What Happened to Levi Kitchen in Birmingham?

It's decent. That's two words. Yeah. It's decent.
Decent. Yeah. Not great. Decent.

I mean, obviously a couple incidents have set you back. But what are a couple things that you're really focused on at this point? Because once the title is out of reach, I assume it's, it's tough to stay motivated. You want to keep a ride and you want to still win, obviously, but you’ve got to find that balance. So what are the things you're really working on right now?
I'd say just trying to be better in all the situations that I have struggled with in the past. I don't know. Some things have come easy for me in my career so far, but there's a lot of things that have been tough, you know, with little just stupid stuff, maybe not having the confidence that I think I should in myself sometimes. It's just like, you’ve got to get the ball rolling. I feel like I get it going, but it's just not quite where I want it to be to where I feel that confidence, like it is when everything is coming together. It's been a while since I've had that, it’s been a couple of years since I've won races and felt that crazy momentum. I mean, I have the confidence, I know I can go out there and do it. That's what was kind of frustrating. This last weekend was like the same I’ve felt at all these rounds. There's been a lot of positives. I've had quite a few seconds, and the one in Seattle was like a good race and I felt like I got better. And Glendale, I started way back but got to second and felt good. So it's been tough. I've just been trying to take all the take all the positives and build the best I can, especially for future series, you know, whether it's outdoors or supercross, just like racecraft and everything like that.

You know, for a long time, there was a stigma about you that said “Oh, if Levi doesn't get a good start, he can't come through the pack.” And I would say that's gone this year. I've seen you come through the pack a number of times this season. Like do you feel something has changed with how you attack that?Yeah, I think I think I've just finally, like part of that belief is coming around to where I do just feel like I should be at the front no matter what that is. Also, I'm getting older and I feel I'm getting like stronger. My fitness has felt really good this year. And I feel like my recovery and everything has been a little bit more dialed in. So I've felt better on the weekends. And yeah, the aggression thing I've been working on. Not only just getting through the pack, but also being a little more aggressive because I am one of the bigger guys. I guess I was a little bit passive on the track before, you know, timid.

Well, let me ask you, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like when you were presented with the idea that you weren't coming through traffic, say, two years ago, you kind of pushed back against that. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you didn't push back. But do you feel like you were a little defensive about that topic? But maybe now you agree that, yeah, you were a little timid.
Totally. Yeah. Because now that I'm doing it at the pace that I'm doing it, yeah, I definitely must have improved. I was pretty bad at it before.

Now going back to confidence. Coming out of amateurs I'm sure you were extremely confident. Right? But then once things don't fall into place the way you maybe you expect it to, it starts working against you. And then once you find a little lack of confidence, it's got to be really hard to overcome that because it really factors into everything you do on the track.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it just takes a lot of building. For me, the problem is, it takes winning. Like even I can get confidence from a second or a second where I came from behind, it doesn't satisfy me. You know, Seattle hurt pretty bad. Like it was a great race. But I was pretty mad to lose. So that's an example. I don't know, but then you get a win and, like everybody knows, you can even win and you're still tough on yourself because I've had a couple where I felt like they were almost, like, easy. And that's kind of how they end up happening normally.

Sidebar a little bit. Your battle with Cole Davies was awesome, man. That looked like fun.
Yeah, that was super fun. Obviously he's really good in the whoops so he'll rail the top of all the or most of the berms. So I just tried to make sure I was right there so he couldn't go inside. It was fun for a bit there, definitely. We were kind of battling it actually bunched everybody up and I was like, man, we got a freight train here. And then when I had to start sitting down so much [back problems] it was so funny. I felt like a goon. I would sit the whole the whole start straight, I would sit the little wall before the finish and then sit the finish line. I felt like a goon, but for some reason it would relieve my back. As soon as I would stand or get over in that hunched position, I was kind of screwed.

So can you do me a favor, Levi? Next time there's an issue like that, can you let somebody know before the race starts? Just like we're in the press box, you know, and we’re like what? What is going on?
I don't know, I wanted to. I didn't actually tell Mitch really until he kind of figured out as the day was going on. Then after the main he was kind of confused because I've been pretty strong in the mains this year so far. So it looked pretty abnormal and bad. It was tough but.

Well yeah. Don't tell us before you tell Mitch. That's for sure.
What's weird is I rode Tuesday, Wednesday and then I did some starts Thursday. Then I flew Thursday night, rode press on Friday. And I think because I was trying to make up for a little lost time the week before because I tried to rest a little bit, like maybe I just rode too many laps. I don't know, it kind of just built up and got worse as the day went on. Like press day, it started hurting pretty good and I was like, oh boy, we're in for it. So then in qualifying, I would do a lap or two, but I would pull in kind of often just trying to save it. But I didn't really do a great job of it!