By all accounts, 2015 has been something of a struggle for the California-based Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki operation. While Tyler Bowers, Chris Alldredge, Joey Savatgy, and Arnaud Tonus have given it there all in thus far in both East and West Region Monster Energy AMA Supercross, an FIM World Championship, the results—and especially podium finishes—have been slow in coming. Finishing up in the race shop before getting it all together and heading to Daytona Beach for Saturday’s Daytona Supercross by Honda, the man who truly defines the “We Race” philosophy of the sport, Mitch Payton, talked about the first half of the 2015 season.
Racer X: Mitch, this season hasn’t exactly been full of highlights for you and the team has it?
Mitch Payton: I thought it was going to be really good... I thought Bowers was going to do really good. We expected Alldredge to be up and down. He’s been fast and has made a lot of mistakes, but overall, I’m impressed with his speed and I think come outdoors he’ll improve a lot. I think just going through the supercross thing is going to be really good for him.
Tyler Bowers has had highs and lows, hasn’t he?
Highs and lows. His back was hurt there before the beginning of the year so he had to take a little time off. We thought we’d be okay, and then we got into the season and he got sick and that kind of drained him of some energy for a couple of races. He’s been kind of battling with that right now and hopefully with this time off he can get to where he is fit and back to being healthy.
I was back in the pits after the mains at Petco Park in San Diego. Both you and Tyler looked pretty frustrated, as you guys were in a good position to win that one.
Well, I thought we had the one in Anaheim won, too [the Anaheim 2 race]. I thought those two were kind of slam-dunks. We should have two wins there. The one at Anaheim, there was five laps to go and Tyler was kind of gassed. He was not pulling away and not staying level. We were losing a second a lap. When the gaps get down to half a second, a guy is going to make a move on you and Webb did. San Diego was kind of the same. There was a point in that race where Ty was actually pulling away in the beginning—the gap got up to 3.8 seconds—and I thought, “Man, that’s perfect. He wouldn’t have to guard the corner and he could ride his own lines.” Then the lead started to go away and then it fell apart pretty quick.
How about your East Region guys?
Tonus has got speed and he’s got the skills to do it. He was down in the first turn at the first two races, and then this week he ran second for a little bit. This is his first year and we got to work through it and just have to let him go where he goes on it. And Joey, he’s won a heat race and he’s been on the podium. But he could have done better. He should have been second. I was pretty pumped he was on the podium. So that’s baby steps. I’m happy with him. He’s down at the Carmichael Farm working with Jeannie and Ricky and stuff like that. I think that will be really good for him, and I think he’ll mature and get better as the year goes. We just need to go through supercross and then I’m hoping for outdoors that everybody can be 100 percent.
We all know how badly you want to win. When things don’t quite line up and you don’t win, how does that affect you personally?
Well, I don’t like it. I like winning. Winning is way easier; it’s way more fun. And when I mean easier, I think when you’re winning it seems like everything you do is just, you know, “Boom! It’s easy.” The chassis is good, the suspension is good, the tires are good, the brakes are good, the motor is good, the rider is good. There’s nothing wrong. But when you’re not winning you kind of question everything so you have to look at everything. We spent a lot of time this year trying to improve the bike and I think we have. Our starts have been a lot better and the guys have been up there. I feel the bikes are good. We needed to enter into the series with no injuries and be okay. And it would have been great to have Adam back. That would have been a major plus for us, too.
Having Adam Cianciarulo out before the season even began had to throw you guys off.
I don’t think there is anything you can do. You make a plan and you believe in it and you sell it to your guys and say, “We’re going to go do this and this is what we’re going to achieve.” That’s just the way it is. At San Diego, Cooper Webb’s season could have been over that night, too. And fortunately for him, he wasn’t hurt. That’s how easy it is and how fragile this sport can be. It’s just difficult. I always say that if this was cars, we’d just bolt some new fenders on and go again. But it’s not cars, and a bad wrist is four weeks and a shoulder is eight weeks, or worse. You just can’t make that time up. We just need to keep everybody off the ground. I think our guys are good and we just have to keep plugging. I look at some of the other teams, too. They have guys that I thought would have been up there this year and won races and they haven’t won. Why? You think, “I thought that guy would have been right in there,” and he hasn’t done it.
How do you see your competition so far this season? Who has impressed you and who hasn’t hit their marks?
I don’t want to talk about the guys that haven’t hit their marks, but the guys that have, I’d say West Coast, it’s Cooper Webb and Jessy Nelson. Obviously, Jessy has rode good and Cooper has been impressive because he’s not gotten the best of starts, but he really is aggressive and comes through the pack and never gives up. So from that aspect, I’m impressed with him. He’s rode a good series so far.
When you look at the East Coast, you expect some guys to do well. Marvin has been in the class four years, so you would expect him to be fast, and he is fast. Bogle has been up there and Jeremy Martin has been up there. Those were predictable guys. Each guy has a number one plate and one guy is a two-time world champion. You have to think that they’re going to figure it out and be up there.
You hear a lot of talk about how the other teams have caught up to you and your team. In other words, the Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team isn’t dominant anymore. Thoughts?
If it’s car racing, Roger Penske was “The Guy.” Roger owned Indy Car for the longest time and then all of a sudden there were some hit and miss guys that would pop in there and give him a run, but now it’s Chip Ganassi. Chip has got his groove on and has done it for a really long time. So now it’s Roger and Chip because Chip caught Roger. But they’re both good teams and it’s which guy hires the right talent, and then you have to have the right equipment and the right funding. A lot of it is money-driven in those sports. You look at NASCAR and it’s Hendrick for a while, and then all of a sudden it can go to Roush and Roush is killing it. It’s like Roush has found it and then all of a sudden they lose it. They didn’t lose it. It can be something in their set-up or whatever and it changes faces. Next thing Gibbs will be up there with Kyle Busch and you just see it move around in racing. It doesn’t stay constant and it can’t stay constant. RV owned the supercross class for four years. That was a point in time and a point in history. But without him there, all of a sudden it’s a new group again.
What’s your take on Ryan’s MXGP performance? You mentioned to me earlier that they’re making a big mistake if they’re going to start counting Ryan Villopoto out of it.
I think they are. I’ve never known him to really fail. He’s not a failure. He had a bad race so now all of a sudden he’s out of it? I even heard it at the races from a couple guys. I heard, “Oh my God. That was horrible!” Well, it wasn’t pretty, but I know one thing: He’s going to be mad and has the right to be mad and he’s going to figure it out. He’ll be in there. He’ll figure it out. I don’t care whether that’s in Europe or the US or whatever. He’s raced over there before and dealt with all those guys. He has been off the motorcycle since Vegas last year and kind of had to ramp it up quick and get back into it. He did most of his preseason over here and he knows all these tracks and he kind of set the bike up for that, but then you drop into something and somewhere that you’ve never been to, well... I’m not saying it’s an excuse, but they just might have missed a little bit on the set up. I mean everybody who races over there has a notebook and their notebook says what they did last year and you’re going to kind of reference where you were from last year. So they’re going to have to look at that a little closer and I’m sure they’ll figure it out.
It’s a different team and a different group of guys. When you have a guy like that, they’re trying to do anything they can do to make him happy and appease him, but you also have to go through that learning process of knowing the guy a little bit, too. I’m sure they’re still learning that and he’s learning them, but they need to do it at a fast pace because they’re racing again this week. I think he’ll be fine. I think he did have a bad race and a little bit of bad luck, or whatever you want to call it, but if he would have stayed with the pack in the first moto, he wouldn’t have finished where he did. And in the second moto I guess he had a rear brake failure, and if it wasn’t for that he wouldn’t have finished where he was. It was just a bad race. I’m confident and I still say that he’s a winner and he knows how to win and he’s going to win.