We caught up with Cooper Webb to talk the switch back to Yamaha and being teammates with a title rival.
The switch to Yamaha
“I think for me we have had a great off-season. I learned a lot from SMX what we needed to work on, I feel like my fitness is back where it needs to be, my riding is back where it needs to be and stuff with the bike is back so it’s been awesome. Had a lot of young guys being fast at the farm and keeping me young so that’s been cool and having Eli as a teammate too, testing and stuff like that together, it’s been cool. So, happy, pumped and still feel like I’ve a lot to prove, I think we are getting a little bit written off maybe so come in and do what we always do.
Racing Tomac different even if it’s a title battle at the end?
No, I think if it’s a title challenge we know each other enough to take the gloves off and go! There has always been a lot of respect between us, we have raced together and raced hard for really the last five years so yeah, there is a lot of respect but we also want to beat each other. It will be interesting but I think at this point we are getting older and can use each other to help maybe beat the new, younger guys. It will be interesting for sure, but so far everything has been clear sailing, it’s just nice to have the same personnel and be on the same bike honestly, it’s kind of make the best guy win.
Motivated to beat Jett Lawrence?
I didn’t race a ton of outdoors, he was incredible outdoors, he was really good at SMX, I think we are all here to race and try to win and you can’t really focus on one guy. He’s definitely a unique rookie! He’s gonna come in and haul ass, he’s going going to come in really, really fast. Like I said up there, how I feel with myself, I know what I can do over 17 rounds, I always put myself in the fight. It’s one thing to be fast but you’ve got to be consistent, that’s for sure, I’m sure he’ll be both but it’s a whole new season and you never know what can happen in our sport.
Watch the full interview below that includes Jorge Prado on is first supercross and Adam Cianciarulo on the revised Kawasaki :
Interviews: Jonathan McCready
