Fast Chat: Chad Reed 1

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Chad Reed took his sixth win of the season in nine tries last Saturday night, and afterward we asked him about the track, his race in Indy, and the crash the week before in Atlanta.

Several riders including Kevin Windham (Houston) and James Stewart (Atlanta) have had the chance to design a track during the season, and Indy was Chad’s turn. What was he looking for from a rider’s point of view in his design? “I was just looking for something that was going to be challenging, and try to have that happy medium of challenging but safe. I felt like we achieved it. The dirt, I think, made the track difficult. It got really rutty and sticky. It was cool. I want to thank all the guys at Live Nation and Dirt Wurx. It was a big opportunity for us to do it. It’s a hell of a lot harder than what it looks. We just got a blueprint of the stadium floor and you’ve got to go to work.”

“I’m happy. I got the holeshot and I felt like that was one of my most dominating performances of the year, so it’s good to have it on my own track.”

During practice, It appeared that Chad was spending quite a bit of time dissecting sections of the track, and when we asked him about it, he explained, “I felt like I gave up practice a little bit. I gave up lap times to try and figure out the track. Obviously designing it and having a sight in the back of your head of what it’s going to take to get around the track, I just wanted to get it down. Once again, I think Live Nation was a really helpful with it. I think last weekend, if James had raced he’d have really been disappointed in that track. I think it was nothing like he would have envisioned it. This weekend I called the guys up and said, ‘Hey, I want to walk the track on Friday and make any changes that I want, because I want it to be what I feel that I wanted when I sat down and drew it. We came out and made a few little changes, and I think they did an awesome job.”

In Atlanta Chad had crashed while leading Davi Millsaps in the main event on the steep face of one of what we like to call “vertical chicanes,” but we’ve heard riders describe as, “walls of death.” (Basically they’re extremely peaked jumps.) Rather than popping up the face, and accelerating down the backside, Chad was trying a different tactic, using a smaller jump to try and completely launch over the wall. Unfortunately, he caught the top and crashed hard. Since we hadn’t had the chance to talk to him after Atlanta, we asked about it and he told us, “It just happened so fast. I was sticking to my game plan from the beginning of the year. I wanted to go out there and not leave anything on the table. The sand was building up every lap and I felt I could jump over the bump and then get over the wall. It seemed like I had a 50/50 shot at it, and (chuckling) I didn’t make it.”

“I paid the ultimate price and went down. I hit my head real hard and considered more than once pulling off. My eyes were just shot and I couldn’t see. I just kind of banged myself up a little bit. This week I just basically tried to rehab and catch up on some preseason kind of injuries and come out this weekend strong.”

“My confidence was never down. Honestly, I was just bummed. I felt like I was the guy to beat and had I put myself in good positions, or not made mistakes last weekend, I feel like I could have won and kept the streak going. I was pissed in Houston. I was so mad at myself to not give myself a good opportunity at Kevin and stop that win streak. That really sucked. I had a good goal going, and then I backed it up with another loss…a worse one. So this weekend I felt like I was pretty dominant and it makes me feel good.”

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