The BUD Kawasaki Racing team signed up Mathis Valin for the 2024 season in what is his rookie season in the EMX250 class and the French talent has been a revelation as he has the red plate with four rounds to go. It’s close at the top as he only has a 13 points gap over Cas Valk with Valerio Lata only another five points back but it’s in his hands.
We caught up with BUD Kawasaki’s team owner, Stéphane Dassé to discuss the French talent and more…
GateDrop: Here at Lommel, overall I think a very very good weekend, especially for Mathis Valin… Coming here, I’m not sure if you would have expected him to win a moto, but he done just that. And overall, a very good weekend and very good for the championship.
Dassé: Yes, exactly. We came here, for sure we were always a bit afraid of Lommel, you know, because for Frenchies it’s not the best track. But by luck we have the BUD Racing training camp with a lot of sandy tracks, so we are training a lot in our compound. It shows we did a good choice. Mathis, he rode now very good on every type of track, so now we are very happy, especially yesterday for the first moto. He won pretty easy and did a very good race. Today he didn’t ride with the same style, he was a bit tight, but it’s very good, we don’t lose any points to Cas Valk who is a sand specialist and Valerio Lata who is also a very experienced rider, so we are very happy, still leading the championship. And four rounds to go, so more excited than ever. We expect a lot for the rest of the season.
GateDrop: Even last year when he was racing on the 125cc, sand were the rounds that let him down a little bit. It’s only a year he’s been with you guys, but you can clearly see he’s worked hard on the sand, so was that one of the things you wanted to improve as soon as he came to the team? Get him good in the sand?
Dassé: Yes, and also not too much choice, because in winter the weather is not so good, so we ride in sand in our region. For sure we know if we want to go for a championship, especially in the last few months, we saw that he has the potential to win championships, so we push even more in the sand to put all the chances on our side. It’s not only a work of a few weeks, it’s already been one year now, so it’s very good.
GateDrop: Coming into the first round, what were the expectations? Because he was unbelievable at round one in Madrid, I don’t think too many people thought he was going to come out and ride the way he did as a rookie.
Dassé: Yes, me neither, I didn’t expect him to do as good. We have a two year contract with Mathis, so it’s his first year out of the 125cc class and we were expecting to fight for some top five, between five and eight for the first year, and fight for the win in the second year, but already this winter he showed some good things… we could not expect to fight with an experienced guy. But now from the first race and every round we want more and more, so now it’s a very good season for us.
GateDrop: When did you start thinking, we have a shot at challenging for the championship here? Because he’s been very good, pretty much all season…
Dassé: I think not the first round, because the first round you always think it’s a bit not of luck, because we had a French championship race already, but after the second round, and seeing the French championship fighting with top guys like Mathys Boisrame, and guys like this, you realise we can be fighting for the championship. We know he’s good on every type of track, so from race two we were expecting good things.
GateDrop: On Benjamin Garib, this is his first full season racing the EMX250, with the injury last year, how have you made of his season so far?
Dassé: Up and down, you know, he’s doing, on training sometimes he’s very, very good on hard pack, it’s a bit more difficult during the races, he doesn’t do the same results that we can see during the week, and for sure in the sand there’s a lack of riding, because even in one year you cannot learn 100%, and so it’s a bit too tight and too aggressive for the sand yet. But we have a lot of pleasure riding with Benjamin, he’s a very good kid, he’s working hard, and even if the result is not always exactly what we want, he did a top six in Latvia, he did some good podium in the French championship, and I think okay, and the season is not finished, we have like four more races to go, and for him it’s good tracks for him because a lot of hard pack, so we hope to fight for top five and do some good results.
GateDrop: With Mathis Valin, it might be difficult for you to keep him next year, it looks like he might be going straight off into MX2 next year?
Dassé: I don’t know yet, you know, but for sure he does a very good season, and he does deserve a good ride in MX2 but we have a contract with him for this year and next year. So, we have to see what will happen, but for sure it would be logical to move him up next year.
GateDrop: So you might be looking out for a new rider then, but just on next year will you still be supporting the EMX250 championship with two riders?
Dassé: Yes, yes, our plan at BUD Racing is to focus on the EMX250 championship, build young top riders, so it’s not easy to have a rider like Mathis every year for sure, but we had the Coenen’s a few years ago, we had Brian Moreau, we always find some very good riders, so we hope to build in the next two years another new talent. So yeah, it’s our goal.
GateDrop: World Supercross is coming up again, are you going to be part of World Supercross this year again?
Dassé: Yes, for sure we will be at the World Supercross Championship, for us it’s matching very good with BUD Racing’s style and spirit. We will have four riders, and it’s not totally finalised for the riders, but maybe in two or three weeks we can announce everything, so we are very excited to be part of the championship again.
GateDrop: Obviously you race a lot in Europe, you race a lot in France, so are you looking forward to racing overseas now as well?
Dassé: Yes, already for WSX we have Canada, two rounds in Australia and one round in Abu Dhabi. Also let’s see what happens next year, if we have good young riders, maybe we can ride some Supercross rounds like Supercross Future or something in America, because we want to open the mind of the riders and see what is World Championship… but also America and everywhere, because for me the start of the sport for most of us is America, so we want to continue working on Supercross, just to have them getting more experience and be better and better for their future.
