The Vault: Suzuki at the Openers
Wednesday, January 9, 2013 | 2:00 PM
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PrintOn Saturday night after the Anaheim opener, longtime Yoshimura Suzuki mechanic Lee McCollumn, who has spun wrenches for the likes of Tim Ferry, Larry Ward, Travis Pastrana and now James Stewart, said simply, “We always have bad luck here."
The man lived it, and he knows what he's talking about. Even though Suzuki has employed plenty of high-powered riders through the years and scored race wins and titles, the team has always had a tough time at the Anaheim opener. In fact, they've only one it one time, ever.
Maybe it's a jinx or a curse, because Team Suzuki's lone A1 win came the very first time Anaheim hosted the opener, in 1981. Since then they've had one win at a season opener that didn't take place at Angel Stadium, and zero wins when the Big A started the season.
Of course, the factory team's troubles reflect even brighter considering a different Suzuki bike and team—Rockstar Energy Racing—scored the win on Saturday.
For more on this, we dug into the Race X Vault, and used a feature you might not realize is there. You can actually search results by bike brand, and find out every rider that ever competed in any AMA Supercross or National Motocross on that bike. You can search for Suzukis, BSAs, Greeves, Cannondales, whatever you'd like. Check it out here. And now, a little history for RMs at Rnd1s.
1976 Daytona Supercross
You know Supercross is in its infancy when the opener takes place in Daytona, on the same March weekend it does now. So the racing calendar has expanded forward two whole months since then.
It wasn't Anaheim, but at least Team Suzuki can say it grabbed an opening-round win courtesy of Tony Distefano. Tony D topped would-be '76 Champ Jammin' Jimmy Weinert.
Results from Daytona 1976
1981 Anaheim Supercross
Yeah! This is how you get it started! This is the first time Anaheim serves as the season opener, and Team Suzuki not only wins it with Rhinestone Cowboy Kent Howerton, but teammate Mark “The Bomber” Barnett finishes right behind him. Barnett goes to win the supercross title, and he and Howerton claim the 125 and 250 National Motocross Championships. It's raining yellow!
Kent Howerton won the first-ever A1 in 1981. Since then, no such success for the brand. Until now!
MotoVerte photo
1983 Anaheim Supercross
Barnett starts the year with a tenth at Anaheim, while Honda's David Bailey takes the win. It was a somewhat controversial race as the track designers added in a sloppy mud pit the guys had to blast through. And it was pretty deep! There’s a 14-point difference between where Bailey finishes and where Barnett finishes at Anaheim. And guess what? Bailey wins the 1983 AMA Supercross Championship over Barnett by two points.
One year, Ezra Lusk was the highest-finishing Suzuki rider at the opening round. And he finished 16th!
MotoVerte photo
1985 San Diego Supercross
San Diego opens the '85 series (Anaheim is round two) but much of Suzuki's mojo is gone by this season. At this point, Suzuki’s past hero Barnett had gone green so it was Scott Burnworth and Erik Kehoe taking 6th and 10th for the brand, while defending SX Champion Johnny O'Mara kicks off the year with a win. On a Honda. Can you imagine O'Show on a Suzuki?
1989 Anaheim Supercross
Oh, this one hurts. O'Mara switched to Suzuki in 1987, but struggled with the bike and injuries for two seasons. But on an all-new RM250 for 1989, the O'Show was back! At Anaheim, he took off with the early lead and pulled away, an upset victory seemingly in hand....until he cased a double and snapped the steering stem on his bike. DNF. Rick Johnson cruises past for the win, and later says, “His Suzuki broke and my Honda didn't, so my Honda won the race for me.” Ouch.
Results from Anaheim 1989
1995 Orlando Supercross
Suzuki is sick of it! They bring Roger DeCoster back into the fold for this season, and also import 250 World Champion Greg Albertyn to the team. Ezra Lusk, the 1994 125 East Champion, is now on a RM250. And? Albee crashes out and busts his shoulder, and Lusk is the highest-finishing Suzuki rider. In 16th.
Too often, Travis Pastrana's 250 title hopes were over before the season even started.
MotoVerte photo
Sweet, sweet victory. Or, is that bittersweet? After two years of crashes and crashes and crashes, Albee gets the supercross thing figured out and wins the opening round for Team Suzuki at the L.A. Coliseum! Awesome! But, also, Suzuki now has defending SX Champion Jeremy McGrath in the fold after a late defection from Honda. MC gets knocked down by his old teammate Steve Lamson, and finishes 15th. That would prove quite costly in the championship chase.
1999 Anaheim Supercross
Anaheim is finally back as the season-opener. And Suzuki's bad luck is back, too. This one is particularly harsh, with the factory squad of Albertyn, Larry Ward and Robbie Reynard finishing 16th, 18th and 19th. What's crazy is, just a few weeks later Ward would win the Seattle race, and later in the year Albee would win the 250 Motocross Championship. So the bikes and riders were definitely capable, just not at round one.
Results from Anaheim 1999
2002 Anaheim Supercross
The Kevin Windham/Travis Pastrana superteam generates finishes of eighth and 19th, respectively. Pastrana always had trouble with inconsistency, but his luck at season openers was exceptionally bad.
No No.1s for RC4 at A1.
Cudby photo
2004 Anaheim Supercross
When Tyler Evans is the man delivering your brand's best finish—on a privateer effort—that's not so good. But Evans finish, sixth, is actually pretty good, so there's that.
2005/2006/2007 Anaheim Supercross
Ricky Carmichael is on Team Suzuki! Also, Ricky Carmichael is also the most succesful rider to ever not win an Anaheim 1. Never won it. Here are the results from his three tries as a Suzuki rider.
2009 Anaheim Supercross
Now Chad Reed is on the team, but this bid for the win ends in the collision-heard-round-the-world with Stewart.
Since then, Ryan Dungey pulled off a pair of seconds at Anaheim 1 in 2010 and 2011, but overall, since that Anaheim win in 1981, Suzuki had generated just one other opening-night victory in 30-plus years. Until that Rockstar Energy Racing bike a few days ago, that is!
Reed was in contention for an A1 win in 2009, but ended up third after a collision you've probably heard about.
Cudby photo
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they didnt mention the King of Anaheim (JMG) gotta 15th on a zook Dammit Lammy
They never said what stat they were fishing for when they had the article about the opener three-peat. The first guess was by this guy.
MX Bob wrote: 2:35pm January 2, 2013
A Suzuki rider has only won it 3 times
@endo4 Yes they did !
Ironic, with American Suzuki just down the 57 FWY in Brea. I'm sure they would like to see a win.
I wonder if they'll "de-brand" Davi's bike, since they are not helping the team out.
@MX Bob - They are one step ahead of you, they already have.
I grow tired of people looking for American Suzuki to give them help. Clearly, Suzuki's management sees little to no value in american off-road racing, so lets nut up and stop whining about it. If you want some factory help, the answer is simple - ride blue. If you want a fast bike that isnt blue, talk to Mitch Payton. Focus on sponsors, and when the sponsor money fills the racing warchest, your horsepower/suspension deficit will no longer be an issue. Stop beating the dead horse.
When I take a sh!t at a Suzuki dealership I usually hold my p3n!s
so it doesn't touch the seat.
I think snubbing corporate 'Zook is great idea! Running all-black is actually not as bad as it sounds, indoors.
Davi's "black & Yellow" gear w/ black helmet was looking good! I like the "intimidator" helmet scheme, but I would NEVER run it myself.......way too hot.
Suzuki is obligated to help them out just because they are running a Suzuki? Did Suzuki tell them they would? Honda isn't paying them either, get mad at them too. Every outfit that shows up with a bike has thereby obligated the manufacturer to send them cash? How does that work?
Everyone knows its a Suzuki so they aren't really accomplishing a lot in that respect. But if we didn't know what davey was on that could be interesting.
Some guy dont understand what they mean by HELP.. I dont think its money.. Its those special factory parts that you cant buy.. Like the ones RV has from Kawi, and Barcia gets from Honda.. Like Mcgrath said when he was with Honda--he would get 4 or 5 different heads for his engine to test with, just to see which won he liked best.. Those are the things I think they are looking for, or those special "works" suspension pieces I am sure Stewart is getting that they would like.. I would say that is what they are after, not cash..
If I have this right, the Rockstar Suzuki team IS what the Motosport Outlet Kawasaki team WAS. They switched over to Suzuki to represent them in the 250F class (essentially becoming their satellite team like PC to Kawi, FC to Honda & Valli / Star to Yamaha) with the "promise" of support from U.S. Suzuki.
I have no idea what the level or amount of this support is / was going to be. I will assume it would've been fairly comprehensive to convince Motosport Kawi to switch.
If they are getting shorted on money or support (and this is a wide brush we're painting with here folks, it could be anything up to and including logistics to technical support to works suspension and motor parts to finacial assistance) then I call B.S.
They should be eligible for contingency funds at the MINIMUM. If this is not the case, they have ZERO obligation to whom they were contracted with to represent them. No tickee, no washee.
Once again, Suzuki is in a position to have their best representation from a "support" team (like Alessi in the 'nats) and everyone wonders, will they do the right thing????
I'll bet DeCoster breathes a sigh of releif every time he hears about Suzuki's financial hardships.
Interesting to see Howerton in a JT jersey and Griffs pants. I thought he was a JT guy and remember him in full JT gear, at least at the nationals.
Where are you guys getting this info that Rockstar Suzuki doesn't get factory support? I'm not challenging, I'd just like to read it for myself. The latest issue of Racer X has a story on the RCH team where they stated they get the same equipment and parts that Bubba gets. Maybe blocking Rockstar out of the loop was part of that deal?
In all honesty, money doesn't grow on trees as we all know and it takes money to make those factory parts. Suzuki only has so much and excluding Rockstar might not have been what they wanted but rather just what they had to do. I'm just spit balling though, it would be cool to hear how those conversation really go. Maybe Davi and Alessi are proving factory support actually isn't that big of a deal if you have the right people setting your bike up.
so is Davi running black plastic in Phoenix?, his bike looked pretty sweet at A1, which is stock plastic, yellow front, black rear