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/745221
IN THE WIND P50 BETA'S RODNEY SMITH R odney Smith is a liv- ing legend in off-road motorcycle racing. His racing career spanned from the mid-'80s to the early 2000s where he notched exotic and domestic titles in his belt from around the world. Heck, he was even in- ducted into the AMA Mo- torcycle Hall of Fame in 2015! From Brazilian MX Championships to finish- ing third in the 1988 FIM 250cc World Motocross Championships and hold- ing 13 AMA national titles in off-road, Smith has nearly done it all. Now he takes on a new role with Beta as brand manager and rider coach. According to Beta USA Marketing Manager Tim Pilg, Rodney is a perfect fit. Cycle News caught up with Smith at the Everett, Washington, EnduroCross round and chatted with him about his new gig. Q. Tell us about your new position at Beta. Beta has brought me on board to be a brand manager and rider coach to help the riders as a coach/mentor and promote the brand at events. I've done a lot of bike setup, training and racing in my career so we want to have me around to motivate and advise the riders. Here at EnduroCross, I'm doing a lot of things from look- ing at the track and lines over obstacles to making sure the guys are happy with their bike setup and generally being someone they can rely on. Q. What are you hoping to do right away with the riders? Just being at the races is a good start and being able to get to know them. This winter, I hope a lot of the Beta team guys will come up to North- ern California and take advantage of training and riding with me. Just like Steve Hatch, Paul Ed- monson and Josh Strang and everybody else used to do; sort of a winter training camp to ride and have a little bit of fun. It's my opinion that there has to be some fun in all of this as a team and that helps build a team spirit that's motivating. Q. Does your involvement in Beta signal even more ef- forts in racing from the brand? We're looking at a long-term partnership where we can build on Beta's racing and expand it. My intentions are to continue and end my career at Beta. They've stepped in at the right time for me personally and it really feels like a new home. I hope we can expand Beta's event presence through myself at demo rides and, as sponsor of the AMA Na- tional Dual Sport Series, our efforts there. I look forward to attending more events, mingling with the off-road and dual-sport customers and making sure they real- ize how Beta is moving forward. Just getting out there and riding with cus- tomers, dealers and oth- ers is really important. I'm really looking forward to getting back to the races consistently, as well. I think I was getting bored at home and getting back into the field again makes me excited. Q. For 2017, what can we see from Be- ta's racing efforts? For GNCC we have Jordan Ashburn in XC1 and Nick Davis on-board in XC2 and it's possible Johnny Aubert is com- ing back to race GNCC events. Drew Higgins is on the team for National Enduros and we're final- izing our National Hare & Hound and EnduroCross efforts. So, you can bet you'll see a lot of Betas racing and winning and it's awesome for the sport to have this brand in there mixing it up. Jesse Ziegler CHAT ROOM