San Diego’s sixth round of Monster Energy Supercross saw Cooper Webb secure his first win of the season. In this edition of Debrief, the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing rider recounts his triumph with questions from the post-race press conference.

Image: Octopi Media.

Congratulations Cooper. You told everyone you were as mad as a hornet…

Obviously after the heat race and going down, when you make dumb mistakes you get mad at yourself, so it was actually a good thing for the main event – it fired me up. It was a great main – obviously, the season has been up and down so far, but last weekend went well and this week was awesome. I really have to give it up to the team – they worked hard on the motorcycle to get me comfortable. I felt the whoops were a lot better, even though I ended up going back to the jump line. I was pretty comfortable all day, and it was a great main. Adam was riding really well and I wasn’t making up any time early – especially as the track deteriorated, when you’re leading you want to try things but you don’t want to make a mistake, so it’s a tough situation for sure. We had a few battles and it was a fun main event. It’s cool to walk away with the win, for sure.

Were you surprised that that gate opened up on the start?

I was very surprised – I was 11th pick, so I was expecting more outside. It wasn’t the greatest pick, but I was in the mix. It helped me out a lot.

You’ve spoken about that it’s time to get moving again and get up there – you also touched on the whoops, you looked like a different guy before you started jumping. What changed?

Like I said, the team and I just sat down and said we all need to be better and figure it out – we see how well Blake hits them on the same bike, so it was time to figure it out. We got to ride a little bit together this week, and he’s a bad dude in the whoops. It’s cool to see that and see what I’m doing wrong. Obviously I ended up jumping them, but I felt pretty strong in them all day. I feel I fixed my achilles heel a bit.

Image: Octopi Media.

They’re 20-minute mains, but when the lap times are 49-51 seconds, you know you’re going to be in there for a while. Does that change your race craft for the night?

It’s tough because you need the speed at the beginning, and I feel like AC was really on it and I was just trying to catch the tow. In the middle when the track’s really changing, you’re not sure which direction you want to go and the lines are changing a lot – that five minutes is a really long time, and tonight it would’ve been an extra eight laps.

You put that move on in the off-camber section, I think you surprised Adam there…

I made that move real early, and he got around me I think on the first lap. It was close, and I saw he wasn’t sure which way to go, so I did the inside and he did a good thing of squaring it up. It was some good racing and there was a lot of strategy.

You and Adam raced each other a lot growing up, even in a big moment like tonight, do you guys have a pretty good idea of how you’re going to race each other?

I mean we haven’t raced each other in a long time, so it was cool – he’s still a rookie, so you think he’s going to make rookie mistakes, and he was really, really solid tonight. He’s very smart and his riding style suits the 450 well, so it was almost like I was battling a seasoned 450 guy. It’s cool to look back and think we’re up on the biggest stage like you said – it’s pretty cool.