MotoAmerica | 2024 | Silly Season

I enjoyed making our activations work with our partners… like Toyota… instead of setting up our display separately I’d put race bikes in the back of trucks and gear bags in storage areas of units at joint events…

same with all partners from nutrition to apparel to inside industry we made sure that we were seen utilizing the products

 

Nobody does this better than Red Bull. Obviously huge budgets but the concept is available to anyone to follow.

 

Curious on this one. Not a friend to who, other riders, team members, crew chief ?

 

Shocker...

 

Neither do I, that and watching people play video games. No clue on the appeal.

but I watch a lawyer pick locks so I’m no compass true north of the general public.

 

Right I get that and that's why I replied how I did. Others here seem to think it's new

 

Meaning - I'll be friendly to all, but I am not looking to be your friend. Friends rarely hold friends accountable or remain objective. My role is to get the rider around the racetrack as fast as humanly possible and the rider needs to know that is my (and the team's) sole objective. It has proven to be a great way to have both 1 way and 2 way conversations without having the whole "friend" thing get in the way.

Ken

 

Must’ve made your Kawi wrenching days extra risky considering the connections

 

Good interview with Ben. Sounds like they have chosen the riders, just waiting on announcement. He did say they were his first and second choice.

 

They own a race team and I'm sure they've taken money from a driver. This is normal in sport car racing. You have multiple drivers, one might the the factory hot shoe the others are paying out of pocket. Rahal are sponsored by Mi-Jack, which belongs to the same guy that is part owner of the Rahal Indycar team. This is the epitome of "money bags coming to play" that you mentioned happens in MA.

So as much is I echo your hope for no paid rides, at the end of the day that is a viable business model for a race team in today's enviroment. And I don't think Spies is coming out of his own pocket so doubt he'll make the decisions on how the business is run.

 

Thanks for that insight…. That explains the reality that I didn’t understand… I was hoping they were actually not a pay to play team in 4 wheels too…

I know I’m different but I’m a halfbreed hillbilly kid that went from a homemade trailer pulled behind a Dodge Daytona with $5 take offs on a totaled $500 F2 that “couldn’t be rebuilt” to a full on semi truck team running 4 bikes that put 10 different riders in the top ten in the two premier classes Superbike and Daytona Sportbike, on bikes they’d never seen before Fri practice after I got hurt, I did the same before my injury in 09… I did it by providing a real return on investment for our partners, just like for Dorna when we had a 62% success rate with our in house designed data collection… old school write down your contact info and we’ll send you purchase info for GP tickets… they’d never seen anything above 15% before… I consulted with IMS for years after that but they refused to compensate me proportionally and their numbers went from 92K the year I did it to I think less than 50k the last year…

I brought this up in a meeting with the top 4 of MA when they flew to Indy on a cold winter day when they tried back dooring me for the last time with Andre Lacey(RIP) of LDI/owners of Bonnier MC group and many really successful corps way back in 14 or 15

Wayne said his parents mortgaged their house to buy his HD flat track bike… I explained that not everyone has parents or a house and that they need to make a path for talented kids of no backing to make it on skill…

I refused to sell my rides to anyone and I put everyone from Doug Polen to Josh Day and Rapp and Fong, and Gillim and and and…. on my bikes and when the purse and media exposure wouldn’t pay the bills and Toyota valued my activations ten times the MA series at the time I took another semi out of the paddock… it sucked and I still miss it and I know they’ve changed and are paying real money for the premier entrants now which is great…

rant off… TL/DR hope more good changes come…

 

Well, it appears the "Former Superbike Winner" was not signed- he had other paid opportunities in MA. So now they are going with another former MA championship winner- all I can say at the moment as anything else would give it away completely. They're still looking to fill a STK 1ooo seat and possibly a Twins seat, but those riders would need to bring some cheese to the table.

 

We don't get it because we're not the target audience. It's all for the kiddos.

 

Fonger?

 

Hayes, Herrin/ didnt think Fong won a chip before.

 

Supersport

 

If I can help you out with some of the stinkiest kinds of cheeses known to man so you can distinguish yourself from the competition, just holler. We can find a way to fedex some with some dry ice.