Tuesday Conversation: Jason DiSalvo

Like many U.S. riders, Jason DiSalvo’s home prospects for 2010 were looking grim—until he got a surprise phone call from the BE1 Triumph World Supersport team. What developed was good news for DiSalvo but bad news for then-BE1 rider Garry McCoy (for details on that situation, read Mark Gardiner’s latest Backmarker column), but at the recent Portimão test, DiSalvo took the ball and ran with it, finishing within the top-ten despite limited testing time and an unfamiliar circuit.
By Jeff Feathers

RRX: You’ve had quite an eventful past few weeks.
JD: Actually, besides [testing], nothing had been going on at all since the end of the season. For a long time, that was a big fear—there was nothing; nothing here in American racing, and little to no opportunities overseas. This whole Triumph deal kind of hit us out of the blue at the right time, so we were pretty pumped about that. We know that with the economy and all the different factors put together right now, that it’s tough. Unless you won a championship the year before, you have no security, and even for guys like Jordan Szoke—who won a Canadian national championship—he’s having a tough time of it. No one is safe in this economy [laughs]. We just had to keep plugging along and not lose faith.

[The call from Triumph], literally, it was out of nowhere—a random call on a random Wednesday. The team just phoned me up when they heard that I was available and [said] they had a spot open. I was like, “Let’s make this happen,” and we did, in record time. The team worked really quickly with my dad, and I tried to do my part too, and we just pulled it off. I had to get ready for the test; I got the flights booked and got everything ready with very little time to spare.

It seems like we saw the press release just days before you were supposed to be in Portimão.
I knew for about four days before the press release came out, and after so long of people asking me what I was doing next year and having to tell them I had nothing, it was so tough for those four days to keep my lips shut. I wanted to tell everybody, “I got a job!” My wife and I had taken a look at our finances going into this season and decided that we could take a year off, but it wasn’t something that either of us was keen to do. It was a tricky situation, and on top of all that, I had to keep on training. It was tough going to the gym, going for a run or going for a bike ride, without having any clue as to my future. Was I training for a job that I wasn’t going to have?

Once you got to Portugal, how did things go with the new team?
It was the typical first day: it was new. I knew it was going to be difficult—new team, new bike, new tires, pretty much new everything. We knew it and they knew it and nobody had any expectations. The second day was frustrating because it was raining and I didn’t get a lot of laps, and pretty much all the data I did get didn’t apply to dry-weather racing. Sunday was wet in the morning, so I pretty much only got one session that I saw any action in. To end up within a couple seconds of the top time, I felt really good about it. The amount of progress that we had in that one session was astronomical. From where we were when we started to where we were when we ended, I felt like we came so far in only an hour and a half of track time.

You raced 250s in Europe and the UK earlier in your career. Did it feel at all familiar to be back on an international scene?
Yeah, it did. Even with racing things aside—stuff like the culture—to be honest, I really missed that and it was good to be back in it. Something as simple as when you go to lunch and the roll you’re eating was baked ten minutes ago … I know that sounds incredibly insignificant, but when everything is like that—fresh and good—well, you might not have high-speed internet everyplace you go, but their priorities are a little different than ours. In the racing aspect of things, it was cool being there in a European paddock, and it still felt new to me because I didn’t have much experience with European teams other than what my dad had put together in 2000 and 2001. Now being in someone else’s team and working by their rules and doing things by their system, it’s for sure different than how things are done in America. It was very methodical and very organized—lots of meetings, lots of data. I think that’s why things were so productive that last day.

Based on past results and how things went for you in Portugal, how do you feel about your new ride?
I think the bike is going to be a strong platform. Based on the past results, we know it’s capable of a podium finish. I would love to give Triumph their first taste of victory, so we’ll see. My goal is to win races and be in the thick of things. I think, also, that the team has made improvements on what they had last year. From what I’ve heard, the bike is faster than what they had a year ago; to me it was incredibly fast. The electronics need refined a bit, but as far as base settings go, I was spending a lot of time riding on maps that Chaz Davies had been using so I could learn the track and get accustomed to the bike.

Is it helpful to have someone you’re familiar with on your team?
Yeah, it’s kind of cool actually. In the end, Chaz helped me a lot with certain areas on track that were particularly difficult. He offered some good advice and I took him up on it, and it worked out for me. He’s also been introducing me to a lot of the guys around the paddock, because he spent a lot time there last year with Triumph. It was cool to be able to hang out and get acquainted with everything.

Prior to signing with Triumph, did you feel now was the time to make a jump overseas?
To be honest, the time for me would have been any time I could’ve made the move over here with a team that could be competitive. It was a coincidence that time was now, when the AMA [Pro] series is facing some big obstacles. It’s good to have other opportunities for sure, but I really hope that everything gets sorted out [in the U.S.], because eventually, someday, I would like to come back and take a crack at things again. But I got a taste of things at Portimão, and I think I’d like to do this for a few years and make the most of it.