wisp and then we had the summer off. How did that make you feel? Of course, you feel bad when you have a lot of good races and then nothing works. Then you start thinking, "is it me or the bike'" But at the race in West Virginia, I had problems with my fork - it was broken - and the same thing at the Wisp. But at the Wisp, I didn't know. There were so many rocks, I just thought it was the track, but my suspension was broken. If you crash, there is usually a reason - you take a bad line or whatever. But at Wisp, I didn't know what was wrong! I would just crash so fast and I didn't know what happened, I was just on the ground with my bike and I didn't know why. Iwas pretty pissed. Before those races, I didn't do anything different, so I knew I should have had the speed. After the race I found out what was wrong. So how pumped were you to finally be back racing after the summer? Well, you saw what happened after [he lost the race] in South Carolina. You have to prove something, not to others, but to yourself. You want to do better. It helps, CYCLE NEWS • JANUARY 4,2006 49

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