“Hey, what comes to mind when you take a look at that piece of machinery right there?” I said to Ron Lechien, pointing to a very well maintained, grumbling, big-bore Kawasaki KX500 two-stroke that someone was about to race at Red Bull A Day in the Dirt this past weekend.
Ron took a good look at it and replied, “That looks like an 1988 or ’89 KX500. Those things are a beast, man. They are a big boy bike.”
It’s the same big boy bike Lechien rode to victory at the 1988 Motocross des Nations in France, as well as the 1989 500cc United States Grand Prix of Motocross at Hollister Hills, California. Lechien will always be an American original and one of the true folk heroes of the sport. Perennially working the room (so to speak) for Maxima Racing Oils, Ron, the 1985 125 National Motocross Champion, hit A Day in the Dirt at Glen Helen Raceway to get in a little racing in as well as bench race with all of his cronies (including this one).
Racer X: Ron, this A Day in the Dirt event is really cool and really unique in that it blends together some very good racing, some history, and some good times. What’s your take on this whole affair?
Ron Lechien: You know what, it’s just a good time and it’s great to see all the people come out. I haven’t done the A Day in the Dirt since Pala, so I missed it for a few years. I always did it when it was at LACR. I just like coming out to support Troy [Lee], he’s always been there for me. I always like to come out to see my guys, my Maxima riders, and just like to hang out. I don’t really do a whole lot of races anymore, so this is kind of like a party, so it’s the best of both worlds. It’s a little bit of a party, a little bit of a race, a little bit of everything.
What have you been up to as far as your day-to-day existence?
A lot of nothing. I still ride. I try to ride every week just to keep myself fresh. I kind of use it for my exercise. I still don’t do a lot of training, I don’t go to the gym; I don’t ride bicycles; but I try to ride every week. And I still work full-time at Maxima. I do all the rider support and sports marketing and promotion stuff. We have a new performance auto line and we’ve got some new bicycle chain lubes and cleaners and stuff like that, and it’s starting to get traction. Just pushing the brand.
You still follow the sport very closely don’t you?
Yeah, I still love watching it. It’s definitely changed a lot, but I still love the sport and follow it. I’m still involved with the Maxima riders; we’re still involved with factory Kawasaki this year, so we’ve got [Eli] Tomac running the Maxima brand, which is cool because he ran it when he was back on amateur Suzuki. We’re still with Mitch [Payton] and Pro Circuit. We have a few other things working, so we’ll see how this year works out.
BrownDogWilson
As far as the sport, what do you think has changed the most since the mid-to-late 1980s when you were racing?
I think there are a lot of things that have changed. Obviously the bikes have changed and now there are the outside sponsors and the money. I mean there are so many things that are different that it’s hard to just say one thing. It’s just evolved and it’s just changed. It’s crazy. I go to a supercross when there is only one guy on the track and I listen to the bike and it’s just like, Braap! Braap! Braap! I mean they’re not even really opening the thing up, you know? It’s so precise now. It’s just so different than what we used to do. And the track builders, you know? When I rode, every city we went to there was a different track and different track builders. Now the same guys build the tracks all year long so if the guys do the triple at Anaheim, they’ve pretty much done it all year. For me, I don’t know, I think that’s taking a little something away from the sport because the guys all know exactly how the track is going to shape up. Back in the day it got gnarly. Now I hear the guys complain when it gets rutty at a supercross, or when it rains now. I go, “Oh, now they’re going to be pissed! Finally something is changing up!” It’s so cookie cutter, you know?
What about the 50-second lap times and the tracks trying to contain these 450cc motorcycles? What can the leadership of the sport do? What can they change up?
I think if they made a 350 rule or something like that, I think that would really help. I’d really like to see the Lites Class [250] just be one class [not East/West]. For me, there are too many guys getting rides. I want to see all the 250 guys get together. There are too many guys that are only riding only half the season. It would be really cool to get all the Lites guys together and just have them ride the whole series. Now there is enough support in that class to do that. Back then there wasn’t enough support when they first came out with the class. I’d like to see it be like 250 Supercross and 350 Supercross.
To ride at the elite 450 level now, it’s a full-time job, isn’t it? You have to practice at full-speed, you have to train at full-speed…
[Laughs] They ain’t pulling a Dogger anymore! You can’t be out the night before the race and win a supercross! Yeah, maybe the last guy that did was Jason Lawrence or someone. It’s just changed so much. The guys are putting so much time into it. Even the amateur guys now. There is so much emphasis on it now. It’s day-to-day. It’s changed a lot.
But, yeah, I jumped right in with the wolves, man. I lined up with Bell and Hannah and Barnett and all those big dogs.
Give us your take on what went down during the 2015 Monster Energy Supercross season?
Too many injuries. I think there are so many injuries now. It’s always hyped up to be the best year ever and then they just start dropping like flies. We had injuries in our day too, but it just seems like there are more injuries now. Everything just turns into The Diesel [Ryan Dungey]. He’s always smooth and he’s not the fastest guy, but he ends up winning the thing in the end.
Who does Ryan Dungey remind you of from your era? Can you think of anyone?
I guess maybe Wardy [Jeff Ward]. Wardy was super-smart with his race mind and he was there to the end. He had the championship in mind all the time, where I was more like, just go and banzai and try and win the race. He had the long haul in his game more than I did.
How about Eli Tomac in 2016? What do you think?
I don’t know, man. I haven’t really seen him ride the Kawasaki. Here we are again. Who knows? With [James] Stewart coming back, I was thinking James would be on fire and now he seems like he’s fragile again all of a sudden. That’s kind of a bummer. We’ll just see. I’m sure it’ll be Dungey and [Ken] Roczen and hopefully Stewart and [Trey] Canard and Tomac. Hopefully we’ve got a good battle for eight or ten guys. It’s going to be interesting.
How about Cooper Webb? Can he be the real deal on the 450?
I think so. I like Cooper. I like his attitude. He seems a little throwback to me, you know, off the cuff. I know a lot of people are trying to hold him down and teach him to be politically correct and all that stuff, but I kind of like Cooper. He seems like a little bit of a loose cannon.
Through his brashness and aggressive stance on and off the bike, he reminds me of a young Bob Hannah.
Yeah, a little bit. I’ve heard people compare him to Bob, so that’s cool.
How were you and Bob Hannah back in the day?
You know, we were all good, man. We never really got into it with Bob. We were on Team Honda together in 1984 and ’85 and for me to even to be teammates with him was like a dream come true. He was a guy that I looked up to. But you know at that time for me, though, I wasn’t like “Oh, you know, Bob, you’re the best.” I had to race against him, so once I turned pro he was just another guy to me.
If you had a crystal ball before you and you could look into the future, what’s going to happen in the supercross series come this January?
It’s just so up in the air. I’m hoping for really good racing and a lot of good battles and in the end, I’d like to see Tomac win. Like I said, we’ve been partners with Kawasaki for quite a while and in the end I’d like to see Tomac do it.
How about Chad Reed? He’s struggling to pull a deal together for 2016, but can he still do it?
He’s got more in him. That was one of the biggest letdowns when he got hurt a couple years ago and went down in San Diego. That took the wind out of the whole series. But everybody likes a comeback story, so it would be cool to see him come back and win some more supercross races.
I was such a fan of yours when you were racing back in the day. Name the top four or five races of your career.
Maybe Millville in ’83 when I beat [Mark] Barnett. He lost thirty grand in that race [losing the bonus that would have come for winning the AMA Grand National Championship]. That was one of the biggest races for me. My first supercross race win in Orlando in ’83 was big. I even won the San Diego Supercross that year. I mean three of the biggest races for me were in my very first year. Then there was the des Nations in ’85. That was really big. The whole series in ’85 was big for me and I won the 125cc National Championship that year. I won the des Nations in ’88. Even the 500 USGP in ’89 at Hollister. For me that was a big win because that was always one of the biggest races when I was growing up. Even though it moved to Hollister, it was still the USGP and the 500 class and to finally put that in my resume book was pretty cool.
Okay, last question: in 1983, you basically came from being a straight-up amateur to winning supercross main events in you rookie year. You were 16 years old. That could never happen again, could it?
Yeah, well, I didn’t ride the first three or four supercross races in ’83 because Yamaha wanted me to wait. But, yeah, I jumped right in with the wolves, man. I lined up with Bell and Hannah and Barnett and all those big dogs. [Note: the 125/Lites/250SX class didn’t exist yet in 1983.] I was just 16. My first race was in Atlanta and I didn’t even make the main event. It was a mudder. The next week we went to Daytona and back then they used to take 40 riders to the main, so that was the first supercross that I ever qualified for. I led Dallas for a little while and got third and a few weeks later I got that first supercross win at Orlando and then I won my first outdoor the next week. It was one of those things, man, once you realize you can… some of those wins were some of the easiest races ever for me. It was so easy. You need that confidence to know you can do it and then you’re off to the races.
