[Features]

USA INSIDER #173: TROUBLE IN PARADISE

9 years ago | Words: Jason Weigandt

Transmoto’s weekly web-exclusive column, the USA Insider, penned by Jason Weigandt, presented by Ipone.

Life changes completely when a team moves from mere contender to championship favorite. The spotlight glows incredibly hot, and it’s a true test to try to keep cool under those conditions. It’s a little easier for factory teams, as these are large companies that don’t necessarily live or die from the results of one rider. Plus, they’ve been through it all before. The year has been a disaster for Monster Energy Kawasaki, but they are one big signing (paging Eli Tomac) away from getting right back on top. They’ve lost plenty of stars, and they’ve rebuilt plenty of times. No problems over there.

On the private team side, though, that one rider controls all. I saw it when the Joe Gibbs Racing team signed James Stewart in 2012, and pressure and tension seemed to mount in all directions. Stewart actually won two races for the team, but the marriage seemed joyless most of the time, and the team has had more fun the next few years despite not winning, just as Stewart and Yoshimura Suzuki have stayed happy even in rough times – such as Stewart not even racing this year.

The JGR outfit is back to championship-level expectations this year with Justin Barcia, although even he doesn’t quite carry the expectations that Stewart did. He performed worse, though, not even scoring a podium in supercross, and merely being a top-five guy early in this year’s Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. That said, the JGR team has been through the wars now, so they shrugged off most of the trouble. No panic, no drama, the team and rider just kept working, and then suddenly things clicked and Barcia finally started winning again and living up to his billing. Had the team not been through the Stewart drama three years earlier, I’m not sure they’d have been so capable of riding out the lows with Barcia. This season never got away from them, and now Barcia heads into most weekends as Ryan Dungey’s most likely challenger.

The test now is for the RCH Suzuki team. Like JGR, this is a private outfit but one filled with experienced hands who have worked for factory teams. Still, it’s a new story to go racing with someone of Ken Roczen’s caliber, as the expectations will never be anything short of winning. The team did win, immediately, when Monster Energy Supercross started, but then Ken hurt his ankle, and then his back, and basically things haven’t gotten back on the tracks. Behind the scenes, I’m hearing Ken is still not happy with his bike set-up and has spent a lot of hours testing this week in California. He has even gotten some tips from the Yoshimura Suzuki team, as Blake Baggett’s RM-Z seems on-point. With the 450MX title defense looking bleak and the season on the brink of getting away, Roczen and his team are getting back to basics with each other. This is at the crossroads, as signing the big talent and generating wins is something we’ve seen teams do before. Riding out the low points is the true challenge, and it will be interesting to see how this rider and team emerge once they get to the other side.

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