Yoshimura Suzuki team manager Mike Webb was dealt a crushing blow to his team’s hopes when right before the season his star rider, James Stewart, was suspended by WADA for stimulant use. Webb had a rookie 450SX rider in Blake Baggett and had his fingers crossed that Blake could adapt quickly and the season wouldn’t turn into a disaster.
And it hasn't. Baggett has logged consistent finishes all season and scored a podium in Daytona. Webb took a bit of a risk in hiring Blake but so far it’s working out. In-between practices this past weekend in Indianapolis, I caught up to Webb to talk about the season.
Racer X: Let’s touch on the season by Blake Baggett. Us “experts” didn’t think it was going to work out that great. Let’s go back to the beginning. What’d you see in Blake? Why’d you sign him?
Mike Webb: First of all, his record in supercross wasn’t near as bad as everybody was making it out to be. Other than the injuries, if you looked at the time he was healthy he was very competitive. Taking that, of course we looked at his prowess outdoors, but thinking that if we could work with him and kind of work with his skills a little bit and build the bike around him, keep him on two wheels, let’s bring him up to speed indoors, and see what happened. It worked really well.
Here we are at Round eleven, and he has a podium, a couple fourths. I think he’s been a surprise. I’m assuming you’ve been more than excited with his season so far?
Yeah, and honestly the way I look at it from a team standpoint, it’s a great reflection of the team. With James [Stewart], I’m literally supposed to win every single race that James can ride. So, from the team’s standpoint you really don’t get the credibility that goes with that. With Blake, we took somebody, maybe an underdog, maybe barely top ten, and to have his success I’m really proud of the team—the engineers, the chassis guys, motor guys, everything to make him that comfortable to get that good.
You don’t have a ton of experience with super/motocross riders, but you worked with 8,000 riders on the off-road side. What’s he like compared to other guys you’ve had?
He’s really easy to work with. I think he parked the ego when he came in as a rookie and he was just like a sponge, like, you guys tell me what to do, I’m willing to listen and to try it. And that’s exactly what he’s done. He’s not hardheaded. He’s willing to listen, to change lines, to try things on the bike. If we see something on the bike and say, hey, we’ve got to change it, it’s not right. He goes, okay, you guys make the call. He has faith in the team.
I talked to you a little while ago and it was your idea to get Rick Johnson in to work with Blake. Why’d you do that?
Part of the thing, when he became a 450 rider and when he stepped up into supercross, there was a confidence issue with him. And I could see it. We’d be walking the track the first couple of races and it was pretty much deer in the headlights. I would talk him through like, you can do this, remember who you are… Finally I said if there’s one guy that never lacked confidence—that was RJ. He and I go back a million years so I called him, and he said yeah, absolutely. It’s not just the mental confidence thing; Rick sees things that are so minute from a high-level rider. A knee/ankle relationship… All these physical things that he sees on the bike.
When Rick says that, I’m like a student listening going, which makes total sense. I think that’s been a big part of it. Us being able to build the bike for Blake and then Blake listening to the people around him and taking that advice to the track.
I think he deserves some credit because I think some guys would be like, my manager wants to bring in some 1980s rider to work with me? No, I’m good. But he deserves some credit in this family for taking that suggestion.
You’re absolutely right. I had to tell Blake who Rick was. You don’t realize this guy was Villopoto, Stewart, and Dungey wrapped into one. He was that dominating.
Which makes us really old and it’s really sad.
When the generation has no idea who it is. But Ricky’s been great.
Can you give me any specific examples of somewhere Rick’s helped out—either test track or at a race itself?
Blake still struggles in whoops—even tonight we’re struggling a little bit but he’ll figure it out. A lot of Rick’s thing is to look ahead, forward thinking and forward vision. One day Rick was doing something else and he goes, I want you to go to the end of the whoops at Corona and you stand there and when Blake enters them—we have seventeen whoops at our track—he has to look up directly to you and not look down, which, if you think about it, it’s so sketchy. And Blake did it and blitzed them. And I remember thinking you couldn't pay me enough money to do that. It’s those kind of things where he thinks out of the box that work so good.
Anything new with James’ appeal, what’s going on with that?
We just heard the 31 of this month he has his date in Europe. They asked for a couple of days’ extension. It’s three judges now. James’ side gets to pick one, the FIM picks one, and then there’s a neutral arbitrator in the middle. Those three will decide.
Can you talk about a season with James still around. None of us really knew what you guys were going to do with him, but it seems like he’s been around quite a bit doing the signings. What’s that like having a suspended rider but still he’s one of your guys and having him around?
It’s been a challenge. There was kind of no playbook on how to do this. My view is the relationship with James is solid; we stand behind him 100 percent. I think we were the first of his big sponsors to do that, and the other guys said, hey, Suzuki’s staying behind him, and they all stayed behind him. Frustration is a great word, challenging is a great word. We worked it out. Obviously I can’t pay him what I was, but we worked out a PR amendment to his contract so he comes to the races, he works with Blake, and he does some PR for Suzuki and Yoshimura.
Basically we just kind of finalized discussions to re-sign him for the next two years. He hasn’t signed yet, but we have it all in place. Our goal is it’ll be James and Blake—they will be our two riders.
The series in general: Suzuki lost James obviously. Roczen, not on your team but still riding a Suzuki and still part of the family, looked great and then got hurt. Kind of a bummer there.
It was a complete bummer with Kenny. Clearly, the way he started the season, it would be hard to argue that he would have just kept that right on going, and he had the mishap and it kind of got derailed from there. But that’s racing, and we all know that. I’ve had it with James. The problem with a caliber of a Kenny or a James is when they do get hurt, the potential to win every race is there, and when that’s taken away it hurts. It’s different when you’re maybe a third-to-fifth-place guy, you’re pumped with a podium but when wins can be there and they’re taken away, that sucks.
And your old guy, Ryan Dungey, I know you don’t want to talk about another team’s rider, but he’s doing what he’s doing, consistency, he gets good starts, he doesn’t make any mistakes.
I think he’s a different Ryan. He looks to be in a much better place mentally. I think he’s gotten older and he’s figured a lot of things out in life, whether it’s being married and more stability, the new bike, maybe working with a new trainer. And the fact that a couple of guys weren’t there maybe gave him a confidence boost. “I can handle these kids and this is mine now, I own it.” And clearly he does.
The Sylvain Geboers Suzuki team in Europe, how much do you deal with them? How’s that going?
There is a lot of shared information. It’s constantly going back and forth. Suzuki Motor Corporation, our programs here in America and Sylvain, we share everything. Really good. It’s interesting in the GPs, Clement Desalle’s doing great, consistency, he’s right there. His bike looks really good. That’s a whole interesting thing going on over there. But I admit, I’m watching.
