Very good press-conference in Las Vegas today as the end nears on this fantastic Supercross season. All the hype was from the lack of it and the mysterious absence of series points leader James "Bubba" Stewart. There has been no information as to why James is not there and the last time he updated his Twitter account was 2 days ago when he was on his way to Vegas.Here's the link to the Racer X Illustrated report by Steve Cox and some quotes of the p-c.
Chad is good this year, he talks a lot more and says the right things. He definitely insinuate often that Larry Brooks is playing with people's mind and has a somehow negative influence at times.
His views on the Salt Lake City Incident:
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In regard to the incident last week with Kyle Chisholm, Reed had this to say: “I guess I’m just going to take my road, and I’ve always tried to be honest with you guys and tell you my side of the story and what I feel… Who can deny that it was intentional? You watch the video and it’s quite obvious – his line, and his position being a lap down, and the obvious of him being James’ teammate – and it was a shame. I don’t believe that Kyle’s a bad person or anything like that. I’ve heard that he’s a great guy, and I don’t know him personally, but it seems that he’s a good person. It seems weird that a good person would do that, so it’s a shame. But it’s all water under the bridge, and we’ll just live and learn. There’s a paper trail a mile long of what people in… Should I say, ‘His boss’ has done along the way? You look through the years and we can all find little things that he has done, and one that stands out most is sitting [Steve] Boniface out of a race [in 2003 at Millville with the Red Bull KTM team] because he wouldn’t help somebody, and taking his rear wheel out of the bike. I find it quite amusing, quite funny, and each and every one of the people sitting in this room I believe knows the truth and what really happened, whether they write that or not. Everyone has to be political.”
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Reed was also humble and admitted he was wrong in how he handled Ivan Tedesco a couple of years ago in “Chumpgate” and even Andrew Short last year. “I think I’ll take 100 percent of the heat with the Ivan thing. I was heated, and I felt that I was better than I was performing, and I was racing for position on the lead lap, and same with Shorty last year. I somewhat felt my walls coming in. I was hurt, and I didn’t want to be hurt, and I felt that I was good enough to win races, and it was a tough position to be in. I had people around me saying things and they were in my head, and I think the situation was made out worse than it really was. I think I made dumb choices, but at the end of the day, when you calm down and think about it, I was racing on the lead lap for a podium position. At that time, it was Shorty’s best 450cc main-event finish. So you live and learn.”
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To round it out, Reed commented on the importance of this title to him: “It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve learned a lot, but this title has a hell of a lot more riding on it than just that red background and number one. There’s a lot of pride involved, and there’s a lot of, I would call it, hatred over what happened last year, and the situation that it’s left in still to this day. There’s nothing more that I want to do than to stand on the podium tonight and be the champion, so I will do everything in my power to try and make that happen.”
And, like me, Chad Reed wasn't home-schooled, but I'm a washed-out wannabe motocrosser and he's a Champ
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Rupert X asked Chad how close he was to coming to blows with James on the podium in Jacksonville in their infamous face-off, to which Reed responded, “[Laughs] In order to come to blows, you’ve got to have somebody that’s willing to throw down, too. So I don’t think we were that close to getting ready to throw down. I grew up as a normal kid. I went to primary school and a regular school… I got on a bus, wore a uniform and everything like that, so I grew up in a playground, not like most of these motocross kids that are home-schooled… I don’t know, I had fun with it, and I was heated, but for good reasons, I believe.”
Welcome to Las Vegas, People!!
