Cooper Webb says he feels he is the strongest rider mentally on the 450 main event gate as the rider with the 15 point lead heads down the home stretch with his third premier class supercross title in his sights.
Nearly two weeks ago at Indy, Webb underlined his mental strength and ability to rise under pressure. Webb had crashed in both practice and his heat race, seemingly giving an edge to his rivals but instead of letting the errors affect him negatively Webb said he was “pissed off” at himself and fired out of the 450 main event start like a cannon and dominated the main event so much so that even Chase Sexton, with Webb in his sights couldn’t reel him in and had to wave the white flag.
When the going gets tough, Cooper Webb gets going and both he and his rivals know it. We asked Webb in the press conference if he felt he was the mentally strongest rider in the class and, with Sexton sitting to his left, Webb said: “I would like to think so, right? It’s been a career move for me of constant, mentally I think I have always been pretty good. I think I look at those mistakes and some guys let it affect them but honestly, it pisses me off that I do them and then I ride better. I don’t reccomend crashing to ride in a good zone but sometimes that’s what happens and that’s what gets the best out of me, so, but yeah, it something I have been able to do constantly throughout my career is have a great mental block and capacity and yeah, I think that’s a strong suit.”
This weekend marks the start of the championship run-in with Sexton 15 back of Webb and Roczen 26 back. But just to mix things up after a weekend off, it is a triple-crown event, with three starts and three intense first corners where anything can happen. The risk is higher but Webb has shown his whole career he isn’t intimidated by anyone and can deal with pressure by making great decisions when it really matters, he has the margin for error and the ability to play mind games at any time.
The pressure is on Roczen and Sexton to beat Webb right now, starting in Birmingham, but the margin for error is zero and they know he is granite mentally. Game on, but good luck rattling Cooper Webb, that guy is mentally bulletproof.
