Exclusive: Michael Byrne Interview

When Mike Alessi won his Heat at the opening round of the 2014 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship, holding off three-time defending champ, Ryan Villopoto, many people were scratching their heads and wondering what Alessi had done to harness his raw speed and talent indoors. The answer, is Michael Byrne. The Aussie ex-pat has been working with the controversial rider since last year, as he heals from a leg injury, and the results speak for themselves. The Dillaway Brothers sat down with Byrner in the MotoConcepts semi to find about his new role and what the future holds.

First up, tell us about your new role with Mike Alessi and how that came about.

I’ve been training and coaching Mike Alessi. It’s been going pretty good, and I’ve been doing that since October/November last year.  They approached me. I had surgery on my leg to try and get it fixed properly in September after the last national and I was just hanging out at home healing up and they called me. I thought maybe it was a good opportunity for me; to see what kind of future that would hold and if I was good at coaching kids. So I started doing that, then I went home and did a riding school with Moto Development; that was really fun. I’ve kinda been doing the coaching/training thing at the moment while I’m healing up.

^ Mike Alessi (left) and Michael Byrne (right) talk strategy at Anaheim 2. Image: The Dillaway Brothers.

How you are finding it? Must be different being off the bike but telling people on the bike what to do?

It has its up and downs. It’s obviously great when you help somebody go faster; that’s obviously rewarding. It’s frustrating not being on the track and out there doing it for yourself and doing it through someone else, though, and that’s been the tough part really.

Seems like you’ve had some great initial success.

He’s a super talented guy, it’s not like I came in and worked any magic. He’s the winningest amateur ever in the States; so he has a lot of talent and ability, he’d just never had any supercross training, technique wise. We just worked really hard on his technique and that obviously helped his confidence. We also worked on his bike set-up; just stuff I’d already been through many years ago. It definitely helped me. He had a heat race win which is something I don’t think he knew he could do straight away. But he knew he was going faster. He dropped 2-3 seconds a lap, so that was huge. For him to go and win the Heat, that was pretty cool.

^ Mike Alessi during practice at Anaheim 2. Image: The Dillaway Brothers.

When you guys raced against each other, did you ever come together on the track? Is it weird coaching someone you’ve raced against? 

Supercross-wise, Mike and I never really battled. And then in motocross, he’s so fast that if he’d win, he’d beat us all by 30 seconds. Sometimes we battled a little bit, but not really that often. Sometimes in supercross if I got a bad start and he got a good start I’d always pass him, so it’s not like we were really battling. It’s good to see him now with his confidence in supercross to run with the front guys and start believing.

Must also be good for you to see your coaching and training helping. 

That was always what I wanted to see happen because coaching is not for everyone – it’s hard to communicate with some people. Some people take the information, some don’t. Some people can’t give the guy the right information to make them better. It’s been really good, but it’s like anything, I have to work at it to try and not get frustrated and communicate the right way. If they can visually see something it makes it better and they’re happy to do it. We haven’t really had any bumps on the road yet.

Your leg is healing up still. Would you like to race again?

I’d like to, but for me, I’m just going to go on however my leg feels. If it gets to the point where it feels normal again and I can go out and ride and do everything without thinking about it then I will want to race. But right now, without it being strong and not being able to ride to my potential… I don’t get any enjoyment out of it when it’s like that. I’ve been at this level so long, so to go out and ride and not be able to ride at my potential… it’s kind of heart breaking, because the motivation to do it is right there. I’m trying not to rush it this time, as every other rider says, ‘I need to be ready for this race, I need to be ready for that race.’  If you hit that point but you’re still not ready, then most of the time you end up going backwards because you shouldn’t be out there anyway. I’m trying not to rush it. If my leg gets better, I’ll get back out there. If not, I’ll be done and I’ll be fine with that.

You’ve had complications with it healing, right?

When they fixed it they didn’t fix it right the first time and my leg… I had 15 degrees too much angle on the bottom of it and I was trying to ride with that last year and I was just miserable. Out of all the races, I never even put my right foot on the ground during the whole nationals. And usually you’re dragging the thing around the track everywhere. It was really tough to go out there and just ride around because you work your whole career to leave behind a legacy and be the person you are; but you’re only as good as your last race, so if you go out there and you’re not right and you’re riding around without giving it your all… it’s not really assisting the legacy I want to leave behind of myself. Now that’s its fixed, I wish I would have got it done a year ago. It is what it is, I just had to go to the right people and doctor to fix it.

The Alessi’s MotoConcepts team has never been shy of controversy. How are you fitting in and finding it working with them?

So far it’s been going great. Obviously that was a risk I had to take coming here because of that. But once I came here and started working with the guys, I realised they’re just really passionate. 

^ Mike Alessi (left) and Michael Byrne (right) talk strategy at Anaheim 2. Image: The Dillaway Brothers.

Were you hesitant at first when you got the call from them?

Yeah, I was a little hesitant because of the perception of everything from the outside. But once I came in and started working with everyone, Tony Alessi let me take over Mike’s program, and everything has been going really smoothly. We definitely need to change that perception that everyone has; hopefully I can do that. Obviously, the team made some stupid decisions, which wasn’t even Mike’s fault with Jeff doing the laser thing. It sucks, because you’re guilty by association, even if you had nothing to do with it. Jeff was an idiot and shouldn’t have done it, and he dragged the whole team into that. You’ve gotta try and change everyone’s perspective and change it for the right reasons. I think winning Heat races and him doing better is going to help with that. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it is a work in progress.

Tell us about Mike’s program.

I do his program – all his off-bike and on-bike training, his diet, and just trying to restructure everything. Its been working good. Winning the Heat race straight away exceeded everyone’s expectations. We knew Mike was faster but we didn’t know how much faster or where he was going to be, so for him to come out and win that Heat was huge. It was huge for him (obviously) emotionally. When you have people telling you that you suck at supercross and you shouldn’t be out there, and then you make improvements and win, its a huge weight off his shoulders and great for his confidence. We got a huge shot of adrenalin from that Heat win. Now we’ve just got to keep working at it.

^ Mike Alessi during practice at Anaheim 2. Image: The Dillaway Brothers.

The United States is home now for you. Will it always be? Will we see you back in Australia anytime soon?

I’ll probably live here because my wife is from here. I’ve lived away from home for so long, I’m kind of use to it. Pretty much everything I’ve owned or purchased in my life is here now. Obviously, Australia is home, but this is where my life is now. It’s hard because I really love going home. I was actually pretty close to doing a deal with a team back in Australia for the motocross series this year, but it didn’t quite work out. I was pretty bummed on that. I was still going to live here and go back and forth which would have been fun. I’d like to go back and do a series. It’d be cool to go home and race before I retire.

Thanks for your time. Good luck with Mike and healing up.

Cheers.