Tuesday Conversation: Mat Mladin
April 4, 2006
By CJ
Click here for a printer-friendly version

Yoshimura Suzuki’s Mat Mladin—six-time AMA Superbike Champion—doesn’t need much of an introduction. It’s been a long time since any rider has been able to consistently challenge the reigning king of the premier class, and though the Superbike field is getting stronger by the season these days, Mladin’s dominance doesn’t appear to be showing any signs of fatigue. We checked in with Mat to get his thoughts on testing, his 2006 competitors, and the state of the Daytona 200.

Mat Mladin celebrates after his recent Daytona victory. Andrew Northcott photo

RRX: So, what’s new?
Oh, just the same old, mate, you know? Just training and getting thinner, staying in shape and ready for the season.

Did you go home to Australia at all during this big gap?
No, once I come over to America in January, I’m here pretty much for the full nine months or so.

How did the Barber test go?
The Barber test was pretty good. We learned a little bit more about some of the new stuff we’re using; things went pretty well. Lap times weren’t too bad—a little bit quicker than what we went last year—but in a perfect world the bike and the tires are better than what the lap times show, and the track’s definitely deteriorated a little bit in the last 12 months, so it wasn’t bad.

We’ve got Miller this week—first test at the new track—and then I understand we may have a day at Fontana next week, but I’m not real sure on that one.

From whatever you’ve seen and heard, what are your thoughts about Miller?
Well, I haven’t seen anything so I don’t really have any thoughts on it. I’ll make my mind up on Saturday morning when I see it for the first time; we’ll see what happens. Apparently it’s nice, but we’ll see. To me it’s good that there are some new venues; we’ll just hope they’ve taken care of the safety side of it and done a good job straight off the block, unlike Barber, where there are a few places that, with the right input, could’ve been a lot better.

Backing up to Daytona, what are your thoughts about how it went? Ben Spies gave you a little bit of a run this time.
Yeah, but we’ll see, you know? I mean, Daytona is Daytona, and everyone’s going on about the fact that he was there, but I don’t look at it like that. We won the race and we did what we had to do to win the race, and everybody’s hoping that someone’s going to step up and make the challenge, and we’ll see, I guess, in the next few weeks. That’s all I’ve got to say about it, really. We’ll get to a normal racetrack and let the hot weather come on and go race.

Okay, but what about the other guys? You’ve got Kawi coming on, and Honda has a year under their belts now with the new program. Do you feel like they might be a little bit closer this year?
Well, I hope not [laughs]! I mean, we’ve been working hard as well, to try to stay in front. Of course, whenever you’re in front everybody’s working hard to catch up. Honda realized this year that they couldn’t go it alone and now have some help again from the factory; you’re not going to race at this level without help from the factory, I’m afraid to say. So those guys are there and they’re just concentrating on Superbike this year, which the riders seem to think is going to help them, and we’ll see. Both the Kawasaki riders are great young riders, I’m just not sure how competitive they’ll be on a weekly basis compared to some of the other guys, just in the sense that you’ve got to develop a motorbike. You know, Superbike is a different class; it’s not Superstock. There’s a lot of other stuff that has to be done to go fast, and you have to be able to maintain the speed for a lot longer, so there’s a lot more to it. But I think they’ll be good. The Ducati guys are there; we’ll see how that goes. But we’ve been working hard to try to maintain the gap that we have; I’ve been working hard in the off-season myself, our bike’s gotten better—I’m looking forward to the races, more than I ever have before.

Ben Spies (11) gave Mladin (1) a stiff challenge at Daytona, but the champ's waiting a couple more races before making his call on a teammate. Andrew Northcott photo

Is part of that just because you’ve got a couple more riders in the field? Does that make it more interesting for you?
Yeah, for sure. The more the better. I wish there were 20 or 30 guys in there on factory bikes; it makes for a bit of fun. It would be good if Yamaha was in there—they’ve got some good riders over there; ones who have proved they can run at the front of the Superbike class. We’ve seen Jamie [Hacking] on a Superbike before and he’s done a great job, and obviously Eric [Bostrom] can ride a Superbike, so there are some guys over there who could do really well; hopefully they’ll get in sooner rather than later.

And what about the Mat Mladin Motorsports team? You’ve got some different things going on this year.
Well, this year we’ve got Hotbodies, who came on board as a major sponsor of the team, and we’ve changed over to the Superstock class just simply so we can have a more competitive motorbike than what we did last year. As I said a moment ago, it’s pretty much impossible to be competitive in Superbike unless the factory is helping you. Some people will say, “Well, we don’t have a factory bike and we’re competitive,” but it depends on what you mean by competitive. I call competitive getting on the box. In Superstock we’ve got a very good motorbike; something close to what Aaron [Yates] runs. So the motorcycle is there, and it’s up to the rider [Marty Craggill] now to get the results, which is something I couldn’t offer him last year.

This didn’t directly affect you, but I’d like to get your thoughts on the Daytona pace-car incident.
I don’t really know what to say about that. The whole race was a bit of a circus anyway, so no reason that should affect anything. You know what I think of Formula Xtreme, and people can say what they like, but the bottom line is that a Formula Xtreme bike is a minibike compared to a superbike. As much as I don’t like the Daytona 200, I’ve won a couple of them, so the fact that it’s a minibike race at Daytona already makes it a bit of a circus to me, like I said. I really wasn’t that concerned. I was back at the hotel swimming when all that was going on, actually. It was more important to have a good swim and get a suntan than to watch that race.

Mladin and crew chief Peter Doyle make a tough combo. Andrew Northcott photo

You know, I think the AMA has taken steps this year to try to improve their officiating of professional racing, and I think we need to give them enough room to at least try to fix some things, and if in 12 months nothing’s changed, then they’re open for anybody to abuse as they please, but up until then I think everybody needs to give them some room to try some things, and we’ll see how it goes. There are always going to be mistakes made—we’re human beings. Mistakes like that shouldn’t be made during what some people call such an important event, but mistakes are always going to happen no matter who runs it, whether it’s the AMA or FIM or somebody else.

But a lot of it is also how you deal with those mistakes, right?
Yeah, that’s right. I mean, if I was the rider following the pace car and knew I wasn’t supposed to be there, I would’ve overtaken the pace car and made my way to the back of the field where I was supposed to be. When the rider doesn’t understand the rule as to what’s supposed to happen…. There were one or two riders there who could’ve started a move to fix that whole problem, but they didn’t.

Okay, thanks, Mat. Good luck at your next test.
Thanks, mate.