Is There a Wey?

Posted by Steve Matthes on Tuesday, September 23, 2008

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Matthes

Nick Wey on a KTM, going to be a rare photo.

 

I have to come right out of the box here and admit that I’m biased towards Nick Wey. After all, I was his mechanic for a year, and even though he doesn’t call or text me back enough for my liking, I’m thinking he’s going to come out swinging in 2009. He’s looking for a ride right now, and from what I know, I think he’s got a chance at a couple of really good ones out there. It wasn’t too long ago that we were talking about Nick becoming the next guy on the box after the three kings (RC, Reed and Stewie.) There were the message boards debates on why he doesn’t have a factory ride, he was making SX podiums, and if he wasn’t actually getting on the box, he was challenging for it almost every weekend. 2006 was a good year for Nick Wey, and remember he was doing it all on a bike that you could buy. 

In what should be a sobering reminder of how quickly careers can change, in 2007 Wey was involved in an early supercross season crash with Jeff Dement and broke his thumb. That injury knocked the wind out of Wey and stalled his progress a bit, but nothing like what happened in the summer of 2007. Wey went down very hard while practicing for the motocross season and rang his melon really well. I spoke with Nick at Red Bud shortly after the accident and he still wasn’t “right.” I could tell that the hamster had fallen off the wheel a little bit.

Blame it on the bike, blame it on last summer’s injury, blame Canada-whatever you want to do but Nick’s season was a wash.

So fast forward to 2008 and Nick’s team, MDK, had switched to KTMs and become the official factory team for the orange guys. Now, I don’t want to get into the whole KTM vs Japanese debate that will endlessly go on until the earth explodes, but he wasn’t the same rider that we saw in 2007 before he broke his thumb. Blame it on the bike, blame it on last summer’s injury, blame Canada, whatever you want to do, but Nick’s season was a wash. Sure he had some good rides at the end of Supercross and the Nationals, but he wasn’t a factor like he’d been only a few short years ago.

So I think the only thing we know for sure going into 2009 is that Nick Wey will not be on a KTM. He might be on a MDK bike, but it will not be orange. He might get that rumored second spot on the Factory Connection team, or he might get the second spot on Team L&M that is open as well. I do think that he’ll come back to where he used to be. He’s a hard worker and he's very talented. Add those two things together and you usually get a pretty good rider. Look at it this way, if you were a team manger and wanted to hire a guy that could get a podium for you, would you roll the dice hoping some kid can do it? Or would you take a guy who's a little older and has been on the box? To me, experience in being a podium guy trumps "hoping" or "if he got some breaks, he could do it." I also think he’ll take a pay cut wherever he goes, but in speaking to him recently he indicated that he didn’t care about the money, and that if a team wanted to, it could put the money into bonuses for him. He’s hungry to prove that his status as a podium contender is still there, and you know what? I think it will be.

 

 

Posted by Steve Matthes on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 12:45 pm

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