Kitchen: "For Me, Big Picture is to Go and Try to Keep Getting Better and Better"

Six rounds into the 250SX West championship campaign, Kitchen is positioned in fifth place overall in points.

“As far as the year so far, it hasn’t been great, but I think my riding has been pretty good,” Kitchen explained. “Unfortunately, three weekends in a row down in the first turn is crazy. The one at Anaheim hurt me quite a bit with not finishing. I’d probably be sitting okay if it wasn’t for that one. But as far as positives, I feel good on the bike and we’ve had a couple good rounds there at the end. It bothers me that there are three second place finishes, but I guess it’s better than three thirds or whatever. Yeah, I feel like it was good to battle in Seattle. It feels like forever ago now. Yeah, it was good to have a good race there. I’m really looking forward to the weekend. We’ll have everybody there and it will be fun.”

Immediately after the Seattle round, both Deegan and Kitchen pointed out the race between them was the fiercest of their careers. Kitchen reflected back on the battle of Lumen Field.

“Yeah, it was an exciting one, for sure,” said Kitchen. “Especially in front of the hometown. It was pretty chaotic with all the people, but it was a lot of fun. Me and Haiden kept it somewhat clean, I guess you could say. Nobody went on the ground, but we were doing some pretty crazy stuff. But it was fun. The track was super-rutted. It was slow and technical, so you could kind of do what we were doing. If it was a higher speed track, it would have been a little more dangerous. It was a good time. A really good time.”

What did you and Haiden say to each other when you bumped fists immediately after the finish line?

“Honestly, I don’t even really remember what he said,” answered Kitchen. “I mean there was nothing bad. I mean we were basically both just kind of stoked because the race was crazy. We were almost in shock when we got off the track with what had just happened. Yeah, it was all good things, if I remember correctly. Obviously we’ve had our incidents in the past, but after a race like that it’s kind of hard to not respect each other. It was pretty crazy.”

Fifth in 250SX West points with five rounds remaining, Kitchen is still determined to climb up the leader board as high as possible before the checkered flag comes down at the finale in Salt Lake City on May 9.

“I mean I’m going to keep trying the best I can, but we’re definitely going to need a bike malfunction or something [from Deegan]," he said. "I’ve had better years and done worse. Yeah, if it was the 450 class, a lot of people have had a mishap and still won a 450 championship. It’s really tough to do in the Lites class. There have been years where obviously it has happened, but Haiden has won everything except for one race. I don’t know. For me, big picture is to go and try to keep getting better and better. Really, that’s what’s motivating me now, trying to get better.”