Kyle Chisholm has always been there—right on that line between elite factory rider and privateer. He’s run the gamut in a pro career that started in late 2004, coming into some seasons with good support, and doing others on his own. This is one of the on-his-own years, with a privateer effort under the Team Chizz banner. After 13-13-14-16 scores to start the season in 450SX, we talked to him in the San Diego pits.
Racer X: How’s it going?
Kyle Chisholm: It’s going.
I feel like it’s getting better.
It’s getting better. It’s like two steps forward, one step back every week. I started riding the bike a week before Christmas, so I didn’t have much time on it. Every time I go out we’re kind of…it’s not major things. Sometimes major things. For instance, last week I tried a completely different head on the engine when I first went out to ride. Mostly, it’s little things here and there. This weekend was a completely new suspension setup. Still Öhlin’s stuff, but a new setup. Some stuff about it was better, some stuff was worse, so I just keep fine-tuning it. The stuff that teams do for months before the season, I’m doing it now. But it’s coming along good. If you had told me before the season started me doing this on my own like I was if I had the results I had with the field as stacked as it is, I’d be like, Oh, that’s pretty good. I haven’t really ridden as good in the main events as I can or should. I’m just a little bit tight, not flowing good. I know there’s more in there. I think I can be top-ten.
It’s funny that you say that because your practice times are terrible. So at least you’re better in the main event than that!
[Laughs] I know they’re not good! I always race better than I practice. A lot of the practice stuff is like, for instance today, they’ve been wetting the track a ton, so the third practices are usually always better. Well, today, my third practice, I was actually slower because we tried to make a suspension change and it was not the right way to go. No excuses, but that just is what it is. So I qualified like twenty-third or whatever it was. But in all fairness I suck at qualifying, the one-lap thing. It’s something I’ve been working on. I know I can do it because I can do it during the week, but it’s just doing it at the race. Same with the main events. It’s a different story when you have practice during the week and come to the race. You go to the practice track, you do 1,000 laps on it, so even if your bike’s not perfect, you’re so comfortable with the track. You can just push it and you’re used to it. You come here and you have thirty minutes practice and then you have the race, so if you’re not 100 percent comfortable and you don’t know what your bike’s doing, it’s going to reflect in your times. When I ride with Chad [Reed] during the week, I’m only a second or so off of him, and then here I’m two or three seconds off of him. For me that’s not okay. I should still be within a second of him. Again, it’s just getting comfortable on the bike so I can bring it to the race and make things happen quicker. We’re working on it.
Explain your program a little bit. Are you in Florida?
I’m in California right now. I still have my house in California. So I’ve been out here for the West Coast stuff. I’m doing press day at Dallas next week, so we’ll leave Tuesday morning and drive to Dallas in the rig, race Dallas, and then drive from there back to Florida. Then I’ll stay back in Florida for the rest of the series pretty much, ride with Chad and stuff.
You don’t ride with Chad out here?
No, he’s been back in Florida. I’ve been out here. I’ve been riding Elsinore, Milestone. I haven’t been able to go to the Kawi track. When I go back to Florida, it’ll be nice. I think the bike should be pretty dialed by the time we get back there. Get back, put my head down, ride, and train with him, which will be good for me. It’s Atlanta, Atlanta, Daytona so I’ll be in Florida for most of it. Then I’ll probably fly to the rest of them. Luckily for me, I’ve been out here, and then I’ll drive to Dallas, Atlanta, Atlanta, Daytona. I won’t have to fly to any of those, so that for me spending money, that helps out quite a bit. So I actually only have to fly to six or seven races total, and they’re East Coast races and I’ll be on the East Coast. Trying to budget so I don’t kill the bank.
How did you put this together? Who’s your crew? Who is Team Chizz?
Me and Brittany [wife] and my mechanic.
The mechanic will drive?
He’s going to drive and do all that stuff.
Who’s he?
Mikey Germain. It’s Kenny Germain’s nephew. It’s a Team Velocity 3 remake, kind of. [Ed. Note: Velocity 3 was a Yamaha team that Chisholm rode for two years ago. It was run by the reputable Kenny Germain and Brian Berry, but quickly folded after the primary funding didn’t come through]. That’s what we’ve been joking about. For the throwback race in Atlanta I still have a Velocity shirt, so we were joking about wearing it. Honestly I’ve been working on putting my own deal together since after Monster Cup, since November. It’s just dead end after dead end. I need a truck, I need a budget, I need bikes, I need money, I need transportation, and I need bikes. Those are the three biggest pieces. And without any of them it’s hard to work on the other ones, let alone all the small pieces like handlebars and sprockets and suspension and pipes. Then finally, after talking to Kenny and Mikey up there and Brian Berry, actually, I talked to Brian, I bought a Yamaha just to be riding. I talked to Brian about buying one from the dealership that he works at. That in turn led to him getting in touch with Kenny, and then a buddy of theirs that actually helped with the Velocity thing. When the lady didn’t fund anything, this was a guy that stepped in and helped a little bit; he’s the one that helped me with bikes and the truck and everything like that this year. So that helped me a bunch. Then from there Mikey was going to mechanic for me. So I had a driver, a truck, and bikes, their help with all that stuff. Then I could make phone calls and get some sponsors and a budget.
The sponsors want to know what they’re buying into.
Exactly. They’re not going to give me pipes or handlebars or tires or any of that stuff if they don’t know what my program is. Once I got those bigger pieces kind of solved I was able to work on that, but unfortunately it didn’t come together until a couple weeks before Christmas. On December 6, I was in Geneva racing a Yamaha over there that I had bought—so that’s some perspective. I came home from there, was on the phone all week. I got bikes a week or so later. Mikey drove them down to Florida from Connecticut. Then I started riding a week or so before Christmas. So I have a few people helping a little bit, but everything else is kind of coming out of my pocket. It’s been tough, but the money I make is going back into the team. I feel like I’m in a place where I think it’s better for me to do this than sit on the couch and wait for something obviously. If this can propel me back to a factory team or a fill-in ride or whatever that’s kind of the goal. Or I can build on this for next year and actually have more than two weeks to put my program together. So that’s kind of the plan behind it. It’s been going good. It’s been tough but we’re doing what we can with what we have.
How much does your experience help? There are guys that are on the bubble of making mains and their practice times might even be quicker than you. But you know how to make mains and you know how to do twenty laps in the main. You’re not one of the guys basing all your training for the LCQ program. How much does your experience help?
It always helps. I think a lot of the young kids coming in, you watch them, and supercross you can watch them at the test track and they’re fast all off-season. Then you get here and you have to race differently. There’s a fast way around the track, and if you do 1,000 laps of a track, it’s easy. You come here and you have to learn how to race. But for those kind of kids, outdoors comes a little more natural because that’s what they grew up doing all the time. There is a style of racing and the thought that you have to plan in your head to get around the track in supercross. It’s race craft. That’s what you can only get with experience. So for sure that helps. Chad over here, he’s the old guy. I like to think I’m young but there are young kids obviously. I just turned 27, so I am kind of old but not kind of old compared to Chad over here. But I’ve been around. I know what to do to put the bike in the main and do all that stuff, and then to do twenty laps.
Lately you’ve been a Yamaha guy. What made you decide to go Kawi?
I bought a Yamaha in the off-season; that’s what I was riding. But when Alex, the kid that helped me with the bikes and stuff from the dealership, the dealership that he’s kind of buddies with, they only sell Kawis and Hondas, but mostly Kawis. So for him to do it, it only makes sense to do Kawis. And then with Chad being on Kawis, it helped. His whole team, the guys have been awesome helping me a little bit here and there. Nothing crazy, but more than they have to. Being able to use their shop, just their knowledge of learning the bike. I was pressed for time and they helped steer me in the right direction with it. They’ve been awesome, Chad and the whole team.
Does that help you at all that you were a Team Green guy? Is there any connection there, a little familiarity?
My whole career, literally from when I was on 60s until now, I’ve only ever ridden Kawasakis or Yamahas. Most of my 450 career has been on Yamaha except for one year with Jeff Ward with Kawis. Just growing up, I know pretty much all the guys over at Kawi, so that’s been good. They stepped up after the first couple races to help me a little bit with parts and stuff like that. I’m able to buy through them instead of going to a dealership and paying retail price. Reid Nordin is one of the head guys over there, he was actually in charge of the amateur stuff I believe at one time when I was like maybe 10 years old on Team Green. So I’ve known him a long time, since I was a kid. It’s been good having a relationship with all those guys.
