Catching Up With… Kevin Windham

elmo

• January 13 2009
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• 15 comments

After a stellar 2008 Supercross season, Kevin Windham sat out during the 2008 AMA Motocross Nationals to relax and enjoy his summer from the comfort of his home. Now, however, K-Dub is back in full force in 2009, but with a slightly different look. Though Windham continues to “ride red,” he now finds himself sporting new threads from MSR, a Shoei hemlet, and Gaerne boots. With an all-new look, Windham was looking to parlay his success of ‘08 into the 2009 season, however, with two rounds already in the books that has yet to happen. We caught up with Windham this afternoon chat about his mishap at A1 with James Stewart and his thoughts on the rest of the season.

You had a Supercross-only contract last year, which left you with a lot of time on your hands over the summer. What were you up to this summer while everybody else was out racing?

I really just took the whole season off. It was the first time I’ve ever had any off time, so I basically took a step back and enjoyed things. I spent a lot of time at our local lake with the family, riding jet skis and just hanging out. It was pretty nice.

With that time off, did it motivate you to come into the ’09 season hungry and looking for wins?

Yeah. It was definitely a long off-season for me. It was one of those things where you think that’s what you want, but once you have it it feels really long. I don’t know exactly how we’re going to make changes for this upcoming off-season, but I’m sure we’ll do something so that we can have the best of both worlds.

With the economy being as bad as it has been, did that play into you getting a deal set in stone for this year?

A few things have obviously changed in our program and a lot of my deals were up at the end of the ’08 season. As you know, the economy has been rough on everybody, but we were able to get things worked out, and I am pretty excited that I even have a job right now (laughs).

Things were looking good for you at A1 until you and [James] Stewart got together in the whoop section. Can you walk us through your perspective of the crash?

It happened so fast! Everything is kind of a blur (laughs). It happened so fast that I really had no idea what happened, so when I saw the crash on television I was glad to see that I really wasn’t in the wrong. The whoops were blocked on the inside and they only had a third of the track available to race on. I think there was a FELD Entertainment personnel on the left side of the whoop section, waving at us to come closer to his side. So, when I saw him, I went on the left side of the track and I think James saw him too and did the same thing and, unfortunately, we collided. At the end of the day I suppose you can pass the blame all the way around. Could I have backed out? Was that guy waving at me or was he waving at James? Should the inside of the whoops not been blocked off? It was a bummer for me because I felt like I had a shot at getting on the podium. The class is stacked this year, and I hate to miss out on any opportunities like that. If you don’t take advantage of your opportunities, you will never know when they’ll present themselves again (laughs). I wish I could’ve started off the season on a strong note.

Phoenix was a little bit better for you, as you finished sixth place…

I was disappointed with that sixth place as well. I just got off to a mediocre start. Once again, James and Chad [Reed] were hauling ass, and I was also impressed with Josh Grant and his ability to put together two podiums in a row. [Andrew] Short is also riding really well, so there are a lot of people already going fast, trying to jockey for position. I think we’re seeing all of these guys riding with more enthusiasm right now then what they’ll be showing at round 12 of the series. At the same time, however, I didn’t get to where I needed to be as soon as possible. To be honest with you I’m pretty disappointed in each of my finishes so far.

With that being said, what do you want to accomplish by the time the series reaches Las Vegas?

Well, right now, we’re continuing to work on the bike so that we have it all dialed in. The past couple of weeks have been interesting for us putting the bike through these race conditions. We’re just continuing to improve the settings of the bike and my performances. I think we need to settle down a little bit and find that consistency instead of being all over the board and get back to the veteran K-Dub. I feel like my speed is there, I just need to settle down a little bit and find a good pace that will allow me to put forth some podium finishes.

Are you enjoying the new EFI CRF450R?

Yeah. The bike is good. We basically started from the ground up and it seems like things always come into play that we can’t test for but appear during race conditions. Like any bike out there, it’s going to be a work in progress; I think any team out there will tell you that it’s always a work in progress. Honda has given us a great baseline to work with, and the EFI is incredible to work with because we don’t have to worry about the bog or anything like that.