Q: You set a lap record at Daytona on a Supersport bike that held for a long time (three years). What if a company were interested in you to ride a Superbike and a Supersport bike, would you think about it?

A: A Superbike, yeah. You know, I don't need to ride that bad anymore. I don't need the money that bad. I'm not interested in money at this point in my career. I'm interested in winning some races again, period. I want another Daytona to put up on the mantel. I want to ride a bike that I can jump back on and say, 'Hey, everybody here that didn't believe I still had it? Here it is' you know? Not really for them, but more for me. It'd be fun to prove to the people who doubted me. It's real simple.

The Supersport thing, I know it's an important class for the factories. If I got on something, a team or something that was interested in me running maybe both classes (Superbike and Supersport) that's definitely possible. I would definitely be interested in that.

Q: So you're set financially? You don't have to worry about anything in that regard?

A: Thank God for Alan Miller, my lawyer. He's done great things for me. Unlike a lot of the roadracers in this world, we're going to be okay. It's not a money issue at this point in my career.

Right now I think it's just a personal thing. I'll be able to sleep better at night if I come away at the last season of my career with some race wins in the basket. My points are on the board for my career; you know what I'm saying? I mean, I'm proud of most of the things I've done in my career. Some were questionable, but that's all behind me now. I'm looking forward to making good with somebody else and another team and that all might could happen. That's what my goal in life is right now. Nothing else.

Q. How do you think you will look at this period in your career ten years from now?

A: Well, Harley definitely paid me a lot of money to ride the thing and I feel bad about it almost. I feel bad because I wasn't able to produce for them and that just doesn't sit with me either. You know, I wasn't here just to take these guys' money. I honestly came there with a goal in mind to be the first guy ever to win on a Harley Davidson and we're not done yet. We've still got two races left. That's why I went there.

It was a lot of money, too, that helps make it but shoot, after the things that we talked in the first meeting that we had before we inked the contact, things looked promising on paper. The Harley team has been at it for seven years now and it's kind of swinging hard at the ball but not connecting yet with it. That's the best way I can put it.

Q: Do you think then that in the current state that the bike can ever win?

A: Right now, it'd be tough.

I mean, the bike came close last year at the last race. I think Pascal just dug deep and found something. The bike responded and he rode it well. Anything's possible in racing, we both know that. But you come to the race week in, week out, and ... we're not players in this game. Honestly, we're just not. People don't look at us as a threat to do any good. Every weekend you're out here, they just look past us. That's not cool with me. When I used to come to the racetrack people would say, 'Oh shit, we're going to have a hard time winning this weekend.' That's the way I like to be perceived at an event. I wanted to bring that kind of what I had to this team and unfortunately it takes a lot more than that these days to win. Just heart doesn't do it anymore.

Q: Would you say this is a lot like some of the other teams you rode for in the past or is it a completely different team in the way it works and the way things get done?

A: Well, it's just like, I don't know how to put it in the best way. We're out there trying to compete with people who are making bigger steps every year than we do with this bike. Each year they may make a little step but the other guys will make quite a big step and then we are even farther behind than we should be.

The team right now is okay for what they got. I think they may need to pick up the pace a little bit here and there in some areas when they become competitive. They may need to take a deep look inside, but you know, I have nothing bad at all to say about these guys. They are great people at heart. They worked with their heart. You can tell they want to win, they just don't know how yet. They work as hard as the rest of the guys; they just don't have the right tools in the toolbox to make this thing work.

Q: Do you see this team ever being consistently competitive for a season?

A: I want to believe that they will have luck down the road and be able to put some good seasons together, but the way it looks at this point after being a part of it, I think still they've got a long road ahead of them. They need to get a real test program in place where they can go out and run new parts and not do it at the racetrack like we've continuously been doing every weekend we race. It's something that we're not sure about. Well, let's try this or let's try that like they've got to do at the racetrack.

I'd almost like to see them take a year off. Just go away and go testing and come back when they've got their stuff together better, because this isn't doing anybody any good for them to be here in this capacity I don't think.

Q: Do you think, on the top level of execs at Harley, people that we never see at the racetrack, do you think they just don't understand what it takes to be competitive in AMA Superbike racing today?

A: For sure. I mean, the Harley brass are great people as well. They love that they've got a great team and they like living through that. This is serious business. They realize that too, it's just the fact that they, I don't know ... The R&D of the bike is just at a standstill. Those people, they don't know what it takes to win. Their idea of winning is Scott Parker on Harley kicking everybody's ass at the dirt track and that's great, because that's what they know. They're good at what they know.

The roadracing thing is a different deal for them, and I think honestly, over the last six or seven years that this (program) has been like the stepchild of the factory kind of thing. You know what I'm saying? People didn't really care about it, and now they are getting interested in it. But now we're two years into it the Ford program, which is good money, and in those two years it seems to me to be almost kind of lost. And then you're going to go into a third year and if you don't start working right now for next year, then you'll be another year behind.

I honestly don't think that they really know what it's going to take to go win. I think they definitely want to win. I think they're definitely interested in finding out what it's going to take to win, but it's going to take more time, it looks like.

Q: You know AMA Superbike is a pretty big deal to the Japanese factories when Honda spends something like twenty thousand dollars flying two RC51 engines and two technicians from Texas to Daytona to get an RC51 works engine there in time for the tire test. It's a big commitment company-wide to winning.

A: Exactly. You know, that's what it takes to keep the company on. You know, I watched (a show) on Mr. Honda and that's what he thrived on, winning races and that's what evolved into great cars and into great motorcycles and the ways of winning. They know what it takes to be winners, because that's what he focused on to start with, winning, and they do it at all costs, it looks like.

The Harley guys, the money hadn't really been there to start off like that in the last seven years. At the end of each year, they didn't know whether they were going to continue the program or not. So with the Ford money coming in that definitely picked up the pace for them, but I'm not sure that they went about it the right way. I think they were a little bit behind inking the contract and that put us a year behind. Then the next year we weren't prepared, we were two years behind. If they're not quick enough, then they're going to be five years behind and then the program might be over. That's the way I see it.

I wish that I could help more and enlighten them in any way I could. But you know, I'm just a rider and it takes a lot more than just a good rider these days. It's the whole package.

Q: It's an interesting situation. If Harley was looking to upgrade the team ... Erv Kanemoto is out there mowing his lawn in San Jose, and Rob's (Muzzy) up there in Bend. There's quite a bit of team talent available if somebody wanted to have them.

A: You're right. Those guys are there, those people are there and if you want to win (that's) what I'd do: head hunt the best people in the world and you've got to get them at all costs. If you want to win that bad, that's what you do.

So looking at it now, seeing these people are available and whatever and they're not making that move, maybe they've got their own reasons for that, we don't know, but my opinion is that maybe they could have done a little bit better by that. Because we both know those two guys are both winners in everything they've ever done. People might not like the way they operate or whatever, but who gives a shit? We want to win races.

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