Round 12 of the 2021 Monster Energy Supercross season is in the books, with Cooper Webb taking the win in the 450SX class, while Justin Cooper secured his first win since the opening round to regain the lead in the 250SX West championship. Following the race, the winning duo were available to the media for a Debrief interview. 

450SX

Image: Octopi Media.

After the heat race, I think there were a lot of people wondering how you would rebound for the main event. You clearly just didn’t have the pace that Ken Roczen had right there, it was a track that you had struggled with all day. What was the turnaround time like between the heat race to the main event and what did you do to make things better? Was it a bike setup change, was it you wanting to find different lines, or a combination of everything?

It was a little bit of a combination of everything. We had tried a bike change for the heat that obviously I didn’t gel too well with. It was just a bad heat for sure, like you said Ken was riding really well and was all over me and when he got around me he pulled away. Then obviously I ended up going down and stuff. I kind of just went back and regrouped. I think that was the biggest thing was being able to regroup. It’s easy to let things slip away and let that ruin your whole night. So I was proud of myself for being able to rebound and get back on track and figure things out. I was able to watch some film and see where I was losing a lot of time. We had a bunch of rhythms that we were all doing different but kind of being able to see what was actually the fastest way through them all was good. Like you said, I was able to adjust. It’s hard to gain pace, that’s for sure, and I was able to do that for the main event which worked out really well.

15 points up in the championship now leading into this break. In 2019 when you were battling for that championship, you stuck with riding supercross during the breaks to get the championship done. Now this is your second chance at getting a Supercross title, are you going to be doing some motocross testing in this time or are you sticking to Supercross? 

We’re actually going to start some motocross this week. Just some riding probably not testing or anything. Like we were saying with the two weekends off we really have three full weeks until we race again, so yeah I’m excited to kind of switch it up and get some outdoor riding in. It’s always nice to switch it up and ride some outdoors with some higher speeds. I feel like it sometimes helps you when you go back to Supercross, being able to work on things that you maybe learned outdoors. So yeah, we’re going to do that this week and then probably half and half the following week, then back to full supercross. Supercross is the focus right now, but I think putting a little bit of motocross in there always seems to work pretty well toward the end of the season.

After the main event on the podium, you said that in the heat race you didn’t really like being put on the ground and that might have motivated you for the main event. Can you just talk about those couple laps with Chase Sexton and your thoughts going into the main?

You never want to be in that position where number one you’re getting passed and two [you hit the ground]. It was racing, he didn’t mean to do it, but getting taken out always sucks. I think for me I tried to use it as motivation and ground myself to use that energy I guess to get myself going for the main event. I had just got beat and passed by two guys, and kind of pulled away from, so I was looking for some redemption there, and like I said, when you get put on the ground it’s never fun. There’s a bunch of different ways to handle that situation but I felt like for me I just tried to use it to motivate myself to go there in the main and do the best I could and try to use it to put that pressure on me to go win. That’s kind of how it ended up working out and how I had envisioned it but you never know how racing is, it changes all the time.

Tell us about your decision in recent races to be on the spring shock rather than the air. Are you staying with the spring shock for the rest of the season? 

Yeah, I think right now that’s the plan. At the beginning of the year, we were really keen on the air stuff. To be honest, it’s really good, it’s just we didn’t have much time with it. December is when I got it and we did some testing but it’s something that we’re learning every week. So I think for me when I went back to what I ran last year and just what I know. So I’m sure we’ll develop it a little bit here and there and the goal is to be on it moving forward. But I think right now with where I’m at and how I’m riding and everything, I think we’ll stick to the spring and just go from there.

250SX West

Image: Octopi Media.

The last three races, obviously in the moment it’s hard to express the frustrations because you’re just trying to stay focused. But now that you’ve got the win, you’ve righted the wrong and we’ve got the break coming up, can you just take us through the last three races and the frustrations you were feeling? We’re you questioning things with yourself or the bike? 

Definitely really frustrating. You said it right there, I’ve righted the wrong tonight and it feels good to do that. But man I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t frustrated with myself and how these last three have gone. That stuff gets thrown at you and you’ve got to take it and do the best you can with it. You can’t let it phase you, it sucks but you got to push through it and get as many points as you can out of those nights. It was pretty crazy to have three of those in a row. I just felt like every weekend I was coming from literally dead last, so it was nice to get some clean air tonight. But yeah back to your question, it was really frustrating, I was questioning things but it all came back to at the end of the day I’m doing everything right, I’ve just got to stay out of the carnage and sometimes that’s hard to do. You’ve got to be really smart, and there’s a fine line between sending it on the first couple of laps and being smart, because those things can happen. It was building up on me and I really needed to get good starts at the end of the day, and that’s what we did today. It’s really good going into the break to get back on top, I feel like that’s where we belong and where we’ve worked so hard to be. So just trying to put those three rounds behind us but also learn as much as we can from those.

What was the deal with the starts, tonight’s were really good and you’re typically a good starter. Was it something with you, technique, the bike? It was just uncharacteristic.

So basically we didn’t get too much testing going into the season. I had about three or four days on Supercross and obviously didn’t do many starts, I just had a couple of days I was focusing on getting the riding and fitness in. As far as that goes, came in pretty under prepared. Got good starts at round one then we made a couple of changes and I was playing around with some stuff on the starts that wasn’t working. So we went back to what we know. The starts even at the last race on Tuesday were good, just had that first lap incident with Chris Blose (GasGas). It’s a racing incident, there’s no one to blame there. Yeah it’s been tough and I’ve really just got sick of it.

The first rhythm lane had a really big jump combination that only a handful of 250SX guys were doing. You were the only guy to do it on the opening lap of the main event. How critical was getting the start and was it a little sketchy to send it off the first lip knowing 21 other riders were behind you?

Not really, I got the holeshot in both the heat race and the main and did that line in both of the first laps. I hit it every lap in practice and that, so I had it down pretty good. It was just like if I was tripling a rhythm. So I definitely didn’t really think about it like that, it was just kind of a place where I was doing the normal fast line and I had the clean air to do that. So I think anyone else that got the holeshot would do the same thing and it was definitely a way to get away from the pack pretty quick. The jump was definitely pretty big though, I remember hitting it in free practice and I didn’t really know what to do. I was like ‘I’ve got to triple out, so I must have to quad this.’ I remember coming up a bit short the first time and thinking ‘Woah, this thing’s pretty massive.’ [laughs] It got easier throughout the night once it got worked in, the track crew fixed it up a little bit and it seemed to shoot you right as the night went on.