VOL. 51 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 14, 2014 P69
a lot of criticism for that, which is
fine. That's just a little insight on
all that.
Did you contemplate retir-
ing after the 2014 season?
I definitely contemplated retir-
ing. There are only a few people
who do this at the level that I do
it at, and they do it for whatever
reason that is. They do it be-
cause they enjoy the limelight
or the spotlight. They enjoy the
money and the fame. I fall into
the category that this was a family
sport that we all did. It was a hob-
by and I became good at it and
we took that. There were a lot of
good times and I've met a lot of
great people in this sport. I don't
do this sport for a lot of those
other things that people do it for.
So when I started to think about
making a decision on retirement
and for people to say, "Oh, how
can he just walk away?" that was
a bit odd for me because in the
big scale of things, this is my job.
This is what I do. It's not my life.
This is just what I do.
How and when did the idea
or the opportunity of racing
the 2015 World Championship
come to the fore?
Well, every time we go to Eu-
rope for Motocross of Nations
or going over in the summertime
for Parts Unlimited or Monster, it
just amazes me that it's just such
a different world over there. It's
fun. To go to see Europe and
see the different places and
the architecture and the food is
fun for me. Everything is so dif-
ferent. It's something new and I
enjoy that. When we went over
for Teutschenthal [MXGP of Ger-
many] we kind of talked about it.
We talked to Monster about it.
We talked to a lot of my main per-
sonal sponsors about it. Every-
body seemed to be on board with
it. We had to get the ball rolling
early because there are a lot of
moving parts in this whole thing.
It took a long time to get things
going. You wouldn't think it would
have been that big of a deal be-
cause it's Kawasaki and it's one
company, but it was a big battle
to pull it all together.
At this point in the interview
Ryan's longtime business
manager, Bobby Nichols, en-
ters the conversation to add
some further insight.
BN: I think it was all something
of a perfect storm. If it was a
straight ACL issue (Note: Nich-
ols refers to the comprehensive
knee surgery Villopoto had per-
formed after the Supercross
series), Ryan would already be
a month into his Supercross
training and we wouldn't be hav-
ing this conversation. But after
"
AND IT'S NOT GOING TO BE EASY TO
JUST GO OVER THERE, YOU KNOW? IT'S
GOING TO BE TOUGH. IT'S GOING TO BE A
COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WORLD. I'M GOING
TO TRY AND BE AS READY AS I CAN BE FOR
IT AND WHATEVER HAPPENS, HAPPENS.
"
