Continued

Q The decision to bring your US Superbike crewchief, Tom Houseworth, with you to WSBK was a stroke of genius.


A Oh, yeah. Just for his career, too. The way DMG is, and knowing him, and just everything's comfortable. It's been good. We've been working together good, and we've been just throwing different ideas with the team, and we've been making it better and better. Yeah, it's - besides some of the problems that you really can't fix, that we've had, it's great. We've just overcome a lot, with .... We didn't know the bike, we had no data, we didn't know anything, from the tires, the suspension, the tracks, the bike, the way the team ran. We've - I think we've been the strongest person out there, week in and week out. He's contributed a lot to it, and that's exactly why I brought him with me, because I knew it would happen.

Q Would you say that you've spent more time with House' this year than you had the previous five years?


A Yeah, for sure. We live in the same house. It's been good. Now he understands how serious I take racing, when he sees me, how my training is, and how, just everything I do for it. He knows why, and what I've been able to do, it's not just because of talent, it's because I work my ass off, too. I give 100% to racing, and when I retire, I'm done. Still, I'll enjoy watching it and stuff, but I'm definitely not going to be the rider that looks back and says that, "I wish I would've done this, and I wish I would've done that, or I could've done this if I would've done that." I just don't have any sympathy when I hear stories like that, so I put everything I got into it. If it doesn't go right, it's because of luck, or things like that. Or I wasn't fast enough to do it. But it's not, never going to be excuses of, "Oh, if I would've trained a little harder I could've done this," or I wouldn't be able to - I'd be losing sleep, after I retired, looking back. So I just keep working on it.


Q He can be pretty blunt and honest.

A [Laughing] Oh, I mean, you know, it's been good for both of us, because living in Italy, the lifestyle's a lot slower paced. It's a lot more old-school, traditional, and not as many things to do. We sit around the house a lot. But it's been good for me, because I'm really ... I just can't sit still. I've always got to do something when I'm over there. I really just relax. And even though we live in the same house, we'll go a couple days without seeing each other. That's just how it is. It's been working good. We've been doing plenty of different stuff, and he's real good friends with the team now, and then we've got Woody with us, and that's been good, and yeah, it's been great.


Q I think House was really nervous about trying to acclimate to Europe. He is such a southern California guy, and one might say pretty set in his ways. How's it going for him, from your standpoint?

A I think in a lot of ways he's grown up, in different lifestyle ways. Not like, when it comes to him, but when it's just like trying different things that he's not used to, it's not better or worse, it's just different, you've got to get over it. You've got to try it. It's the same thing with (new Spies team mechanic) Woody. He's definitely got his ways of how he likes to eat and stuff, and he's been trying a lot of different stuff in Italy. More than not, he's enjoying what he's eating and seeing, because it's so far different. It's good. Like I said, it makes you - even if someone wouldn't like it, they learn a lot from it, and they grow up in that part of their lifestyle, personality, whatever you want to call it. But it definitely, doesn't matter how old you are, I think you almost take some things for granted, and some things you learn about, and it's fun.

Q There is a lot of focus on you for the silly season, and what you're going to do. World Superbike, MotoGP, et cetera, et cetera. Is there anything you can say?


A We're still working on it. It's always hard, when you're ... everybody thinks it's always like the greatest thing on earth when you're at the top and doing things, but it also makes some headaches, too. No, we're working on things, and I think I got something that's going to be coming out pretty soon. I was thinking about riding a jet-powered bike in DMG. That might be fun. (laughs) No, like I said, it's going to happen sooner or later, and I've pretty much known what I was going to do for a long time now, it's just getting all the little stuff in line; it's going to be good.


Q You've mentioned DMG a couple of times. For a world-caliber rider, or a rider looking to make his mark on the World Championship, you absolutely left America at the right time. You couldn't have timed that any more perfectly.


A

"I saw that, and I just turned the TV off. Because the four-cylinders, they need some nitrous buttons, they need a Sneaky Pete system, to get some power on the straightaway."

It's definitely been a big change for a lot of people. I just ... I can't even make the right comments I want to make about it. But it would be one of those things, I don't even know if I'd be wanting to race, if I was back here, with just some of the things I've seen. It just makes it harder for the young guys to come up and get out of there, the way I know that people are on the world scale (are) looking at it. The pace car incident that I heard about, that almost put a few people in the hospital, was - that was pretty ridiculous.

I actually watched, the first race I've watched, really, all year, was the Topeka Sport Bike race. I don't know if it's called Sport Bike or Top Bike whatever, but the one that Eslick and Cardenas are in. I watched Cardenas ride that thing, and this is nothing against - it's nothing against Buell, and it's nothing against Danny (Eslick), but it's definitely against regulations and rules and what should be legal and shouldn't be. I watched Cardenas come flying into the last corner, get the better of the two drives, and Danny was 20 bike-lengths back, and halfway down the straight, Martin looked back trying to judge which way he was going to go so he could block him.

It'd be safe to say that 15 bike-lengths, for sure, were being made up on that one straightaway by the Buell. Not the back straightaway, but just the front straightaway. If that race is 22 laps, or however many laps it was, and you're gaining 15 bikes a straightaway, that's pretty much a free straightaway by the end of the race, and how many seconds is that? And that's just the front straightaway. It was crazy. It was 15 to 20 bike-lengths every time they hit the front straightaway, and that's just that part of the track. If you add that up over a race distance, you should be winning the race by over ten seconds. It's nuts.

Q It's a mockery.

A I saw that, and I just turned the TV off. Because the four-cylinders, they need some nitrous buttons, they need a Sneaky Pete system, to get some power on the straightaway. Man, I don't know. But again, Danny, they let it to be legal, and he's riding it. And he's doing what anybody else would do. But just the way the rules are, that bike should not be in that class. You've got the same bike, with a couple little mods, the same displacement, that's competitive against 1000s. So go figure.

To be continued