On The Pegs January 2018 - Volume 3 - Issue 1 | Page 76

On The Pegs
of the factory teams, obviously this is a business. I
understand that 100%. I’ve built this image based on
what worked for me during the time that I needed
it to work for me. I’ve made a lot of money by doing
that and by setting that image. But if things need
to change, I can change however I need to be. The
way I have to see it is Kevin Windham, Chad Reed - I
went down to Party in the Pasture a few years ago
and these guys were out amongst the crowd drink-
ing beer. This was when I was younger and I looked
up to these guys. I was like, man, that’s so cool. Those
guys are real guys. If you look, Kevin Windham and
Chad Reed, they’ve had colorful careers. They’ve
been good riders, but they were never the Ryan Vil-
lopotos. They were never the James Stewarts. They
never had a dominant season like that. But what they
had is they had the fans. I believe that the reason
they had those fans is because they were perceived
as a real person. Now the guy that you see doing it
is Ken Roczen. Obviously motocross has a lot more
places for guys like that to be seen in their own im-
age, but for me I’m the only one in the woods and
I don’t think there’s a lot of room for it. The Ryan
Dungey’s have to be out there. There has to be a lot
of clean-cut, socially acceptable at all times guys. For
me that’s just not me, at least at this time. Whatever
I’ve done has worked for me so far.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but even though you
have your own deal, I think KTM supplies you
with Allen Gravitt as your mechanic, right?
Yes. So, KTM is still a huge part of my program.
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