Three Stories, Three Thoughts

Three bits of news were broken yesterday, here are my thoughts on it. Read on to find out how fruit loops and Brayton are linked.

Three bits of news were broken yesterday, here are my thoughts on it. Read on to find out how fruit loops and Brayton are linked.

News-Justin Brayton Signs With Factory Honda

We knew this one was coming for a while and I like it. Brayton’s a solid rider who seems to be getting better and better although at a slower pace than some would like to see. That’s the thing with Brayton, his ascent to the factory Honda ride has been a case of building a mountain out of fruit loops. Which is to just slowly stacking them and waiting to see if they fall over. Sometimes they do and you have to start again but sometimes, they don’t and you see improvement.

Brayton comes from honest hard working roots and to me, if you can go out and win a heat race against all the heavy hitters (and Brayton did that twice this year) then you can do it in a main event. It’s like Justin can never actually believe in himself that he deserves to be on the line with the best riders in the world but maybe now, with a factory Honda that he’s always dreamed about, underneath him- he can take that plunge.

He’ll be a solid guy for the red team and I think after some real teething problems when it first came out, the CRF450 is one of the better bikes in the pits. Brayton rode well for the JGR team and definitely took a step in the right direction and I think this move is another step in the right direction for JB. Gibbs team had first right of refusal and could have exercised it in this case but they didn’t want to hold JB back after he went to them and explained this is a chance he’s always dreamed of having. Good on the JGR guys for recognizing this and letting Brayton go.

One thing I do worry about is the fact that we all know GEICO rider Justin Barcia is going to jump into the factory truck in 2013. He filled in great this past year on the 450 and is a born and raised Honda rider. Justin told me that he knows he signed a one-year deal and he knows that Barcia is coming on-board for next year. He went into this deal with his eyes wide open on the situation and told me that management told him that if he opens some eyes, gets some good finishes- they’ll have a three man team (along with Trey Canard) in 2013. So knowing this and knowing that he could have easily gone back to JGR, Brayton signed on the dotted line. He’s got the team and the bike to perform and the rest is up to him. Which sounds like it’s exactly what he wanted.

 

News- Andrew Short Signs With Larry Brooks/Jeremy McGrath Honda Team

This one I didn’t see coming. Well, I did know that Brooks/MC were supposedly having a team and supposedly with works Honda equipment but when I stood in the pits with Andrew talking about next year, I didn’t know that at that time, he had already signed with the LB/MC team. I had someone at Honda tell me that Brooks telling everyone that he had works Honda equipment was surprising to him. That if Larry did indeed manage to sign Ryan Dungey then there would indeed be something there for him but anyone else and all bets were off.

I was explaining this to Short and the fact that, in my opinion, he could collect a bigger salary from a factory team and let’s face it, as good as the Brooks/McGrath team is going to be, it’s no factory team. When you’re on a factory team, things are just handled in a first class manner (right now David Vuillemin is nodding his head) and privateer teams are just that, privately owned teams that don’t have the resources (i.e.: budget) that the factory teams do. Plus, we all know that Short’s season was made extra tougher this year by being on a bike that is 100cc less than the guys around him on the gate (memo to KTM: the 350 experiment isn’t working in America. It’s a great bike for 98% of the population but not pro riders) but that problem was, by all accounts, going to be fixed by letting Andrew ride the same 450 that new teammate Ryan Dungey is on.

So I really thought Short was going back orange with all the above factored in. Oh and add in the fact that German wonder-kid Ken Roczen told me at the MXDN that he was coming back and I was very sure about Shorty’s 2012 plans. And I was wrong. Really wrong as a matter of fact as it seems that Andrew was indeed set on going with Brooks/McGrath the whole way. His KTM year was not good cumulating in a KTM bike malfunctioning while he tested supercross and throwing him off hard. The end result was broken elbows and a wrist and he got off lucky. So he wasn’t going back despite the hard work and efforts of everyone on the orange crew. The orange guys have a huge challenge ahead of them with Ryan Dungey but that’s another column for another day.

With Brooks/McGrath he’s got works Honda bikes, a demanding, intense team manager and the all-time winningest supercrosser willing to do whatever it takes to get Short back to where he was a podium threat every time the gate dropped. Not too mention the crew at Honda whom he all knows and is familiar with and are there to help out. Brooks and Short danced last year to be the second guy on the L&M team (apparently James Stewart was even going to chip in to make the deal more financially rewarding) and were real close. In the end though, the no motocross nationals deal sealed it for Andrew and he went orange. A long 2011 dinner meeting with Brooks where they compared notes and philosophies and realized that they were on the same page on many topics was helpful for Short to know he made the right decision this year.

So now he’s back with LB and the outdoors are on the schedule. Short’s made a fair amount of money in his career, he’s getting a little bit older now and I think he realizes that he needs to get back to the level of where he was at. So maybe he took a bit of a financial hit (I don’t know for sure) but he’s smart enough to know that Larry + Jeremy + factory Honda’s is a pretty good combination for success.

 

News-Team Manager Mike Fisher Let Go From Factory Kawasaki

It’s funny to think that all my friends I see each week are on the chopping block from their jobs. You don’t really think about that all that much but it’s true. The sport of supercross/motocross is a cruel one like any in professional sports, the performances of the riders, mechanics and team managers are scrutinized and second-guessed each and every weekend. Even knowing all this, I didn’t see this coming.

Mike Fisher is around a thirty-year employee of Kawasaki first as a test rider (and factory rider), then as the head of the R&D department and finally in the race team capacity. He’s literally been a part of Kawasaki, it’s off-road motorcycles and it’s racing for more than half his life. To hear the news that he was let go really brings home the whole “This is a professional sport with lots of money and egos on the line” thing to me. If your Mike Fisher and your rider won both the 450 supercross and motocross championships, it’s a pretty successful year by anyone’s standards.

Of course I know that Ryan Villopoto is the one riding the bike and deserves most of the credit for the wins but trust me, as a guy that’s been on well-run and then some not-so-well-run teams, a manager is important to a teams success. I had heard that when the press release came out earlier this year informing us that Fisher’s new boss was now Reid Nordin (a guy that he had hired in the R&D department years ago), he knew the writing was on the wall and sort of wasn’t shocked by this move. But back then I didn’t believe it, I just couldn’t see a man with the seniority and the success on the track being let go. The friction between Mitch Payton of Pro Circuit and Fisher over the factory team switching to FMF this year was real and present but at the end of the day, does anyone think that Fisher didn’t talk about the switch to FMF, the hard feelings with Payton it may cause and the fallout with any of his bosses beforehand?

Rumors are that Nordin was instilled in that position above Fisher because Pro Circuit’s contract to run the 250 effort was up and Payton demanded that he not have to deal with Fisher. The way the switch was done didn’t make Payton happy at all and he wasn’t inviting Fisher over for dinner anytime soon. But at the same time, I’ve learned in this business that one days enemy will one day be your friend. Seen it time and time again and in this case, I just figured that the two would make up and work together one day.

But I suppose not. I have to think that Fisher’s firing has something to do with the internal team structures and the way people were getting dealt with. I’m around the Kawasaki guys enough and hear many things while I’m getting some coffee or grabbing some grub that I never report on because I’m not in the truck to get scoops, I’m in there enjoying the hospitality and what’s said inside the truck stays inside the truck. Unless I ask if I could print it. Anyways, I can honestly say that I never heard any complaining about Mike and his managing skills. I’ve been around long enough and on enough teams that things that usually don’t seem right, aren’t. And in this case, I saw nothing to make me think Mike Fisher was going to be relieved of his duties at the end of the year. But clearly there was something there to make the higher-ups feel like Mike had to go despite the on-track success.

Fisher’s a good guy with some real tangible skills and will land on his feet no doubt about it. His termination snapped me back to reality once again that this is a professional sport and these aren’t usual circumstances we deal with at a job.

Fisher released this statement today about his departure:

I’d like to respond to yesterday’s rumors, and confirm that my 18-year relationship with Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. did indeed reach its end Monday morning. Although it may seem a surprise to some, for myself and those that have worked closely with me throughout the year, this unfortunate news was anticipated and expected.

This past year has been the most challenging of my career, as well as the most rewarding. The 2011 SX and MX seasons ultimately produced what our team had set out to accomplish since the beginning of my term as the racing team manager at Kawasaki. The achievements of our racing team were second to none this year, and I feel honored to have been an integral part of making history in the motorcycle industry.

I am proud and thankful to have been given the opportunity to manage a team of passionate, dedicated people, that stood by each other, myself, and what mattered to us all in the end.

I wish the Kawasaki racing team, it’s colleagues, sponsors, and notably, Ryan Villopoto and Jake Weimer, all the greatest of achievements in 2012 and beyond.

Respectfully,

Mike Fisher