Interview: Ben Spies On The Mend
Henny Ray Abrams | December 5, 2012
Ben Spies has moved on from a disastrous 2012 MotoGP World Championship. Almost.
There’s the matter of his right shoulder, which was severely damaged in the second worst crash of his career during the rain-sodden Malaysian Grand Prix. The race crash put him out of commission for a month and won’t be 100 percent at the pre-season Sepang test in early February. Still, Spies will saddle up for the Ducati “junior” team in Sepang where he hopes to take the first steps towards getting his once promising MotoGP career back on track.
The 28-year-old Texan led a charmed life until this year. When he finally hit his stride in the U.S. he racked up a trio of AMA Superbike titles over the greatest rider in the history of the championship, Mat Mladin. Those titles were a springboard to the 2009 World Superbike Championship, which he won while overcoming far too many machine problems. And from there it was a short walk to the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 team, where he teamed with fellow Texan Colin Edwards for a year before moving to the factory team.
To read the rest of the interview with Spies, click on the following link to visit this week’s Cycle News.