How has the rivalry between you and Spies been over the past few years? Do you think it’s good or bad to have two riders dominating the series?

MM: The rivalry between Ben and I, I mean, we’re obviously two people separated by a bit of a gap in age. Ben is 23 and I’m 36, there’s quite a bit of age between us. He’s a kid looking up to where he’s going to go with his racing career. I’m an old fellow looking to stay there and trying to beat up on the young guys. Of course, we’re strong rivals on the racetrack, there’s no doubt about that. He knows I’m not going to give him an inch, and I wouldn’t expect anything other from him. If we ever got into a good dog fight and there was a bit of pushing and shoving, and I didn’t get push and shove back, after the race I would probably say something to him, expecting it to be a little tougher than it was. That’s what I expect from him and he knows he’s going to get that from me. That’s why the rivalry is so strong and that’s why the racing is so close and so good, and there’s not a lot between us.

As far as the sport goes, and is it good for the sport to have two guys on top regularly cleaning up, and the rest of it that I’ve heard way too much of for quite a while now. In a way it’s a hard one to answer because motorcycle racing is not NASCAR racing. In NASCAR you have all the cars are very similar going around in a circle and able to draft, and it comes back to that Daytona thing that I spoke about before where the motorcycle racing typically is a little closer than a normal racetrack because they can get in the draft. That doesn’t happen on a normal road circuit in motorcycle racing. Whether or not you’ve got the bikes the exact same or not, there’s always going to be two or three guys who will rise to the top and be way in front of anybody else. That happens in every form of motorcycle racing all around the world, America’s no different. That’s how I see that. Are they ever going to be able to overcome it? No, never.

Last year you mentioned that you were more concerned with individual race wins, rather than winning a season championship. Considering you came so close last year, is your attitude any different this year?

MM: Not at all. As much as a championship would be nice and it would be nice to inflate the ego slightly with that number one plate, that I’ve had on the bike a number of times before in my time. As I said before, I’m 36 years old and I’ve been at this a long time. A lot of people don’t know, but I won my first national championship in 1981 as a kid on a dirt bike 27 years ago. I’ve been at this a long time. I don’t get as much thrill anymore out of racing and thinking about September or October as I do getting out there every weekend and just going as hard as I can, and sometimes that means I’m going to be picking it up out of the hay bales. In this day and age, and having a bit of maturity on my side and probably having a bunch of wins under my belt and championships and stuff, I just can’t get excited thinking about October when it’s March. I get excited every day that I get out of bed and go and do what I need to do. I get excited by each race that I’m in. If it happens that we can win championship number seven, then that’s terrific. Suzuki have always been, especially the last 10 years, have been pretty smart about the way they’ve hired their riders and the people they’ve brought along and thought could do well. Unless something catastrophic happens, we’re already seeing a pretty handy lead in the championship for Suzuki, so if something happened to me, I’d be pretty confident to say that Ben would be there to win a championship anyway. As far as looking after Suzuki’s best interests, I think they’re pretty well taken care of for now. So, I need to do what makes me happy and what will keep me in the racing game longer. If at the start of the year, someone said to me, “you need to think about winning a championship in October,” I’d pack up my bags and go home right now.