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INTERVIEW 2016 AMA WEST REGIONAL 250SX/AMA 250MX NATIONAL CHAMPION COOPER P78 to be smooth and you have to hit your marks—where for outdoors, if you're too precise, you're not going fast enough [laughs]! It's that simple. You've got to be used to making mis- takes. You've got to be used to blowing out corners. And the bumps? You have just hit them as fast as you can sometimes. That's not honestly my style, but I still have to do it. I think some outdoor tracks, you ride with some technique, because I feel like I'm really good at jump- ing bumps and flowing, and at certain tracks you have to do that because the bumps are so big and gnarly. But some of the west-coast tracks without such deep bumps, you can just kind of get away with just bulldog- ging and hitting them as fast as you can. And that's just with the 250 class, because the bikes aren't as powerful, and you're always trying to carry your mo- mentum. You don't really have an option really to try to make everything perfect." But with an outdoor title in the bag, it's safe to say that he's pro- ficient now in both disciplines. Tenacity If there's one thing that stands out about Cooper Webb, it's his tenacity. He's a bulldog. He's stubborn, he takes every- thing personally, and he uses it against his competition. If he believes someone did him dirty, you can believe he's going to make that person pay for it, often within a few corners, or at worst within a few races. Webb is old-school moto. In the '80s, for example, most guys on the track were like Webb; they'd run into you, knock you down, or even on occasion, they'd end up in fights back in the pits. Webb hasn't gone that far, but that doesn't mean he hasn't wanted to fight anybody. For examples, watch the Washougal National this year. After championship ri- val Joey Savatgy ran Webb wide on lap one, Webb made him pay for it only a few turns later. Webb went down, too, but the mes- sage was sent, and the incident ended up favoring Webb overall in the championship. There are plenty more examples like this. Eventually, racers are going to have to figure out that if you race Webb rough, he'll pay you back many times over. "I'm definitely aggressive," Webb says. "I don't feel like I do anything dangerous or frowned upon. I mean, I hate cross- jumping and dangerous stuff like that. I don't do it. And sure, I've been in incidents where I've taken somebody out, but it's not like I'm out there trying to take somebody out. Usually if I stuff somebody or run into somebody, it's usually some sort of retalia- tion from somebody else doing that to me. Usually. But, at the same time, there are situations— especially in supercross, where if you get a bad start, you just don't have enough time to be too patient—where you have to make those aggressive passes.

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