MOTOAMERICA SUPERBIKE CHAMPION TONI ELIAS
P130
INTERVIEW
"After many days [without a ride]
and deciding to retire and then to
end up MotoAmerica Champion—
I never expect that," he said.
"Because when the situation is so
bad, it's impossible to think in two
years you will be winning and win-
ning championships."
Success Breeds Success
There's nothing like winning to
pull a racer out of a slump, and
it did just that for Elias. He won
the first three races in his Mo-
toAmerica debut, landing him a
full-time ride with the Yoshimura
Suzuki squad.
After struggling for years, Elias
was finally back to top form and
it had critics turning their nose
down at the championship. From
the outside, it would be difficult
to explain, but not for Elias. It
boils down to the team.
"It helped me a lot to have
an official bike and an official
team," he says. "I have experi-
ence from MotoGP and Moto2
and other classes, but I felt
so blocked many times. For
example [with support teams],
factories bring you the bike and
after that day you never receive
any other parts to improve your
bike. That is very frustrating.
Here [at Yoshimura Suzuki] it is
different. All the experience, all
the comments and working with
the team, they just make the bike
better."
Most racers will tell you that
having that kind of support
wins races, and the proof is in
Elias' results—16 wins in two
seasons. They will also tell you
it's a mental sport. So getting
back to winning not only helped
Elias' career stats, it changed his
whole mentality.
" When you are in an official
team, everything changes
and you can improve and that
makes you feel stronger and
when people around have con-
"I did some
mistakes last year,
also this year, but
we work with calm
in the race."
