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/1437138
INTERVIEW I 2021 CYCLE NEWS RIDER OF THE YEAR COOPER WEBB P86 Roczen in the series points. For sure, the pressure was on to get on the right track and Webb and the team burned the midnight oil trying to find the right settings. "Kenny was so dominant those first six races, so there was defi- nitely some urgency," said Webb. "Leaving Indy, I was 18 points down. That's only round six. So, I think that was where it was like, we really need to turn this around and start making some points up, or otherwise it's going to get out of hand pretty quick." In hindsight, Webb considers the third night in Indy as a turning point. "We made a setup change at Indianapolis three, after the Tuesday race," explained Webb. "That night, I ended up getting second to Kenny. That was an overall great day. I qualified first and won my heat race and then ended up second in the main. To me that's when things definitely turned around." During the pre-season, the team had been testing a new experimental shock. "We made a change in the off-season to the air shock," said Webb. "Right away I really liked it and felt like it was a really good direction. I think for me, I didn't start riding until mid-November [due to his 2020 back injury], and it was like I put it on and right away really liked it. It felt great all off-season, but sometimes when you go racing it's not always the same. So, I think after five races of struggling we just decided we needed to go back to my exact same setting that I raced Salt Lake on the year before, and I ended up running that the rest of the year. You know the old say- ing, if it's not broke, don't fix it. So, I think we learned our lesson there a little bit. That's the thing " I feel like I have a good hold on that, the confidence and mental edge. That's obviously something that I feel like came from maybe my younger years of racing all over and racing as much as I did, and my dad being hard on me and putting me in those situations. " (Left) Winning is the only thing that makes Webb happy. Otherwise, he's all business. (Right) After a slow start to the season, Webb turned things around and came from behind to win the championship, which made this title more satisfying for him than his first.