Main image by Kellen Brauer
Red Bull KTM’s Cooper Webb had a 2022 racing season he’d rather forget. After coming off his second Monster Energy AMA Supercross title in 2021, Webb rolled into 2022 with a completely new KTM machine with a lot of promise in it that ultimately under-performed. A completely reworked chassis left Webb and fellow KTM teammates struggling to find the balance with the bike and before we really even headed east, Webb seemed out of the championship. When things began to roll a little bit, he came together with Chase Sexton in Detroit that resulted in a broken hand and all momentum was lost. The 27-year-old then took the summer off from racing to fully regroup and restart.
While away from racing, Webb became a father with the birth of he and his wife Mariah’s daughter Indy in August. He also kept things light and fun with his time off and ultimately used it as a true break, a break he’s really never had in his career. How much did it help? Well, when we spoke with Webb at yesterday’s Red Bull KTM team intro for 2023, Webb was all smiles and appeared fired up to put the recent struggles behind him.
Racer X: Welcome back to getting ready to race! You took the summer off from racing, became a dad, has it just been a whirlwind?
Cooper Webb: It’s been something that’s a lot different. I took the summer off, regrouped. Was able to get healthy, get reset, and became a dad which was amazing. It’s been an amazing experience so far. She’s three months old, but it’s good to be back in the grind of things. I was able to take that time off, do some testing, reset. I did the Straight Rhythm race and did Paris, but now I’ve really been back in the boot camp and in the grind in Florida. A lot of testing has been happening, so it’s been a whirlwind, like you said. We’re about a month out now here at the intro and everything is good. We’re in a good spot.
Whirlwind aside, was it kind of refreshing in a sense to not have just two months off? You had five months, in this case six months almost, to kind of almost regroup at this mid-stage of your career. So, has it been kind of nice to just have a refreshing couple months to not think too much about racing and riding?
Yeah, it was huge for me, man. It was something where I now enjoy racing and riding my dirt bike again. I know it sounds so cliche, but it’s tough. It’s a grind, to be at the top level at any point, really. It’s really hard. So, for me, it was just a total reset to appreciate racing, get that love for the sport back. For me, get healthy again and reset. It was probably my worst year I’ve had ever, or in a long time. Just getting my head space back and becoming a dad was huge for me. It was something that has been amazing. I think it also gave us just more time to actually test the bike. I’ve been riding supercross and testing since September. So, instead of cramming it into two months we were able to now cram it in four months, and I feel like we’ve made massive strides.
You said it wasn’t a very good year last year. So, was it one where you just kind of try to forget everything, or do you take some stuff that you learned last year that you can kind of apply to what’s going to happen this year?
I don't think you forget. I don’t ever want to feel that way again. I told someone earlier, it’s a very frustrating thing when you’re not able to ride or race to your potential. So, it was tough. I think we learned a lot on how far off, at least for me, we really were with setup. So, I think it’s something that we kind of went to the drawing board and as a group. It hasn’t been easy. It’s tough with a new bike and it’s tough when there’s so many different directions that you can go with a motorcycle. It’s been good to just dial in things. I’m not the easiest guy to deal with, for sure, but I know what I’ve wanted, and I’ve been pretty stern on that. So, it’s been good. We’re in a good spot, I think physically, mentally. I’m ready to go win again. I know I can be a contender. I actually really am looking forward to racing. It’s been a while. I enjoyed the shit out of Paris, going racing with the top guys. Like I said, I think it has kind of reset my love for the sport.
In terms of testing, kind of halfway through the year it seemed like you started to figure things out a little bit, but then you got landed on in Detroit and maybe that kind of hampered you a little bit. So, have you improved since then, or is it kind of some of the stuff that you learned from the end of the year, you’re almost rolling that into what you’re working with right now?
No. We’ve totally reset. We started from nothing. We kind of threw everything that we had last year out the window. I kind of got to a good spot midway through the season and then at Detroit, I broke my hand and hit my head. So, at the end of last year, we tried a direction just trying, and it didn’t work. So, I think it was good. Like I said, I maybe went back this summer to scratch and learned from there, learned the bike and then we moved forward from there. So, pretty much everything is totally different from anything I raced last year.
In the past when you won your titles, it took you maybe a couple of rounds to kind of get established and get your feet wet, and then you started clicking off wins. Is it almost like a drive to go out to the first two and be like, “Look, this is where we’re at with the bike. We’re ready to go. We’re ready to win this title,” and come out with a bang?
That would be a great goal. That typically always is the goal, it’s just never worked. Once you go racing, you do learn. I think it’s something that you can get a really good base, and some teams and riders knock it out of the park, and they come to A1, and everything is great. I believe we come in always pretty good, and then we improve that first week or two just on racing. It’s always different. You don’t know how the dirt is, how it breaks down. It’s different people building the tracks now. It’s totally different. So, I think we’re in a really good spot right now to go racing and be competitive, but I do think we’ll learn something the first few rounds. You can’t be too careful because guys come out swinging. I think we’ve seen that in outdoors, and we saw it in supercross. You don’t have time to waste around.
Looking at 2023 as a whole, now we’re racing all the way into basically mid-October with the SMX thing. Do you almost look at it like a marathon now because it is such a long season? You can’t get lost in the grind of it.
It’s going to be a long season. You definitely got to time it right. I think we have an extra weekend off, which is good and bad. In supercross we go longer, but we do have an extra weekend off. It’s a long series. It’s a lot different. Every series is different. Outdoors you always want to start strong because even though there’s a lot of motos, it’s a shorter series. So, I think motocross you can naturally progress into supercross a little bit. But you also don’t want to come out under the eight ball and be too far at a deficit. So, its’ a tough thing. Like you said, going into outdoors now, doing those 12 rounds and then racing the last three going all the way to mid-October, there’s no time off. I’ll be basically trained a whole year with a few weekends off. It will be tough, but I guess that’s why we get paid the big bucks.
Thinking of the SMX at the end of the year as well, in the past, a million dollars is up for grabs at Monster Cup, which is cool, but I think a lot of people are in that transition to either a new bike or the off-season grind or whatever. Now you have to peak almost at the end of the year. How difficult will it be to almost find your stride in that last little month that will take you into SMX?
It’ll be tough, honestly. I think it will be new. No one knows how the tracks are going to be. No one knows if it’s supercross, motocross. Testing I think is going to be tough, too. So, it will be a challenge. I do think at least the money is a big positive, and obviously also being able to win a championship, even though it’s not a real long series like these other two. There’s financial benefits and there’s also saying you’re the champion. So, it will be good. I think it’s something that we’re all going to have to learn and figure out. I definitely do like the style of it, the points system. You’ve got to come out swinging all three. So, I think that’s good. Hopefully they can just not have us racing into September and October in the future or figure out something, but we’ll see.