Vital/Lewis Phillips Mitch Evans Interview

Thanks! Its a 2hr podcost, could you include when said discussion begins? 

Every interview Lewis does is great. 

1:15

It was interesting but it seemed like Mitch contradicted his statements on the bike a few times. But interesting none the less. 

I thought it was a great interview, also.  Yikes on the wrist, congrats on upcoming parenthood.  Cherish each day, though they seem long!

I think we need a job swap video with Mitch.  Here’s Lewis building VBScript in Excel, speaking German, and here’s Mitch interviewing Chase…😀

Yea, I'm trying to not get caught in the hysteria around the Kawi/Chase/Prado/Febvre/Marchbanks situation. Different riders have different riding styles. Of the people who have complained about the latest generation Kawi, they've all said similar things (including Seewer), being that in order to ride at their fastest, the way they know how, they have to way overcompensate with input to throw down a fast lap and they simply can't maintain the physical exertion or the bike tells them "no, I don't work like that" and it spits them off. 

With Chase, it makes sense. His A2 win, I remember thinking great things were coming because he looked so restrained/like he was riding at 80% instead of 100% and crashing his brains out. Turns out it looks like he can't ride the way he wants to, and can only win when the conditions favor his "smoothed out" riding vs his former blazing 1 lap speed.

More than one thing can be true, the riders can be a bit of a head case and not helping themselves, and the bike can retain an inherent characteristic that some riders can work with, and some riders can't. 

All Japanese 450s share about 90% of the same content.... brakes, wheels, engine parts, linkage, shock brand, fork brand, handlebars, triple trees, gearing..  even the frames are very similar...  Yamaha is the format exception.  

• yet people wanna keep fanning the falsehood that the green 450 is alien... while the green 250 kicks a bunch of ass and is 98% same as the green 450.  

  Maybe the 450 needs different engine mounts..  SMH ...

  * #4 NEEDS to raise his eyes when riding fast, he looks down on every brand (get it  ;-)  IDK, maybe he is looking at his biceps?

   

People forget MC won on the Suzuki that the slide didn’t open up all the way because of an incorrect throttle cable.  

The fact a rider as good as sexton won a couple of races in SX doesn’t prove there isn’t an issue with the bike. It does prove he’s capable of being better than he is.  But the inconsistency in which we see from him suggests massive trust issues in the bike/team. 

Is that possible? Sure. It is likely? I dunno. People get way to emotional about it and lose the ability to critically think about it. 

Kawasaki could be willing to make 100 different changes. Does it mean they are going to get the combination of the right?  No. And if they don’t get it right across multiple riders does that say more about the team or the individual riders?  When you are changing one variable but getting similar results, would you consider a change at another variable?  When you test as much as they have over the last two years with what seems like incremental progress at best and quite possibly steps backwards, what does that say?

These are the questions that seem to be largely unprodded by the media. Which I think is mostly because of how small the moto circle is and not wanting to ruffle feathers or basically call for someone’s job. We never really hear about team dysfunction until after the figurehead is gone. McCarty and Yamaha, Factory Yamaha before Star take over, numerous previous Kawi leaders etc, etc. 

Really good interview! Hope he does follow through with more episodes with Mitch.  

Between Prado, Sexton and Evans my take away is the front end is either is too weighted/planted or too light/vague lol

Very planted. It wants to turn! I feel like he has to soft of a front end, and when you ride over the front of a bike that already favors that direction it bites him.

The problem is chassis not suspension

Great interview and insights from Mitch Evans.  As an Aussie I listened to the whole thing.  Regards his comments on the Kawasaki though, certainly puts a new perspective on it.  I didn’t have much sympathy for the woes of chase (or prado last year), but this certainly painted the situation in a new light.  Best comment from Evan’s, something along the lines of…. ‘ I could ride within myself and qualify near the front on the Honda.  Push myself past my limit and nearly die three times in one lap and qualify 10th on the Kawi ’.  Pretty eye opening.

Honest question. Who’s Mitch Evans ? 

Awesome interview, Lewis!  Great insights into Mitch's career, as well as the unique chassis characteristics of the KX450....thoroughly enjoyed it.

Prado mind-phucked everyone about the Kawi.

Sooo, the chassis steers with the rear and can't be changed. The engine doesn't make bottom end torque and can't be changed. It's unfortunate that a lot of people knew this but poor Chase before he signed a three-year deal.