Five Minutes with ... Paul Carpenter
MAY 11, 2007

New York's Paul Carpenter will race the MX1 series for the Monster Energy/Cernics Kawasaki team this summer.

photo courtesy of Monster Energy/Cernics Kawasaki

 

By Allison Kennedy
Shortly after Monster Energy was announced as the title sponsor of this year’s Canadian National series, rumours were swirling that Kawasaki would field a national team in the north after all. Those rumours were soon confirmed, as the Monster Energy/Cernics Kawasaki team announced their roster of Paul Carpenter (MX1), Jeff Gibson (MX1) and Tucker Hibbert (MX2 West). The team will also feature some familiar faces on the Canadian National circuit, with Billy Whitley at the helm, Canada’s Derek Sorenson as the team manager and Blackfoot’s former driver, Kelly Zawryucha behind the wheel.  We caught up with Paul Carpenter as he made his way back from outdoor testing in California to see how he’s feeling about racing in the Great White North.

Hey Paul. How are things?
Good, I’m just travelling. We did a couple of days of testing out in California and I am on my way back to New York. I’m just in Phoenix now, grabbing some lunch.

So you’re not racing the Prequel?
No, no. I guess we could have but with everything going on, switching from supercross to outdoors and getting everything lined up, we want to be 100 percent ready for the Canadian Nationals and we didn’t want to put too much effort into the American stuff.

Congrats on your supercross season. It ended up pretty well.
Thank you very much. It was definitely a good season. Everyone there worked really hard and we were able to put it together and it ended up being awesome.

I know the decision to come to Canada has been an on again/off again proposition for you since earlier this year. Tell me a little bit about that?
Well (laughs) it was always up to Billy [Whitley]. He has all the pull with what’s going on—him and Derek [Sorenson]—Jeff [Gibson] and I were kind of waiting, we knew we had our supercross season to finish for him and it really came down to right before the Dallas Supercross. A lot of things were going on with Kawasaki in Canada and some other sponsors and they were really going back and forth on their budget and long story short, the deal was done the Thursday before Dallas and Billy told Jeff and I that we were riding outdoors. Billy had us signed into a contract anyways and it worked out well and now we are on our way.

From what Billy Whitley has said all along, you’ve been pretty determined to come up here.
Absolutely. It’s a new step in my career. I haven’t ever been up there, I’ve watched a few of them on TV and I know you have big TV coverage and the American outdoors are sort of losing their jazz, it seems like a lot more teams and riders are losing interest in it and it’s just not quite as important. It’s going to be cool to come up to Canada and race against new guys, and meet a whole bunch of new people and hopefully it will open a lot of doors. Plus, I want to see Canada, I hear it’s beautiful and I just want to check it all out.

Living in New York, have you raced up here at all?
I’ve never raced in Canada, except for Montreal way, way back. I think it was 1998. Then this year, I went to Toronto and Vancouver for the two world rounds but that was all.

 

The team was testing their outdoor settings at Glen Helen on Thursday.  101 is Carpenter's new Canadian number.

Photo by James 'Scoop' Lissimore

 

What do you know about the series from your fellow racers and the media?
From what I’ve heard, I know you’ve got a great TV package, I see that all the time, and I’ve heard that the series goes to some really interesting cities and it has a really, really good group of people that run it. I know that the riders tend to be super-fast up there. From what I’ve heard they are more like a Ricky Carmichael—and when I say that I’m referring to like JSR and Blair Morgan—they are like what Ricky or James Stewart are down here. I’ve heard a lot of good things about it—I don’t know how many fans you guys get—but I think the racing this year is going to be good.

What are you expecting?
I would expect to go up there and run up front with those guys and just be there week in and week out. It would be nice to get a championship but I am definitely not counting on it. I just want to be able to compete and get some wins and see where it leaves me after nine rounds.

How was the SX season, working with Billy, Jeff and the team?
That’s kind of a funny deal how the SX deal came together. I was just about to sign with another team—I don’t want to disclose who—and Billy had called me on a Friday night, out of the blue, and said ‘Hey, I am doing a 450 program.” I think it was actually a Friday evening at like 11 o’clock when I finally signed a letter of intent. It worked out well though. I couldn’t ask for a better deal. All the guys work really well together, it’s not just Billy and Derek, and Jeff, and we’ve got a great guy, Kelly, our truck driver…

Yeah, you’re surrounded by Canadians already.
Yeah, I know. (laughs) That’s what’s kind of funny. I’m learning to talk the Canadian language. Kelly and my mechanic, Chris and Jeff’s mechanic, Pat, those guys really worked hard. They put in more effort than I put it. It’s been a great year and that team is just 100 percent on top of their game and it’s a fun atmosphere, all the guys just get along, I couldn’t ask for anything better.

What are you doing in the next few weeks to get ready?
We did our testing; we are all set, up and running. We had some really good sponsors behind us, like Pro Circuit, that gave us the best settings you can get. We’re done testing now, I’m on my way back to New York and now it’s just all about training and getting ready. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t been training for it and getting ready before the last four or five supercross races, I’ve been focusing on outdoors and getting ready.

Thanks and we’ll see you at Ste Julie.
Thanks. I’m looking forward to it.