Chad Reed is on the comeback trail in 2013, fresh back from a trio of positive races in Australia, but it hasn’t been an easy start for the TwoTwo Motorsports owner/rider during the early rounds of the Monster Energy Supercross, an FIM World Championship, season.

The 30-year-old has used consistency to keep himself in title contention three rounds in, now just seven points from surprise series leader Davi Millsaps after a breakthrough podium at Anaheim II on Saturday night. Before that, he had a pair of fourths to open his account at A1 and Phoenix.

As now a true veteran of the sport in his 11th season, but very much capable of challenging for a third AMA crown, Reed has been focused heavily on progressing as quickly as possible – especially while developing the brand new Showa SFF Air fork and 2013 model CRF450R.

MotoOnline.com.au tracked Reed down following the podium ceremonies to speak about his ride at A2, the trip back to Australia and the development program that he’s set himself during his return to racing. As always, Chad gave us plenty to write about!

Anaheim 2 saw a much more comfortable and aggressive Chad Reed out on the track. Image: Simon Cudby.

It seems every time we come here for MotoOnline you put in a good performance, so congratulations first off – hopefully this is a bit of a springboard for the season ahead…

Yeah, I think so. Might have to put you on the tour Al [laughs]. I think it’s obviously been very clear that we’ve been struggling the first couple of races. We struggled all off season with the same issues that we showed up with at the first two races, so it’s kind of frustrating, but I think for the most part we’ve taken a step in the right direction. You know, it’s a good time, we need to start chipping away and the next thing we need to do is start challenging for the race win and try to get some wins.

I had watched the first two rounds live on TV in Australia, then tonight in the press box, and to me it seems like you were that little bit more aggressive this weekend, a bit more comfortable. The bike or whatever seems to be working with you more, but is that the case for you at this point in your opinion?

I think it’s starting to come together and we’re starting to… the bike’s within the window now. To quote Cole Trickle, “there’s only so much I can do with a race bike”, so you know, I need these guys to work with me and get me in my happy place.

From there we can make minor changes, tweak on it here and there, but I think today we showed up with a good bike. We changed a click here and there, but for the most part we didn’t change any hard parts, so that was nice because I’ve been going from air fork to regular fork, back and forth, back and forth. I’ve been going from one setting to the other setting, left field, right field.

So it’s been frustrating to have all that happen and you know, trying to do that at the races and during the week. I’m excited for this week to polish up the setting a little bit and try to be better and stronger for [Oakland].

You came back to Australia during the off-season, gave our supercross series a massive boost, but looking back now, do you think those three races were a benefit or hinderence? On one hand you hadn’t raced in a while so it’s good to get seat time under race conditions, but at the same time you weren’t able to test as usual in the US.

It was a bit of both. A lot of the issues we were having, at the time they didn’t really have parts to fix it, the air fork was so new. I raced Monster Cup with it, but wasn’t able to take it to Australia at that point, because we didn’t have the program for it or the tools for it. It would have been nice to do three races with it in Australia, get a better understanding of it, so I would say the downside of going home was just basically riding with what I had.

The issues I had, I kind of rode around them. Not to be negative, but obviously you don’t have guys there going [Ryan] Villopoto’s speed or [James] Stewart’s speed, [Trey] Canard’s speed and all that kind of stuff. You know, not being disrespectful to them but that’s kind of how it is, so I was able to win and do good.

But from a confidence point of view, I think it was awesome. If you saw at Phillip Island, I was kind of a guy riding around there on a bumpy, slick track, with my hands tied behind my back. I really couldn’t push, didn’t win easily and Jay [Marmont] pushed me the whole way.

The next race at Toowoomba it was muddy so it was hard to tell, then at the next race in Newcastle, the track was a little more US style, in my hometown, and the week before we made a few adjustments to the bike that kind of helped a little bit. So you know, my advantage over Jay and [Daniel] McCoy was a little stronger, a little bigger.

I don’t ever regret anything, so I think that my experience down there was positive, but the only negative was that we couldn’t take the air fork and I wasn’t able to learn in race conditions what it was going to be like.

Reed stood on the podium for the first time in 2013 after two consecutive fourth place finishes. Image: Simon Cudby.

You definitely helped the sport down there, so I think Australia is very appreciative for that. Just to wrap this up, consistency seems like it will be vital this year, and so far this season in America you’ve gone 4-4-3 and are right there in the points chase. For somebody like you with your experience, your 11th season in the US, does confidence still play a big role in the way you progress?

Confidence is the name of the game in anything I believe. If you’re confident in yourself, feeling good and in your happy place, good things happen. I’ve been pretty confident that I can ride the pace and go the distance, it’s just a matter of finding that feeling that you need as a rider to push at this extreme level.

So, I think that this weekend we made a huge step in the right direction and I feel like it can only get better from here. The good thing is that I went 4-4 on weekends where a lot of people had a lot of big mistakes, so I need to be consistent, but I also need to be consistent on winning races [laughs].

You know, to still be ahead of Villopoto in points and all those kind of guys, you want to get some wins and take advantage of it – pad it a little bit. He ain’t going to get slower, like we saw this weekend, he’s only going to get more comfortable and faster.

I want to take it to that next level and push him like I did last year – that was fun. In San Diego I lost and got second, but it was just fun because you push the pace and you push the champ. The next weekend I was pushing the champ again and I felt like I actually, some parts of the track I had the upper hand on him. Unfortunately I got hurt then, but I just want to challenge the champ and have some fun out there.

Okay, thanks Chad – awesome job. I’ve been here a number of times since you launched TwoTwo in 2011, watched it progress every year. It’s something both yourself and Ellie can be extremely proud of. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, we’ve got an all-star staff, a lot of unique sponsors on board and I think we have a good foundation with the team. You know, I’m getting older and I want a new guy to come on in and take my spot here, so I’ve probably got a year, or half a year, maybe a year or two – we’ll see, who knows. I want to win this damn title, I can promise you that. I’m going to work my ass off, try to win some races here and try to win this thing.