Photo by: Photo by: Hoppenworld – Words by: Dan Lamb
Cooper Webb entered the 2015 250SX Western Regional Championship with no wins, but ended his sophomore year with six wins, a Championship and the confidence of a rider on his way to greatness. A late 250SX season injury in Las Vegas ended his chances to dethrone Jeremy Martin outdoors, but he showed with his 250MX wins, a podium on the 450 at the MXGP of USA and an incredible MXoN performance on the 450 that he is ready for the next level.
With that, Star Racing/Yamaha’s Cooper Webb came into the 2016 Anaheim 1 SX with the #1 plate but, more importantly, a true belief that he is one of the best riders in the world. Using that confidence, Webb went to Angel Stadium, laid down the fastest lap in qualifying, won his heat race and ran down Troy Lee Designs/KTM’s Jessy Nelson for the main event win to make it a perfect night. Cooper did not exactly dominate the main event, but you could see that even when he was five seconds behind Nelson, the main event win was never in doubt inside his head. He just patiently clicked off the laps and let the win come to him.
After Cooper’s perfect 2016 opening night, MotoXAddicts’ Chase Yocom caught up with the Champ to get his thoughts on the night. You can hear what the North Carolina good ‘ol boy had to say below.
Cooper, good start to defending your Championship. You got the win. How was your night out there?
It was awesome! It was a picture perfect day from practice through the heats and the main event. It was a tough one. I actually had a good start, but Jessy [Nelson] got the holeshot and pulled away pretty quick. I knew it was going to be a hard one, but I just had to put my head down. I just did that and just came out strong in the end. I’m glad I could start it off on the right foot.
Jessy definitely did not make it easy on you. Was there any point during the race where you were doubting that you would get the win. Obviously being the defending Champion gives you confidence, but he had a pretty good gap on you.
Yeah, he had a good gap, but I knew it was a long race. He was strong for the first eight laps and I wasn’t closing on him, but I knew if I dug deep I could get it done. But I obviously didn’t want to ride over my head. It was an awesome race! I feel we have some things we can work on and be a little bit better for next weekend. I’m just excited to get the season started.
It was kind of a crazy track tonight. I’ve heard from other riders that the rhythm sections weren’t too good tonight. What did you think about the track tonight?
It was different for sure. I’m just glad it wasn’t a mudfest. That’s awesome just in that aspect. It was strange, though. The transitions were tricky. There were soft transitions and the corners were hard packed, so setting up your bike was tough. You want it stiff in the transitions, but you want it to turn on the hard pack—made it tough. The dual whoops were cool, but that was tough too. Definitely a challenging track. I liked it, though.
We heard you wanted to race East this year so you could race all the tracks before going to 450’s, but you’re out West defending your title. Is there a chance we will still see you race some East rounds still?
Yeah, I’ve actually had a bunch of people ask me about that. I was supposed to do East until about a week and a half ago. That’s when they told me I was doing West because of other riders getting hurt. I was actually expecting and prepping for the East, so it was kind of a last minute, “Oh crap, we gotta get ready for West.” I’m not to worried about that right now; the 250 Championship is the important part. I’m sure if the opportunity arose I would ride a 450 in the East.
With your crazy offseason—MXoN, Japan, USGP, European Supercross’—when did you have any time to do testing for ’16? (laughs)
That was the tough part. Just trying to find days where we needed to ride and days when we needed to test. It made it tough, but we got it done. Luckily we had a really good bike last year. We actually changed a lot of sponsors so that made testing a little more difficult, but it all worked out for the better. I think the bike is way better this year. Everything is really good and just getting better.
Thanks for talking to us tonight. Now time to go out and celebrate.
Yeah, thanks, man. We’ll see you guys next week.
Check out Cooper’s post race podium interview from 2016 Anaheim 1 SX below.
