R450: I was taking pictures of moto 1 and noticed that you had a rough start start. However, you had a great finish. What do you think attributed to the start and the finish?
Doug: I sat back a little too far on the start and wheelied too much. The ITP tires with the Yoshimura motor hooked up really well. I started off making too many mistakes and wasn’t riding smooth at the beginning of the moto. Then I started to settle down toward the second half of the moto and ended up coming out in second.

R450: So what happened in moto 2 that was different, Because you really looked like a machine out there. To be honest you probably finished twenty seconds ahead of Jones who was running in second place.
Doug: Well, in moto 2 I rode a lot harder and came out a lot better and made it all work. I found some good lines and some guys weren’t doing the double-triple section over there and I could, so I made it happen and got by them.

R450: Overall, what is your opinion of the track down here?
Doug: This is one of my favorite tracks, you know it’s rough and it has good jumps. It has a lot of rough kicker bumps from the sand. I would say that it is my favorite track on the whole circuit.

R450: So I guess you like to ride the rough tracks then?
Doug: Yeah, the rougher the better for me.

R450: Obviously you have quite a few more years under your belt than most of the other guys out there on the track, do you see that as a major advantage?
Doug: In a way it is an advantage because I have had a lot more experience, but it’s kind of a disadvantage because of training. I can remember when I was younger I didn’t have to train as hard, now I have to train twice as hard just to stay with them. You feel it the next morning way more than you did when you were younger. Anymore it takes me two days to recouperate where it used to be just a day.

This article provided in part by: