Brett Metcalfe Interview

Southwick 450 winner Brett Metcalfe talks about his first-ever AMA National victory at Southwick.

Brett Metcalfe

Brett Metcalfe sprays the bubbly for the first time ever as an AMA event winner at Southwick last weekend. (Photo: CoxMX.com)

Rockstar/Makita Suzuki’s Brett Metcalfe has been racing in the USA for eight years now, and although he has been on winning teams, and he’s been really close, he has never actually won a points-paying race. At Southwick, though, he did. He went 3-2 to grab the overall win. We caught up with the ecstatic Australian native to find out what it means to him to finally have a first-place trophy to put on his mantel.

Motocross.com: So, we can call you “winner” now…
Brett Metcalfe: Yeah…

How does that feel? You’ve come close a lot of times…
It feels great. It feels awesome. Even though I’ve never actually been a race winner, an overall winner, race-day winner or whatever, I’ve always thought that I could do it and believed that I have what it takes and I am a winner… But now I am officially a “winner”.

Yeah, it’s official!
[Laughs] That’s cool. No one can ever take that away from me.

You led that moto here last year, then ran out of fuel on the last lap, and there were other times even last year when you led, but something would always happen, and before that…
I’ve led a lot…

Right, but there’s always some weird stuff that happens… Does part of you start to wonder?
For sure. “Is it going to happen?” “Is it meant to be?” That’s part of the emotional rollercoaster of racing. You’ve just got to find a way to stay balanced and continue to believe. Once you stop believing or you don’t want to do it, I think that’s when you’re going to go downhill, and you’re not going to perform, and you’re not going to be happy, and all that stuff. You have no motivation to do it. So, I’m just thankful I have some really good people – really, really good people who help me a lot. But that’s a part of the journey, too.

I know when you moved up to 450s full-time for this year, before you signed with Suzuki, lots of people were talking about how good the bike is, and the team, and all of that. What do you think of it now that you’ve been around it and won on it?
Well, I didn’t really know how good the bike was. I just competed against it last year and it looked good. [Laughs]

Brett Metcalfe

Metcalfe scored with win with a strong and consistent 3-2 score. (Photo: CoxMX.com)

You kept looking in front of you and going, “Son of a…”
[Laughs] Every bit of what they talk about is really good. The thing that makes it great is the people that work on it and the team. They know the bike well. It’s interesting; you think that you’re just going to get on that thing and it’s going to be for you, made custom, perfect straight off the bat – like you don’t need to do anything, just twist the throttle. But you still do. And it’s taken me a long time to get to this point where I’m comfortable. They know what I like on the bike. With factory bikes, you can make a lot of adjustments but you’ve got to be precise with some stuff. And that’s interesting for me this year. I’ve never really had this kind of support or this equipment.

You’re saying it’s easy to go too far in any direction?
Yeah… Just small adjustments make huge differences. I never really experienced that so much until this machine. That’s kind of been a process for me to adapt to. And you really can make the bike a lot better or a lot worse just by making small adjustments. In years past, you make an adjustment with the team, and it’s like, “Did you do anything?” You can’t tell. So, anyway, the bike is great but what makes it great is the people that you’re working with, too, and their experience and their knowledge of the bike. That’s what really helped me big time today.

To switch gears a little bit, you’re going to be MX3 in France in a few weeks for Team Australia at the Motocross of Nations. You guys always go over there with a solid team, it seems like, and it always seems like on paper you should be up front somewhere, and then something always happens and you guys end up way farther behind…
Like seventh…

Yeah, exactly, seventh all the time… So, what do you think you have to do as a team to sort of overcome that and get up and put Australia closer to the front where you probably should be?
I don’t really have big answers other than it’s an interesting race because it’s not a team sport; it’s an individual sport. But we’re trying to come together, three guys, and act as teammates, and that’s a big key. USA really succeeds because they have a lot of people that bring them together. They’re structured. I think that’s something that we’ve really got to look at and focus on this year. And I believe we will. Chad [Reed] really wants to be [top three]. Australia has never been top three. And this is my fifth year, maybe fourth year, and I’m sure Chad is up around five or six, so we’ve got to pull it off. This is kind of ridiculous. We’ve got to get on the box this year, so we’re going to pull together. We’ve got Matt Moss, so I think we’ve got a strong team as always.

Brett Metcalfe

Metcalfe has been really close to wins many times in the past, but finally got one at Southwick. (Photo: CoxMX.com)

Yeah, it’s really strong…
We just need to come together and we need to know what our strategy is. Even though it’s a motocross race, where you just go and ride as fast as you can, the strategy really is important there, and I think last year I experienced that a lot. This year, we just need to come together and do our best and hopefully we get up there.

Hopefully. There is one more thing, though; how big of a key for that race do you think it’s going to be for your wife Sheena to bring all the inflatable kangaroos and shit?
[Laughs] It’s big! I don’t know how the fans over there will react. I’m sure they’ll love kangaroos, even though they’re just inflatable. The inflatable kangaroo will make its way to one of the parties afterward, too, and get passed around…

Especially if you’re on the box…
If we’re on the box, he might just be at the bar all night. I don’t know. But it’s going to be cool. I’m looking forward to it. We get crazy; we like to, just like every country we represent it and Australia is a little smaller on budget so we take matters into our own hands a little more and we show up with most of the decorations and stuff ourselves. It’s fun. We enjoy it. It’s passionate. It feels like we’re one of the teams that has more flamboyancy to how we do things, and it’s fun.

For sure…
Is that a word? Flamboyancy? Just put it this way: We’re decorated.

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