INTERVIEW
AMA SUPERCROSS AND 450 MOTOCROSS CHAMPION RYAN DUNGEY
P90
NEW BIKE, NEW LIFE
I
t's no secret that Dungey struggled
with his bike setup quite a bit after
he made the move from Suzuki to
KTM, 2011-2012. He and his team
made a lot of improvements through
those years, but the big result of the
testing came later.
"From 2012 through 2014, we
definitely made a lot of progress from
the beginning to the end of that bike
at that time," Dungey said. "But it was
one of the toughest things I had to go
through. There was a lot of stuff that I
never was able to say. We were trying
to figure a lot of stuff out. It wasn't
anybody's fault. Everybody was doing
their work the best that they could
with what we had. KTM was investing
a lot of time and money into making
things better, too, but there were a lot
of struggles."
That's life, in a nutshell. The strug-
gles are what make the successes
so much sweeter. If not for the bad,
how could you recognize the good?
Not only that, but the struggles with
finding settings on Dungey's first KTM
450 SX-F led directly to the 2015
KTM 450 SX-F Factory Edition. KTM
was always listening and developing
a plan, and after three years, Dungey
was presented with a much-improved
KTM 450.
"In the end, those struggles make
you better," Dungey said. "I think the
benefit out of all of that, we were able
to take the notes and learn so much
and all the feedback from the riders
in the U.S. on Team Red Bull KTM
to Team Red Bull KTM in Europe,
MXGP riders and the R&D guys. So,
everybody came together. KTM has
a smart group of people who work
there at the factory. They were able to
build something better."
And Dungey says it was better in
almost every way imaginable.
"When a factory builds a bike, usu-
ally you gain in one area, but you lose
a little somewhere else." Dungey said.
"That wasn't the case [with the new
bike]. There were positives all the way
around without any negatives. With
that came a lot more comfort on the
bike. The suspension started work-
ing better. As they were building this
new bike, they were obviously testing
I'VE INVESTED
TOO MUCH
TIME NOT
TO MAKE THE
MOST OF MY
PROFESSIONAL
CAREER.
If there one person
who knows how to
cope with pressure,
it's Ryan Dungey.
