Five Minutes with ... Darcy Lange
MARCH 27, 2007

Despite a frustrating weekend in Indy, Lange still sits third in points.

Allison Kennedy photo

 

By Allison Kennedy  

There is no question that Darcy Lange has the speed to win a Lites main event. And after his strong heat race win Saturday in Indianapolis, he thought it might be his night. Heck, even Jason Weigandt put his money on the Canuck during the live webcast. But those hopes went down the tube after Lange got caught up in a first turn pileup and lost his clutch. He finished the race, salvaging a ninth place and  losing six points in the championship race. He sits in third place, 12 points behind Yamaha's Ryan Morais and 2 points behind his teammate, Ben Townley. As Darcy says, it's all or nothing now. We caught up with Darcy to see how he's feeling heading to Dallas.

First off, it was awesome to see you this weekend. Honestly, just seeing you on that Pro Circuit bike is unbelievable. Are you proud of what you've done in with this opportunity so far?
Yeah, I mean, wow, I've had three races that were pretty good and then I had some bad luck in Florida and then this weekend sucked. I wish I hadn't made some of the mistakes I have in a couple of the races-the Florida races I was just happy to get through-but this weekend, I was pretty bummed. There isn't really much you can do when a bike comes across the track and hits you.  

Let's start with practice. You looked pretty good out there, and had the third fastest time heading into the night show. You said you were more comfortable first practice and I heard Mitch asking you about a triple you hadn't quite mastered after the second practice. Tell us about that and the track in general?
It went pretty well. Our first practice, all of us had faster lap times in the first practice than the second. It went pretty well but there were a couple of sections on the track that were a little difficult. There was one triple out of a corner that I tried a couple of times in the second practice, in the last few laps, and I just kept coming up short. It wasn't that much faster so we just planned on just bouncing over it. It was kind of like a little-big-little and then you just kind of stepped over.

You won your heat race. How did that go?
The heat race went really well. I think I started about fourth and then through the whoops, there was a jump-on jump-off and I got by Townley, Jesseman and Alessi and I just gapped them by a few seconds and won that. Our heat race was almost five seconds faster than the other heat race so I was pretty pumped going into the main event. I thought I was going to get my first win but…

You were in a pretty good position heading out of the first turn in the main, then what happened?
On the start of the main, the gate kind of false dropped. I think the guy went to kick the gate and it didn't fall the first time, because we all flinched. Then Morais was beside me and he hit the gate and I knew he was way back off the start so I was kind of excited about that, to make up some points, and then going into the whoops on the first lap ended my positive thinking.

What exactly happened?
I was on the outside and I was going into the whoops, I think around fourth, and Schnell was on the inside of me. I don't know if he lost control or what, I don't know if he was on his bike or what, but I just saw it coming at me at the last second and it hit me right on the side and took me and Ripple and Hahn down. When I got back up, I didn't have a clutch so… it was all-in-all frustrating. The whoops are the main thing for not having a clutch, in case you get a little bit out of shape, you can pull your clutch in a bit.
 

Lange came from fourth to win his heat race. It was looking like a good night at Indy.

Tim Dailey photo

 

You did manage to make up quite a few positions.
Yeah, and then last lap I took out Tickle and myself though. I went to pass Tickle on the second-last lap and I went in and showed him a wheel and he got away from me, then last lap I showed him a little bit more of a wheel and we both went down. I hit him and I was taking off and his handlebar fell onto my bike and I was dragging it down the straightaway and then I fell over.

Did you know how far you had moved up when you headed off the track?
I had no idea but I wasn't too excited. I knew it wasn't good.

It could have been a lot worse, points wise.
Yeah, I think I lost six points. I've been lucky that every time I crash, I haven't gotten hurt. They've all been pretty good crashes.

You are still in third, 12 points out of the lead. How are you feeling about where you stand now?
Ben is two points ahead of me. It's all or nothing now. (laughs)

Obviously, Indy was frustrating. How do you regroup and head to Dallas?
I just look at the positive, I was riding well and it was just an unfortunate accident. I'll just go back to my routine and hopefully next weekend, I'll get some starts and have a little good luck on my side. If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any at the moment.

There are a lot of people hoping you'll get a win before this thing is over. I take it you are one of them?
Yeah, I mean I really want to. I need a start and I need to stay out of trouble. If I would get a start, I wouldn't be getting in all this trouble in the first place. We worked on them all last week and tomorrow I am going to go and work on them some more.

I heard you and the truck driver, Joe Powell, discussing a bet at the end of the night? Is it still on?
Oh, I hope so. He said he was going to shave his head if I won; hopefully it's still on. I told him he has to shave his moustache too. I've never seen him without a moustache.

Thanks Darcy and good luck in Dallas.
Thanks and we'll talk to you after next weekend.