Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

INTERVIEW Suzuki MX Team Manager Roger DeCoster By Davey Coombs The 1997 AMA Supercross series is over and now we're gelling into the outdoor ationals in earnest. How would you say the season has gone for Suzuki so far? Well, there were some ups and downs. Like the first race (in Los Angeles) with Greg winning, but then the bad results of Jeremy's first race was a disappointment. There were a lot of expectations for Jeremy and that was a letdown, and yet, at the same time, winning with Greg was great. Jeremy would, for sure, have been on that podium had he not been taken out. Whether voluntarily or not, he got taken out by (Steve) Lamson. That cost at least 20 points. What surprises you more about the season - the emergence of Greg into a fairly consistent rider, with five or six podium finishes, or Jeremy's inconsistency? Whether Jeremy was on a Honda or a Suzuki, the odds were not so good that he would have a complete seasoJ;! again without any problems. He's had so many good seasons without any problems at all, the odds are that, sooner or later, he's going to have some mishaps. The longer you go on a streak, the greater the odds are that something is going to happen. I wrote something in a magazine before the season, before we even talked about hiin coming to Suz " and I predicted that there was going to be a lot of different winners this year. s good as Jeremy is, I wouldn't want to bet against him. I think the odds were that he was going to have some bad luck t . year, like the flat tire he had in CharlottE;) We also had a little bit of a problem wit the clutch in Indianapolis, and we had no preseason testing with him at all, so we were behind to begin 'with. We were doing testing during the season, which increases the chances of having a problem. Of course, I would have liked him to dominate like he did before, but I still don't think it's been a bad season. As for Greg, it was a long time to wait for those results, but I knew he had it in him. "...1 still don't think it's been a bad season. " 26 Would you say it's been a beneficial year for Suzuki? Has the McGrath deal been worth it? Definitely, I think, because we have won three races and we still had a chance to win at the very end. We took it to the last race, and we have two guys in the top five. That's better than any other factory. I'm not 100 percent happy, or we'd be one, two, three. 1 think Jeremy came on and motivated some people to do more, though I wish they had done more. I'm still pushing them to do more, but I think more is happening now than in recent years. I think our bike is definitely competitive. Was acquiring]eremy' McGrath worth the trouble? Whats the status with Mike LaRocco? Roger DeCoster answers these and other tough questions, including his take on his team's performance thus far in the 1997 supercross and Natio"nal M season. Let me ask you about the Mike LaRocco thing. He started out having some personal problems, with his wife being iII, and he's had some problems on the track, from a seizure to some crashes and other mishaps. He even had to be let go at one point. How did you handle that situationT I don't know if I handled it as well as I could have, but I tried to handle it as well as I could. There comes a point where every rider wants attention, and I can only give so much attention. If I don't get· any feedbaCK, it's very hard, and I have to try and try. I will work more with a person who gives me feedback than with a person who doesn't. I had made suggestions to little Mike in the past, and he did not follow those. Although he agreed with me that what I had suggested was good, he chose not to follow those suggestions, and that's why I directed my attention to where I thought I'd make more progress. Anything we came up with for any rider was always made available to the other riders. And I know that some guys are "Whether Jeremy was on a Honda or a Suzuki, the odds were not so good..." going to say, "Well, how about the front forks?" They were made available to everyone, including Mike, as soon as possible. We were done testing them, and Mike and big Mike (LaRocco's father and mechanic) did not like them, but then Jeremy came along and asked to try them. He ended up liking the upside-down fork and asked to switch to them. We were trying everything to make the bike right and comfortable for Jeremy. He asked for something that LaRocco had passed on; then LaRocco decided that he wanted to try them again. But it's not as easy as just calling up Japan and saying, "Give me another set of forks." It's much, much more complicated than that. It seems that, in Mike's case, there might have been some outright jealousy toward the way that McGrath and Albertyn are being treated, but when you look at the numbers and the results and everything, sometimes you just have to accept your position. You can only give so much before you can get something back, right? ,Right. Mike has had more specialty parts made for him than McGrath and . bertyn combined, and that's a fact. At any rate, things with LaRocco seem have been ironed out for the rest of the year. You have to like your chances with him in the outdoor Nationals, along with Jeremy and Greg. I think if Mike can 'focus and not spend hi . e wishing that he were on another team, he can do really well. On any bike, if you keep thinking that your bike isn't good, you're not going to do well.

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