It should be devastating to a team to lose a rider the caliber of Ryan Villopoto, but Monster Energy Kawasaki still has a shot at the Monster Energy Supercross Championship. Davi Millsaps brings considerable talent of his own over to Villopoto’s old spot, and Mike Williamson, who spun the wrenches for Villopoto, is his wrench. We caught up to Mike at Angel Stadium to see how the new pairing is going.
Racer X: Lots of changes around this tent. The champ is gone, but you’re still here. First of all, how different is it for you?
Mike Williamson: I mean it’s not much different, really. Obviously I’ve changed riders before, so that helps, and it was good run with Ryan while he was here. His life is changing a little bit and what his plans are, and we support that. We kind of saw it coming, anyway, so we were ready for it. We’ve moved into a really good change with Wil and Davi, especially personality wise. We’re really enjoying it, but we’re also serious about getting results at the same time, and working at the test track. Now we’re ready to line ‘em up and see what we’ve got.
In this sport everyone is always trying to figure out how much is the bike and how much is the rider. No one really knows the answer to that, but are there things that you can say “We won four titles in a row, and we can transfer some of that even though we have new riders”?
Um, yeah, I believe it’s a lot from the team. And the riders, I think, believe that too. You can ask Davi. He’s come close to winning this a couple of times, he was second twice, and he’s asked a lot of questions that make it pretty clear there were answers he was looking for when he was going after a championship, and we were able to answer them. So he’s going to lean on me at times to give him advice when we’re in those situations. So that’s the plan, to kind of take his talent and ability and combine it with our team’s abilities and win the championship.
Yeah, because a lot of the teams that could be battling for the title this year, it would be their first time doing it. There are always going to be stressful moments, bad races here and there, and you’ve been through that before.
Oh yeah. And at the beginning it was a lot more stressful. You kind of learn as you go, and learn to step on the right stones and not take steps backwards. We’ve had to learn the hard way; there were races that we didn’t even qualify for when we were fighting for a championship! I feel like we’re getting more solid every year, and we’re in a good place with the bike. But I think it will take us three or four races to kind of hit our stride, just because the guys are new, and when you start racing things change.
Yeah, well, the strange thing is, Davi comes out and wins his first race on the bike. Is that almost unrealistic? Because now people can think he can just go out and win Anaheim 1 even though really you might need a few races to get used to things. Is it almost dangerous to win the first time out, because it sets the standard too high?
No, I don’t think it’s dangerous. I think it was good for him. But it’s a really unique race, the speeds are really high, we’re hitting 70 MPH according to our data. There aren’t any whoops. And it wasn’t a full gate to me, Roczen wasn’t there and some guys weren’t there. It was a good way to get some seat time and put the bike under some stress with him, and see what direction we need to go.
So you’re saying it still might take some time even though you’ve already got a win under your belt.
Yeah, because these tracks are a lot tighter than the Monster Energy Cup. We also transition from the baseballs stadiums to the football stadiums, and the tracks can get really technical. So that’s when it gets tough, you have to live with some things or make compromises in areas to make big gains. Once he gets familiar with us, it will get better. Racing does that, you see each other so often it’s almost like you live together. You learn really quickly what people like and what people don’t like. I don’t know, maybe he goes out and things are great right away. It’s not going to be from lack of trying, but you have to get comfortable with your surroundings. It’s more than just on the track, too. It’s getting to now people and understanding the language, understanding what he’s saying and making the right changes. We’re working on those things and we’ll try to hit our stride here in a few rounds and see where it takes us.
Did you even know if you’d be working for Davi? The timing ended up being so strange with Ryan’s deal changing, and Davi coming in.
You know, I didn’t. I didn’t know, and the whole team was working with him because they weren’t sure who would work for who. Then at the end Davi asked me to work for him, and he asked the guys upstairs. It seemed like a good fit, we both have the same goals and we’ve both been doing this for a while. We know what we want and we’re going to put in the work, because we know what not doing the work will get you. Everything is going good so far.
