Kay Henekkens is the owner of the Nestaan Husqvarna Factory team, the team that own the MX2 World championship, with their rider, Kay De Wolf. Henekkens has also been a long-time supporter of many teams and riders in the sport, going all the way back to the early 2000’s.

This is part two of the interview and you can read part one here and below part two. I hope you enjoy it.

MXLarge: Tell me, you stayed with Husqvarna through that period of confusion and your team win them their first World motocross championship since Alessio Chiodi in the 1990s. A historical year for the brand and complete domination of the class. How did that feel?

Henekkens: Wow, what we achieved last year, it is a dream when you start a team. First you want to win a race, then you want to win two races and if you win some races, you then want both riders on the same podium and then you want a one/two finish, and we had it all last year. We won 16 out of 20 races and ruling the class I guess with Kay and Lucas. We won the manufactures championship, and we won whatever we wanted. For the podium, we sent all our team up there, the mechanics, everyone went up there. It was a dream season and if you saw the struggle we had to fight in Austria to get things organized and to arrange things, it was not easy.

MXLarge: You are a very calm Dutchman, very correct and very calm, but do you celebrate from the inside, because if you see the Brits, or the French, or the Italians, they go crazy and you see the celebrations, but how does that work for a Dutchman?

Henekkens: I will tell you and it’s a nice question. When things don’t go to satisfaction with the team, for whatever reason, I always support the people and the team around me, guy’s, don’t bother, its going to be Monday anyway and life goes on. Well, that is exactly what happened when we became World champion.

MXLarge: So, you remained calm, but it must give a huge satisfaction?

Henekkens: Yes, and we get the red plate in the first round in Argentina, and we all said, yes, its just the first race, take it easy. Of course we paid attention to it, but we didn’t want to add stress because of that. Then, after 10, 12, 15 races, it seems like, you are in a good position, to win the championship, with Kay, or Lucas. Still, anything can go wrong, we saw what happened in Turkey with Langfelder (T-boned De Wolf) and you can not control everything.

MXLarge: And in the past, your team has had a horrible time with injuries?

Henekkens: Yes, so we kept with our feet on the ground, fingers crossed and hoped for the best and at a moment, I thought to myself, this might be our season, but I didn’t dare say it out loud.

MXlarge: I wanted to ask you about Jeffrey (Herlings). I don’t know if you look at my website, but I am a big Jeffrey Herlings fan, because he is such a sensational racer and such a charismatic person in our sport. I often say, he is the most polarised rider in the sport, maybe ever. How is your relationship with him (Henekkens was actually on the phone with Herlings when I called him for this interview). Also, have you and Jeffrey ever spoken about him being in your team one day?

Henekkens: I think still strong. I still support Jeffrey with a contract, and he just sent me a message to ask about my opinion on KTM and I called him to explain how I see it, because with so much bullshit in the press. The relationship is good. As far as Jeffrey racing in my team, we have spoken about that, several times, but there are some sponsor obligations, that stand in the way. We are FOX, Jeffrey is Alpinestars, taking one of the best riders out of the KTM factory team, I don’t think that makes KTM happy, things like that.

MXLarge: How do you enjoy a Grand Prix weekend, what stands out for you to make it a nice weekend?

Henekkens: I enjoy it on the Monday.

MXlarge: That doesn’t sound like a good answer.

Henekkens: No, but I answer like that, because last year, the last thing I wanted was one of the bikes of the boys broke down, or a DNF for whatever reason. You hope this doesn’t happen and you don’t want them to crash into each other and you want them to be healthy at the end of the day and you want them to stay safe, so I can only enjoy the races when I look back on Monday evening, when I know the end result and then I can enjoy it.

MXlarge: It doesn’t matter who I speak to about KTM, Davey Coombs, or Giuseppe Luongo, or many other major players in the sport, that they feel KTM will be okay and come out of this difficult situation. Let’s say it continues on, and they build again, and they continue to race, will your team stay Husqvarna?

Henekkens: We have a longer contract, but I don’t know. We have so many steps to go forward. The first step is will KTM continue, step number two, who will be majority shareholder and how do they see motorsports. How will things evolve, I don’t know, we will see. I could have a clear view on that, but I am not the one making the decisions.

MXLarge: Last question. I was speaking to Hans Corvers from Monster Energy Yamaha MXGP, and he was positive about how the factory teams continue in MXGP, because of the fly-away race and that the series is Worldwide. He also has concern for the fly-away costs. What is your opinion on how the series is run by Infront?

Henekkens: You know, There will always be a group of people who want to complain that the old days was always better, they will complain that there are only 25 riders on the gate, but even in the USA, where there are 40 riders, they still lap up to 10th place or 15th place, so for me, at the end of the day, just to get 15 more riders on the gate, to fill it up and have more lapped riders getting in the way of the fast guys, does that make for me any sense. In general, I think Infront, do a very good, decent job. Can they do better, sometimes maybe, I don’t know. It is a big job. They did give us a big challenge for the end of the season, going from Turkey, to China, to Australia and then the United States, which is a big job, at the end of the season, when everyone is tired, I don’t know. We will see.