Cycle News

INTERVIEW P126 AMA DAYTONA SPORTBIKE CHAMPION CAMERON BEAUBIER "And then I went there again and cycled quite a bit with him, went hunting a little bit going into 2009, that was a lot of fun also. So, yeah, it was really cool. He would kind of just make sure I was good at the track because I didn't really have anyone over there, you know. My parents only got to a couple of races a year, because I have a little brother and all that and they have jobs. So it was cool." What was the toughest thing about being far away from home? "Just little things like… you don't want to call or text too much. It racks up your phone bill and stuff like that." Stoner also gave Beaubier advice on racing. "He was definitely pretty hard on me, but it was good for me," Beaubier said. "He was a good guy to talk to about anything. He won races in 125s and 250s and so he obviously knew how to ride those things. It was good to bounce ideas off of him." Beaubier moved on from the (Above) Beaubier and his girlfriend Kayla Weaver kicking back at his home in Roseville, California. (Right) One of Beaubier's favorite things to do when he has some time off is work on his golf game. Academy to the 125cc World Championship in 2009, riding for the Red Bull KTM team alongside Marc Marquez. Unfortunately it was a frustrating season plagued with mechanicals, crashes and injuries. "I struggled quite a bit in '09, in the 125 World Championship," Beaubier said. "I had a couple good races going, but my bikes would break a lot, I would crash a lot… I had a few small injuries that year. It was a pretty frustrating season. I wasn't on the best bike and I had Marc Marquez as my teammate. He was an awesome kid. He was my buddy over there. He definitely made that bike look better than it was." That frustrating season combined with other factors, meant that he would return stateside the following year. "It was a combination of things," Beaubier explained. "I kind of wanted to come home, just because I was pretty frustrated how everything was going. I had no one over there… I mean I had friends over there, but not family, no Americans that were close to me and that was a bummer. So it was kind of a mixture of things… I didn't have a good opportunity for getting a solid ride. And I would basically have to find a sponsor to buy a ride because that was super big over there at the time. It was pretty frustrating. "I think that if I stayed over there and got on an Aprilia, for example, I know that I could have done really well. But I think it's cool that I came back here and I'm able to come home after every race."

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