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/192336
P36 IN THE WIND B rad Baker is the 2013 AMA Grand National Champion, the 20-year-old Washingtonian wrapping up the title in impressive fashion at the Pomona Half Mile on Saturday night with a victory over his title rival Bryan Smith. We caught up with Baker for a quick chat following his victory. How does it feel to win the championship? It's amazing. You know let alone winning a championship, this being my third year as an expert at 20 years old. As any expert rider, any rider coming up even in the amateur ranks, they want to get to the highest level and be on top of the highest level and that's been my goal forever and I'm finally here. And it feels amazing and I just can't thank my mom and dad, my brother, Dodge Brothers Racing, the Atherton family… those are truly the people who got me here - along with Shane Christian Enterprises. I have so much support behind me; that's what got me here and it feels amazing. Tell us about your race… The race was pretty crazy. I mean I got good starts both times. And Bryan [Smith] got up there. And me and him were dicing back and forth. And in between one and two I had a moment where I thought I was crashing. I mean my legs were up above my head, my chin was resting on the triple clamps, and I was heading PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOM HNATIW THE NEW CHAMP! Brad Baker is the 2013 AMA Grand National Champion. towards the air fence. And somehow I got the thing straightened back around and brought her back down. And at that time Bryan had a big gap on me after that, I just put my nose down and ran him back down. And then we were going swapping back and forth and then I think a couple other riders came up with me and then we had the red flag. I just basically learned my line… after I almost had that crash, I learned a different line. And when I got the holeshot on the restart, the last restart I just stuck to that line I knew that was gonna be fast and I just stuck to it and brought her home. The last three laps my brake lever fell off… and I never had brakes. Here I never thought I needed brakes, but I guess I actually do use them a little bit since it was actually hampering me a little bit. But still I dug deep and held on and brought home the win and became number one with the number-one finish. So there's no better way to do it. You do realize that you only needed to finish fourth? Yeah. I do. But it just makes it that much better if you can go out as a winner. You know I've wanted to win this race for a long time. Obviously, that's the goal at any race is to go in and win and that's what I came in here with and we succeeded with that. And there wasn't any ifs ands or buts if I was going to win the championship if I won the race. So that feels cool, too. It's probably easier in a way to just go out there and win it instead of managing where you are… Yeah, if you start thinking about it you know then if you're not riding 100 percent you never know then a bunch of riders might blow by you and then you're back in the mix and somebody might come in and push you wide. Then you're back there seventh and eighth trying to push to get to a spot where you know where you think you might get the championship. It's pretty easy when you're just right up front, battling with the guy that I know if I get