Here’s what Mitch Payton & Adam Cianciarulo thought after Budds Creek
Here’s what Mitch Payton & Adam Cianciarulo thought after Budds Creek
Me: Not that I was not wishing you had a bad day but your interviews have gotten pretty comical when the day hasn’t been going good. But having said that, you had a good day today. Darren Durham led for a long time. Blake Baggett won. Tyla Rattray, bad deal, but still a good day.
Mitch Payton: It was. It was a lot better for everybody I thought. Start with Tyla, the first moto I thought he was riding good. He didn’t have a great start and he passed a lot of people and got up there. And then he crashed and he hurt his wrist so he didn’t ride second moto but I think he’ll be all right. Then Blake rode awesome. I was pumped. That reminded me a lot of how he normally rides. He hangs it out and it works. That was really nice to see. I’m happy for him. Big props for Big James.
Why?
Because he’s riding down at the Stewarts’ house and I told Big James that I wanted to see the old Big James crack the whip, because if he’s going to be down there to make it work. So then to make it worse on Blake I told Big James that Blake called him a big teddy bear. And he said, “Big teddy bear? I’ll show you a big teddy bear!” So next week hopefully we’ll be even better. So I’m hoping that works out. And actually Malcolm rode good.
Malcolm rode great, yeah.
And that was cool. So I guess he’s liking it down there. It’s just different track, different dirt. And James and Malcolm and him are doing motos together, so it seems to help. And they’re having fun right now. They’ll all digging it, so go for it.
And of course Adam Cianciarulo, what did you think of his day?
I thought a little bit predictable. The young kid comes in, gets a good start, runs there for a second then all of a sudden they’re…
Like, “holy crap”?
Maybe the “holy crap” part, but it’s like getting on the freeway when everybody’s already tapped out. You’re like, “Whoa, they’re going fast!” So maybe that a little bit. And then a crash in the first moto, in the second moto bad start and a crash right off the bat. But you know what? Everybody has to deal with that. Someday it’s going to happen and you realize, “God, I’m stuck with all these guys.” I thought predictable. He’s not in the points chase. He says he wants to do it to learn and I think for sure he came away from here and he for sure learned something today. And I’m sure that he will be faster.
My spies at Pro Circuit were telling me you were very hard on the guys this week. You went to the track every day. You were very angry. Six lap sprints all day long. Some guys only did three and thought it was six. But the old Mitch Payton is back?
Well, I told them six and one of them pulled off in three and one pulled off in four. And I said, “Obviously you guys can’t count.” So I said, “We’ll just do it again to make sure you guys can do it. And since I can’t trust you guys I’ll have the mechanics do pit boards. So, you can read, I hope. So if you can read we’ll do it again.” So we did sprints and sprints and sprints and sprints. So I actually think it helped and I was happy the guys…they didn’t want to do it but they did it. I think it helped them. And I think it should help them if we keep doing it. I don’t know anything else to do. We just got to keep working. And everybody else is working so I don’t think it’s shameful.
Durham said you were really hard on him. You made him stay late every day.
Well, he’s the biggest cheater of the team. He tries to weasel and if I tell him to do a ten-lapper, he’ll say “all right, well I got to ride ten laps, so I’ll just back her down a notch so I can ride ten laps.” And I’m like, “All right. That’s good.”
You’re like…we can be here all night long.
We can do this again if you don’t want to do it fast.
Turn the lights on in the van…
We’ll stay here until nighttime.
And Martin Davalos too sick. Qualified today but then too sick, I understand?
Yeah, kind of a weird deal. He got sick during the week and then today same kind of started to pop up again, so told him I want him to go in Monday and get a blood test. Just make sure that he’s all right. I was afraid if he got a little fuzzy or something like that and wadded coming down one of those hills… I don’t want to see him get hurt. So the right thing is he needs to get checked out.
Well I’m happy for your sanity that you got one. So good job and congratulations.
I’m happy for my sanity that we got one and then I’m happy for my shop. That pizza guy will think we didn’t go out of business.
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Me: The highly talented, professional debut of Adam Cianciarulo. Here we are at Budds Creek. Good start to the first moto – not a bad moto. And second moto, I don’t know what happened. First, talk first moto. Great start.
Adam Cicanciarulo: Yeah, great start. Were you watching the whole moto? You said it wasn’t a bad moto. Did you leave? Go to the hot dog stand?
Well, you’ve missed the first four rounds. I had you about 7th or 8th before the race started. You finished a little off that. I didn’t expect you to hold onto the 2nd or 1st.
Yeah, obviously I got a great start. Was really pumped with that. Wish I kind of would have cut back a little more. Could have at least held it through the finish line. That would have been cool to lead a quarter of a lap. But obviously once Tomac got by me it seemed like a couple guys followed in. Was in fourth for maybe two or three laps, and there was a whole pack of guys behind me. I was right behind Savatgy and he was riding great. Kind of caught me off guard, actually. I hadn’t ridden with that guy ever really. So he was riding really good. Just a whole train of them behind me and Anderson got by me. I was pretty comfortable. I definitely was holding my breath in the beginning. That intensity’s obviously a big thing coming from amateurs where I could have rode how I did in the last lap of the second moto and been okay. But that was crazy. I think I just got a little winded right off the bat. Obviously when you hold your breath it’s never good.
So Anderson got by me and it seemed like a couple guys kind of funneled. I think I was in 10th or so. Actually Hill and Martin were right in front of me and kind of caught a second wind and felt like I picked my lap times back up a little bit and ended up going down before Henry Hill. Jumped down exactly where Ryan told me to make sure I don’t go down. I went down there. Just jumped down…
Into the braking bumps?
Yeah. I got passed by a couple guys there. It actually didn’t have to do with the braking bumps; I just washed the front. So I got passed by a couple guys and ended up fourteenth. Second moto, awful start.
What happened?
See, the gate looked really good…
Here come the excuses…
No, no. The gate looked really good. The tractor had almost put kind of like a false soft dirt, so it was kind of one of those gates where it made you jump up. And when I jumped up it lightened my tire up on that little metal pad. So it spun it off there. I didn’t look behind me…
You were 36 or 37th.
Yeah, there was nobody behind me. I think I was in maybe 28th, pretty gnarly. Came around the off-camber up on the top of the hill inside, the guys were all funneling on the inside and that was one of my passing spots. I’m like, okay, I’ll get by a few guys here. I probably would have passed five or six guys. I don’t know who number forty-two is on a Honda- I think it was 42- but he really had it out for me. He really got me good. But I guess that’s pro racing. I guess you really can’t complain. You can’t really say anything. He took me down and got up and was way back.
I rode decent. The track was so rough. I’ve never ridden anything like that before, but that’s to be expected. Obviously I knew coming in that it was going to be that bad. Just try to get used to that. My lines in the first moto were so bad. Felt like I actually made improvements in the second moto, but obviously that didn’t show because I was so far back. But came up to I think 17th, and that was that for the day.
So you’re probably not happy but are you okay with this? How do you feel physically and all that?
I’m not going to hang my hat on this one. I’m not going to get my head down. It’s my first race. I didn’t expect to come in here and set the world on fire. I expected to come in here and learn and that’s what I did.
You cost me 20 bucks.
Yeah, I cost you 20 bucks. Who, to Weigandt?
I can’t say. It wasn’t Weigandt. I just had you top ten.
Anyway, I was top 20, right? I probably went 14-18 for like 21st.
Aggression of the pro level’s pretty gnarly?
Yeah, it’s gnarly. Definitely. It’s just like you got to figure out the race graph. They go at first… And I knew this coming in; I knew what they did. But it’s like you just don’t know until you’re out there. And the intensity is unbelievable in the first two laps. It’s almost stupid. We all need to come together and say, listen, let’s just take you to the track’s watered. We don’t need injuries. We could all have a nice, first opening laps. We can make passes, sure, but nothing stupid. So it’s insane. And then they all fall into a groove and they get their pace going. You kind of got to get through that intense part and be able to have enough left to fall into that groove. And once you fall into that groove that’s where everyone separates themselves.
So if you can stay up there in the intensity, if you could stay up there for that part of the moto, I feel like no matter what you do you’re not going that far back. Obviously I fell off that group. It’s just like cycling, really. I fell off the lead group and the other group caught me and I obviously fell and that was that. But I just feel like I need to stay…we need to get a better start than we did the second moto and stay up in that group. I think that’ll be a recipe for success.
It’ll only get better from here. Good job. You got Pookie very excited opening laps of the first moto. But Southwick next week so we’ll see you there.
Yeah, I like the sand. See you there.
Oh yeah, from Florida, bro.
Yeah, I just said I like the sand. Trying to leave the people with a positive.
Did you get any “hey Cianciarulo, you suck” today?
No, not yet. I actually have had a lot of support so far, but I haven’t even looked at my phone yet.
Twitter’s going to be bad. Just don’t even bother.
I probably gained a lot of followers though.
