Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

stepped their game up, and there are three or four guys who have a legitimate chance to be there at the end. After you had built up a comfortable points lead, how hard were you actually trying to win each race? Or were you just racing for title? I'll sit here and say, "Yeah, I was really trying to win." I go to every race and try to win, but I think there is something inside of me that goes into protection mode, and I did what I had to do and left it at that. I think the other guys got better as the year went on. I think our bike was really good - we rode the same bike the whole year. I think the other guys improved as the series went on. I got off to a good start. The way I look at it is that I just did what I wanted to do, and I got a great lead at the beginning of the first half of the series and just maintained after that, really. I just did what I had to do, but it happened to be at the beginning of the season. If you flipped-flopped it, I probably could've done the same thing, and do what I have to do. Definitely, Chad and them rolled it on, basically they had to and I didn't. But I go to every race to win. What were your thoughts right after you clinched the Supercross title? I was just pumped to win the title. The only thing, with about four races to go, I figured I had a great shot to win it - it would take a big mishap - and it was like a long drawn out process. "Man, let's get it over with!" [Winning the title] was great, but almost not as great as When he's not at home, RC spends much of his time at his small ranch house, where his practice tracks are located. that first win at Phoenix was. Oh, man, that was just unbelievable, because it had been over a year and a half since I won a Supercross. I was so happy. The last one before that was, shoot, I think Daytona in '03. After that, I never won, Chad won after that. I got my first 2S0 [career] podium at Phoenix, so it's a special place for me. I got my first podium in 2000. I got third to Jeremy and [David] Vuillemin. That was the race that Vuillemin caught Jeremy and passed him with a couple of laps to go. I was the guy in third about 20 seconds back. How do you like working with Roger DeCoster? That guy is awesome. Besides just being a racer, he's pretty smart. He's worked at Suzuki a long time, he worked at Honda for a while, and he knows what the bike has to do to win, and that's nice. To work with him is great. He knows whether the rider is the problem or the bike is the problem, and he will do what it takes within his will - to get the best program, and that's comforting from a racer's standpoint - to know that your manager is doing everything possible. Do you take advice from him? Absolutely. We think alike. He's a smart guy. He always helps me. That's what's great about him, a guy of his stature - I'll take all the advice I can get. How did DeCoster fit into your already-established and proven entourage? It was pretty easy. He adapted, not only Roger, but the whole team made everybody feel very welcomed, from making Scott Taylor [Fox Racing] feel welcomed, to my family and my close friends. Everyone just kind of came right on board, like, we never missed a beat. We have a great working relationship, everybody's on the same page. It's amazing; we've had a great year, and they want to do better and better. That's nice because they're not complacent, and they're superhungry to keep winning. I worked with [DeCoster] a couple of times before I rode for Suzuki - the MX des Nations and stuff - and I've always enjoyed working with him. I think he had a lot of respect for me and respects the way I work and what I do, and it's right back to him. The road goes both ways. We both have the same work ethics. National Series] and didn't know what to think. I was scared going in, I've never felt that before in my whole career. I was, like, "man, I don't know what to go on." I just had a question mark in my head. Did you have any close calls of not finishing a moto? We had a couple of close calls throughout the outdoor season. At Red Bud, my bike overheated real bad and almost completely stopped with two laps to go. We heard that you tried using dry ice to cool the fuel before the motos? Yes, but we had it too cold. It formed condensation, and there was frost on my [aluminum] fuel tank and stuff like that, and I think it built up condensation, maybe in the fuel somehow - got in there - and I think that's what caused that at Red Bud. We learned from that, and we quit doing that. In general, what did you think of the RM-Z4S0 when you first started riding it? As far as horsepower, the bike has a lot of horsepower. It's a superfast bike. It's the fastest bike I've ever rid- And your mechanic, Mike Gosselaar, did he fit in well at Suzuki, too? Mike fit in awesome, and that was another key deal with the move to Suzuki. I wanted him to come. I think that Suzuki has definitely benefited from Mike and myself. It's been a great combo, we're all learning. We've learned from Suzuki and they've learned from us. How did your testing with the brand·new RMZ4S0 four-stroke go? That was nerve-wracking. We had a lot of problems testing. The bike was overheating a lot, and the settings - I didn't feel like I had a good setting until, like, we always call it the five o'clock setting. We got the setting, like, five o'clock the day before we went to Sacramento [for the first outdoor National]. I was skeptical, I didn't know what to think. We could never finish a moto in practice or testing - I think I did one time. The bike would overheat and the gas would boil over. They changed a couple of things before we went to Sacramento. We showed up and luckily everything worked pretty good. After that race, we went back East, and it was a little cooler and things got better. Each week we figured out what was causing this, and what was causing that. I was very skeptical [going into the CYCLE NEWS • JANUARY 4,2006 27

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