INTERVIEW
BLAKE YOUNG
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younger than AMA Superbike's
leading man.
"It's sad to see what racing in
America has become," he said.
"It's pretty much next to nothing. I
feel like with ending 2012 the way
I did, I should have been able to
get some sort of Superbike ride or
at least a factory-level 600 effort.
But it just didn't happen. There's
not enough teams involved and
there are too many good guys out
there without rides.
"I kind of sat on the sidelines all
of last year and I've decided that
taking the year off from racing
doing the [Attack Performance]
CRT program was probably not
the best thing to do. If I was going
to sit out again this year, I'd prob-
ably just be done with racing. I'd
probably just walk away from the
sport.
"To get an opportunity to come
out and ride a 600 that's as good
as this one - I'm going to take it
and run with it."
"This one" is a seat with the
upstart GN Gonzales Yamaha
team, armed with well-proven
Graves Yamaha R6 equipment,
to challenge in the AMA Pro Day-
tona SportBike class.
"It's a huge relief to get an-
other opportunity to come out
and race," Young said. "The guys
seem genuinely excited about it
and they really want to do well.
They want to go back to the way
it was coming up club racing and
have fun doing it. I think that's
one of the big things I see in the
team. They just want to do good.
"For me, it's just going to be
good to be out there riding again.
It's kind of hitting the reset button
and starting back from scratch."
Young's deal didn't fall into
place until a mere two weeks
prior to the Daytona opener. As a
result, the team is still in the pro-
cess of being assembled as the
race approaches. Former racer
Lee Acree will crew chief the
Brad Rutherford-managed squad
in Daytona, although there's talk
of adding some experienced
wrenches to the program post-
Daytona.
"Lee is going to come and
help me out at Daytona," Blake
explained. "He's going to kind of
crew chief the bike, just for Day-
tona and just kind of help me out.
Perry Melniciuc is a guy that I'm
Happier times: Climbing onto the
podium at Laguna Seca in 2009.
