We’re at the end of the supercross season now, but even this week at your house in New Mexico you were still pounding out the laps. Where are we at right now with the plan going into this finale? Most of the time we get to this point and everybody is just done. So, how much is supercross and still learning this bike and getting the work done for next year right now important?
Yeah. For me, I’m still trying to make progress. I’m still trying to make bike changes to have consistent progress with it. This is the bike I’m going to be racing next year. Right now I think I’m as race fit as I’m going to be before going to A1 next year. For me, I think it’s fresh in my brain so I really feel like I’m still trying to make strides forward to be able to have my bike set up to avoid some of my crashes or some mistakes that I’ve had this year. I think we haven’t been making huge changes, but they’ve been little ones that have been making us be able to move forward. For me, I still honestly got to stay on it because this bike is so new to me. I haven’t rode much outdoors on it. So, everything is first time for me. Just trying to keep the ball rolling. Still striving to be better and have the bike ready for next year supercross and try and get ready for outdoors.

It’s really easy to now look back or at the end of the season go, “It was a great choice to go to Monster Energy Kawasaki.” As we have all talked, probably your best racing season ever. But yourself, Malcolm and Eli, oddly enough, you guys basically did a little musical chairs with your teams. For a few of you, from the outside it was considered a gamble. At the time you did it, were you confident enough in the change initially that these results that don’t surprise you? Or is it even a shock to you that this season has come around this well?
Honestly, if you’re looking from the outside looking in with people’s perception of me and my results last year, I was basically damaged goods. Personally, with everything I’ve got going on and what I have left in me, as far as the effort that I want to put forward, being in an environment that is really good and we work together well. For me, I’ve only been with one team for my whole career, so going to a new team that had new guys – my mechanic is new, crew chief is new. I think really the only thing that was the same was my practice mechanic. Switching all of that up is very overwhelming, especially because I’m a person is very set in their ways. Right now, I’m comfortable at Kawi and I don’t even want to leave that situation until I’m done. But you never know. Never say never. You saw where I was for so many years, but I needed a change. I knew what I had left in me. Would I say I thought I would have this many wins? Probably not, but I knew I’d be a guy on the podium and I think I would have been challenging for wins. I knew I had to give it a shot.

On the post-race interview on trackside, you said it was a bittersweet moment for you. Can you talk a little bit about the prior races where you had some entanglements with Malcolm and Justin Barcia? Do you look at those as unforced errors on your part, and would it change the outcome of this season and this championship?
Yeah, one hundred percent. Obviously, some of the stuff that happened is definitely unforced errors on my part, and just all of us in general. We’re just trying our hardest and sometimes egos maybe get in the way a little bit. I really think that I’ve put my best foot forward. There are some mistakes that I had. I think Detroit was the one that really kind of put a fork in it for me as far as the championship and the points and everything like that, and that was completely on me. That kind of was tough. It was honestly tough to bounce back the next weekend, and stuff like that. If I’m being honest, I felt like my speed and stuff was really good and good enough to be able to take this thing all the way to the end. I think it’s just Eli played it really cool and he took the opportunity when the opportunity was there, and if it wasn’t there, he kind of stuck to his guns and just kept doing his thing. That’s where he beat me. That’s part of it. That’s part of racing. We love it, and we’ll come back for more next year. It’s cool.

Watch the full 450SX post-race press conference below: