082
“The best way to look at it, and if I can have it work out
perfectly, it would be to fight for a podium spot every
weekend and that’s what I’ve been doing,” Grant ex-
plained. “If I can do that, I feel like that’s a huge suc-
cess for me. And if a win comes out of it, I think that’s a
bonus. Obviously with [Ryan] Dungey retiring and all
that stuff, it’s just another opportunity for me to get in
there and start landing on the box again. Like at the
Hangtown press conference after the opening round,
they were asking us what we thought about Dungey
retiring and I said, ‘I’m happy. I’m happy. That’s a door
that opens up for me.’ Why would I not be happy? It’s
plain and simple. It’s cool. If I can do that and land on
the podium and make those results, I should be able
to stay here!”Word in the pits this summer is that Grant is very
close to signing his name to a new contract to ride
for Monster Energy Kawasaki for the 2018 racing
season and beyond. Is there any truth to those ru-
mors? “That’s what we’re working on. I’d like to stay
with Kawasaki. We jell really well. I get along with ev-
erybody on the team and at Monster and all that. I
just need to put in the work and get the results and
everything should fall into place. I want to be here
and racing for a while. I’m definitely giving it every-
thing for three years, and if it feels even better and
keeps going, then I’ll just keep going. I feel like I’m
going to give it a good three-year shot of just my full
everything. I love it, so it’s hard to not want to see it
or be around it. We’ll see.”With 13 seasons and nearly 250 races beneath his
name in the AMA Pro Racing record books, not to
mention a litany of injuries and surgeries and living a
life punctuated by the emotional ups and downs and
highs and lows that racing can bring. It’s a tough way
to make a living.“It’s a tough way to make a living. Was it worth it?
Yeah, for me. It’s hard to say, but it’s been so rough
that it’s kind of shaped me into a different person
than what I was when I started out in this sport. With
me and my personality and the way I look at life, it’s
a lot different for me than it used to be, and that’s
because of the stuff that’s happened along the way. A
lot of this is coming back because I want to race, obvi-
ously, but I also need to. If want to sustain a lifestyle
that I had before, I need to go out and prove myself
and I need to be able to keep doing that,” Grant said.“You know, my greatest achievement has been able
to rebound my career in the last two years and be-
ing able to be in the spot I’m in now. I haven’t seen
anybody be able to do this,” Grant said. “I feel like I’ve
been so low in my career, or even in personal life or
whatever, and I’ve been able to bounce back up and
get back to this level. It’s a level that’s really hard to
even get to in the first place. To be able to be there,
lose it and be down at the bottom, and then be able
to bounce back up and to still have all this—honestly, I
think that’s the biggest win for me.”