Un peu de “saine” lecture, mon cher Driver…
“As far as his plans for next year, Reed had this to say: “Actually, I had a pretty crazy weekend. I had something that I was really looking forward to signing, and it didn’t necessarily work out that way, so right now, I’m really unemployed [laughs].” (That was the Suzuki deal, we’re guessing.)
I brought up that he couldn’t race the Nationals since he has his SX series to run in Australia, and he indicated that it didn’t really matter in so far as the Nationals were concerned. “It [his SX series in Australia] starts in October, so it’s not necessarily during the summer or whatever, but the reason the whole ‘supercross-only’ thing really came about was first from L&M, and them only wanting to do supercross-only,” Reed said. “At the time, I was having a lot of thoughts on what I could do with Australian SX, and as it turned out, it turned out to be a real coincidence that I was offered a supercross-only deal. At that time, I was 23, and I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t won an outdoor title, and I hadn’t won an outdoor overall [on a 450], and I felt like I had a lot left on the table. Part of me, I wasn’t ready to step away. I was ready emotionally, but the racing side of me wasn’t fulfilled.
“In my contract, I had a lot of clauses that allowed me to do the nationals if I wanted to – I would’ve had to have gone from the L&M team to the factory team and that kind of stuff. But I felt like I had a really, really rough year in supercross, and I didn’t perform the way I wanted to, and there was just a snowball effect from the two previous years and I felt like the time off was what I really needed. As it turned out, we were able to get some time off, and better still, we were able to get a much more competitive motorcycle. And honestly, this year, the way I feel right now, if I didn’t have a supercross-only deal and I was happy to race for that team, I would be more than happy to show up and go racing. I feel like I’m in a much better position than I was last year. I was just really bummed and wanted time away. I had never had time away from the sport. But this year, I feel really motivated, and I feel like I could go and put my best foot forward and have a shot at that championship, for sure.”
You read that right. Reed says he would race the nationals, but he can’t. “It’s kind of funny,” he says. “I’ve copped a lot of slack and lost a lot of fans, but the reality is that I’m not shying away from the fact that I only wanted to go race supercross, and that’s what I put all my effort into, but a part of me really feels incomplete, and I feel like I have more to offer. I feel like I have better performances outdoors than what I’ve shown, and I feel like I have a championship in me outdoors. Probably the most unfortunate thing for me is that I won’t have a shot at racing James outdoors, even if I were to come back to the outdoors next year or something like that. But just like this year, you’ve got to be on top of your game and be prepared to take on whoever’s the best guy, and if that’s James, that’s James, and if that’s Ben Townley, it’s Ben Townley. You can’t control what happens. Supercross-only is a lot of fun, so I wouldn’t shy away from it, but if I really, really felt comfortable in my current situation, I think I could probably make something happen and go race the nationals – at least maybe for Yamaha [factory team]. But I’m not necessarily happy with what’s going on over there, so you won’t see me at the nationals until that changes.”
(extrait de Racerhead from Racer X).
, le il y a 15 années et 11 mois.
7.9 € TTC
