Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128343
(Below) Team owner Dave Burlss was one of the ori~inal supporters of the Suzuki twin .n flat track. Burks and former rider Joe Kopp won the AMA Supertracker title on Suzuki in 1999, ond now Burks is hoping to give the brand its first AMA Grand National win. n • (Right) Talented and determined: Team riders A.J. Eslick (left) and Kevin Varnes (right) prepare for practice at the Springfield Mile. was matc hing the pace of Rich King and the factory Harley-Davidso n XR750 - a bikerider combo t hat is as good a performance yardst ick as any in the sport - w he n the tire let go. The team's tun er, Travis Smith , is pret ty sure that he knows w hy, and tha t it had nothing to with the excess slippage. II there is o ne single t hing that may be responsible lor the team 's midseason turnaro und, then maybe it is the hiring 01 Smith by Bur ks. The 30-year-o ld Texan, by way 01 Illinois, develo ped his w rench savvy in t he Hav-A-T ampa Dirt Series lo r late mod el stock cars, a traveling show that crisscross- es the Midwestern and Southeas te rn stat es. Smith crewed for various teams before gravitating toward dirt track mo torcy cles and honing his tun ing chops under the tutelage 0 1 one of the best in the business, flvetime AMA Grand National Championshipw inning tuner Kenny Tolbert. "I learned more Irom Kenny than just how things work with the motorcycles," Smith said. "I lea rned Irom him that when you think something is perfect, then it's not. I learned to be more particular lro m worki ng around Kenny. He told me, 'W he n you think you're ready to go to the race- track you're never read y to go to the racetra ck, because not hing is ever exactly t he way that it is supposed to be.'" That philosophy of perfection and de dicatio n to improvement made Smith an ideal addition to a tea m that ge nuinely nee de d improving. Alte r stints w ith Tolbe rt and Chris Carr, and factory KTM ride r Joe Kopp, Smith got the call to join t he team in t he middle 01 2004 . W hat he lo und was a program that wasn't exact ly t he prove rb ial Bad News Bears, but it was close . "The suspen sion on them was just jacked," Smith reca lled, "and w hat was going on when I got here was that you had a guy who tho ught he co uld do everything, and no one is perfect at everything. Right away Iwent and talked to a suspensio n guy, and I got some help. He [t he fo rme r mec hanic] was working on Kevin's bike , and I was working on A.J.'s, and we started turning A.J.'s program arou nd. Then Kevin wanted his to be like tha t. "You had peo ple who were treat ing it like this was a full -on facto ry team, and il it was , then we wou ld be out in Ca lilo rnia, working at Yoshimura or wherever. This is a lactory -backed Suzuki team out 0 1 Burks Moto rsports , and we get a lo t 01 help fro m Y oshimura, but it is still up to us make it work. We have to put the things together and make them go aro und the racetrack, rather than stan ding arou nd and pointing fingers at somebody else . We have to make the changes, and if some body tells me tha t we can't do it, we ll, that just pisses me off." Smith is not one lor political correctness. During his stint w ith KTM , he once told a high-ranking KTM official, who was insistent that o ne of the team ride rs take part in the tw ins race on w hat was clearly a perilo us Del Mar Mile race track, that il said rider got hurt , then said official would be 1 picking his teeth up 0 1 the paddock tarmac. "It's like I told these guys here: I can work anywhe re ," Smith said. "The day Joe Kopp let me go, he told me I was gone at noon , and by 3 p.m., I was pouring con crete. I'll never be out 01 a job, and w hatever I do , I want to be the best at it - and I'd rathe r pick up a wrench than point a finger. Kenny Tolbert once told me his philosophy a long time ago when he said, 'Y ou get wha t you need, put it on the bike , and somebody will pay for it.' When we were haggling over w het her or not to spend www.cyclenews .com $BOO for suspensi on, I told th em that I'd pay lor it mysell if I had to . We got it do ne, put it on , and it worked immed iately." And, Smith said, it was not only valuable for the team, but also for the vendor, which, he says, goes to show that there is a value associate d with being involved with the facto ry-backed Suzuki program. Any improvement immediate ly draws attention . "Y should have seen o ur suspension guy ou alter Sedalia." Smith said. "You had [Shaun Russell's tuner] Ronnie Brown down there, Kevi n Atherton there, [johnny Murphree's tuner] Mike Wheele r was there. Everybody was down there talking to the guy." Smith firmly believes t hat the 90degree, fuel-injected Suzuki DL twin the team is developing ranks highly in the category 0 1 better stu ff, and tha t its Achilles heel is simply an exce ss of ho rsepower. "It's like go ing to NASCAR, where every body has 800 ho rsepowe r, and going in with I600 horsepower and saying, 'We 're gonna blow you guys away,'" Smith said. "It doesn't happe n like that, and we need to get this th ing close to the range 01 the Harleys. At 90-rear-whee l horsepower we still have more than most Harleys, and CYCLE N EWS • SEPTEMBER 29, 2004 29