Q. You just finished your chores on the farm down there in Texas. How many animals are you feeding now?

A. Oh, let me see (counting). I’ve got ... so that's three ... seven ... thirteen?

Q. And how many of those animals are what I like to call candidates for the glue factory, also known as horses?

A. There's five of them, the rest are cats and dogs. One horse is like like 32 years old. Yeah.

Q. I think I told you before but I grew up on a horse farm. I, still, know more about horses than I do motorcycles or racing. I used to talk about horses with Earl Hayden; we kind of agreed that if you’ve raised yearling colts it teaches you a lot about riders.

A. Really?

Q. Yeah, because there’s always one colt in the pasture who has to win. Every few years, there’s one who would rather risk a broken leg than lose one of their impromptu races. That horse is a rider.

A. Mine are pretty sedate. But if they get near my house, they will not leave. The only way I can get them to stop eating my lawn is to start one of my dirt bikes. Wind it up. They leave and I close the gate.

Q. Let’s talk about Toprak Razgatlıoğlu and his move to MotoGP in 2026. What does Ben Spies think?

Well, it's been talked about for a couple of years now. I've spoken with him a lot, him and actually his manager Keenen Sofuoğlu about it for a few years now.

I'm on the same page with them. The dilemma was obviously if Toprak wanted to stay in WSBK and become the king of WSBK or go to MotoGP.

Toprak really really wants to try and if I was in his position to do it all over again, I probably would do the same.

With what he's accomplished already in Superbike there's no wrong thing to do. There's no doubt about that.

The question is, just how are things going to go? Right off the bat I do believe he's a, for sure, a top five, probably top three most talented riders in the world.

But it's just the GP bikes, they are the most different from any other motorcycle he has raced. So that's a potential problem; if there is a problem.

Toprak will have to acclimate his riding style. The way that he kind of sits on the bike and just a little bit of how he brakes, which is, you know, he’s a demon breaker. Getting the bike stopped pointed and stuff like that. That’s the other part of it, he’s going to have to manipulate his style a little bit to make the GP bikes work. I’m not saying he can't do that, at all, but it is for sure, you know, he's, he's so on one side of the spectrum of riding the motorcycle in a very good way. But I do think that he's going to have to pull back a little bit on the way that he rides so extreme. And, you know, bump up the corner speed up a little bit and get off of the front brake a little bit sooner and, you know, getting the bike rolling, all those kinds of things.

It's not a talent thing. It's just does he have enough time to make the change? Is he able to do it? Because, you know, there's two things: it's his age is one and two, he's been riding production street bike, superbike racing motorcycles his whole career. Not Moto 3 and Moto 2 (or) MotoGP bikes. So, yes, there's, there is a difference. Not saying that he can't, you know, make that difference and make the changes that he'll kind of need to.

It'll be exciting to watch. Q. He's made his his fame and his career on the brakes in World Superbike. That's on, let's just call them conventional brakes. So is he going to be able to pull that same level move in MotoGP with carbon-carbon brakes?.

A. I don't see the braking material changing anything for him. It's just still how you ride the bike. Like, basically, he's still going to want to brake in further than anybody. And that's his strongest point. He comes to MotoGP as the best guy in WSBK on the brakes, kind of like I did.
I look at it from when I was in Superbike and braking was kind of one of my stronger points too. We kind of ride similar. He's just better than I was in his much more extreme in that way on the brakes.

And I can tell you, you can get on a MotoGP bike and you can be the latest braker in the paddock, but it's not going to result in a consistent lap time. In a MotoGP race it can help you when you’re battling but not for the fastest lap time. In MotoGP you need to find balance of getting it in there as late as you can. When you get off the brake in MotoGP the chassis is all together nice, the grip is high because you have built grip into the tire and you’re not pushing it through the grip like you can on a Superbike. He will have no problem pulling the front brake in MotoGP and running it in there and be the latest braker, if he wants.

That’s the Achilles heel of Superbike racers, they want to get it in there late and turn the bike, get the pivot done to turn the bike. Because on Superbike you don't have a ton of edge grip and that is just the way it is. You get a lot of drive and a braking stability, but not a ton of edge grip compared to a MotoGP bike. So you've got to learn how to utilize that.

I've told a bunch of people these two different analogies: you've got the Superbike style that's kind of more flat-track-ish type riding where you're getting the bike turned on the brakes or the throttle or both. And then you have the MotoGP style, which is like going into a corner on a dirt bike and imagining that there's a big, deep rut that the bikes in, and it's just got that grip and you let it go. You have trust that there is grip in the rut, per se, because there is not a lot of feel in that situation on a MotoGP bike. That’s the real big difference between Superbike and MotoGP. In MotoGP there is a lot more grip and a lot less feel. In MotoGP it's just all stiff and just vague. MotoGP is also like what a bobsled is like, I think. You get up on the wall and you’re using the wall to turn the (bike). That’s the real big difference between Superbike and GP.

He will have to manipulate his style a little bit. Those were the conversations we had with him as he was considering this. I give him full credit for trying to attempt this.

In my eyes he has the talent to challenge for wins and a championship if he is able to get the most out of the bike. We will have to wait and see. MotoGP bikes aren’t perfect for everybody so I hope he can do it. I believe that he can. I like him; he’s a good friend of mine and I admire him a lot because of the way he was brought to racing and for him to be successful on a world championship level is amazing.

Q He will have to do one season on Michelin tires.

In my opinion right now the difference is that the Pirelli has a lot more squish from the softer carcass and a lot more feel. They don’t have the grip of the Michelin. With Toprak you can see that the Pirelli is just crying for mercy just before the apex of the corner. The Michelin is not anything like that, at all. It is a lot more grip and a lot less feel.

Anybody that rides Superbike and then gets a chance to ride a MotoGP bike almost always comes back saying that they can’t feel anything with the Michelin. It’s stiff and vague.

It will be easier for him when MotoGP go to Pirelli, for sure. He will feel a lot more and be able to manage the bike over race distance a lot more.

The one thing he has right now is that in the last quarter of the braking zone it is unbelievable how he can stop the bike. You can see in the races where good riders like Bautista if they are in there behind him in the last quarter of the braking zone to where the bike is tipped in and the knee is on the ground and the brake is released ... that last fifteen percent ... if they are too close to him they can’t stop the way that he does. I have seen so many good riders almost run into the back of him. They can’t stop like he does.

Q. Why?

It’s a combination of things; his rear brake, because of how he sits on the bike, and the bikes that he trains on and how they train. He’s very good on the brakes in general but it’s the last quarter of the braking zone and stopping the bike into the apex ...nobody has ever done that as good as Toprak. Without a doubt.