Bruce Stjernstrom has worked in the upper echelons of racing management at Kawasaki for a long time, including time as Team Manager and Racing Director. He’s one of the smartest people you’ll talk to in the pits, and his leadership is part of the reason Monster Energy Kawasaki has had such a long, successful run, from Team Green in the 1980s all the way through today. Eli Tomac left the team and has had great success this season with Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing, but Jason Anderson has moved to the KX450 this year and has also elevated his game. We talked to Tomac’s Team Manager Jeremy Coker a few weeks ago, so this time we checked in with Bruce to get his take on the season, and much more.
Racer X: Look, a great story has taken place this year, with you folks either helping rejuvenate Jason Anderson, or maybe you got him at the right time and he rejuvenated himself. A few crashes have hurt him in points but with three wins it’s been a good season. Eli Tomac has done well since moving to Yamaha, but you have your own success story, as well.
Bruce Stjernstrom: I would agree, and I think it’s both sides to that with Jason. Of course, when you’re hiring a rider they’ll always say, “Oh yeah I’m looking to win a championship.” You always hear that. But Jason is doing the work. I can say that that’s one of the myths with Jason Anderson. You can say, “Oh he’s lazy, he’s Team Fried.” All of these things. It’s easy for the fans, the media and really even us to say, “Well, he is who he is.” But who he is, is a guy who busts his ass. You look at his lap times in the main events, he’s good from beginning to end. We weren’t able to really start working with him until October 1st due to his agreement with Husqvarna, so he really hit the ground running. Luckily, we have Broc Tickle working with us as a test rider, we have Brian Kranz working, Theo Lockwood, Oscar Weirdeman on the bike. Jason liked the bike from the beginning, and we were able to customize it for the way he rides. We are continuing to develop parts and pieces for him, but I can’t say enough good things about him. I wish he wouldn’t run into so many people on the track! That’s something we’re trying to address. As far as his race craft, his attitude, and working with the team, nothing but great things
Obviously, you’re going to do your due diligence before you sign someone, but did you know this? Or did you find yourself a little surprised when you started working with him?
We knew he had a tremendous ability and skill level. We’d seen that for many years. Our biggest concern was the physical side. He had been injured last year and missed some time. But his physical side was the biggest surprise. Not that he wasn’t fit, but we just didn’t know. You can have a guy who is fast for five or six laps, but to be able to go twenty minutes plus a lap, that was the part that I think was the most encouraging to us. Theo Lockwood is the crew chief for Jason. Theo has been around for a long time, and I remember the first day he came back from the first test, and he was so impressed! Theo is not an easy guy to impress. He said, “He’s nothing like I thought he would be. He pays attention, he thinks, he comes up with great ideas. You expect that a little bit from a veteran rider, but this was even better than anticipated.
So, let’s address this. There’s now this narrative out there that says Kawasaki operates inside a box, Kawasaki does not let the riders try things. That’s the story that Star Racing Yamaha is putting out there, and the Tomacs are putting out there. But I’ve heard you disagree with that. You don’t feel like that’s the case? If a rider like Jason wants to try something, you do it?
That’s right. I’m not going to say I laugh at the idea that we don’t try things, but I will simply say it’s not true. If you ask Jason and Adam that, I’d say both guys would agree that.
This year both Adam and Jason are on Showa suspension, in the past you’ve had Eli on KYB and another rider, like Adam, on Showa. Now both are on Showa, and you’ve also brought Tickle over to test. You’ve said you feel like you’ve stepped up your program.
It helps in a few different ways. All three riders ride different, and it’s Broc job to simulate all three in some sense. The way he rides and what he feels, but also the way Jason rides and Adam rides. He’s done a great job and is a great addition. On Showa’s side, before, four feet away from where we’re working on the Showa suspension, we’re working on the KYB suspension. So, any competitive [brand] would think, “Hmmm, I don’t know about that.” So now with Showa, they’re all in, too, now, and in the end that’s been huge for us. So, I feel like as a team, suspension wise, we’ve progressed significantly since October.
So, the riders have asked for changes, and you have made changes. Still, I know you have a lot of data that the team has collected, and you probably also have a line to the engineers in Japan who built the bike. So, explain the push and pull between the team knows what it knows, and the rider wants what he wants. How do those two ideas meet?
Well, I think all of the teams handle it this way, or similarly. We ask them, “What do you want the bike to do? Don’t tell us how to fix it, just tell us what you want the bike to do.” Sometimes they learn that during a race. They can see if they can turn in better than another rider. It’s mainly chassis stuff they can see. Then we can fix it. We do run a lot of data. I think we were one of the first teams to run data in a race. We can always tell what’s going on, and through the data, the rider might say “The bike isn’t turning in enough.” Then we can go to the data and say, for example, “We can see it’s because the front end is not moving.” Or maybe the rear shock is moving too much. We can see this stuff in the data. Or maybe in the whoops, we can tell the rider would be better off shifting into fourth, and he’s going through in third.
Have there been moments where the data shows the rider something he didn’t realize was actually happening?
All the time, yeah. It’s very common and it’s not even a bad thing. Once the riders start utilizing the data, they become more perceptive of the bike. You know, if you look at auto racing, the drivers are much more knowledgeable about their car. Motorcycles, they just go ride it. Some of the guys can’t even change an air filter. They don’t have a lot of knowledge, and we think the data really helps them learn more about how the bike works, and then they’re better able to process what’s happening on the track.
You mentioned Theo, the crew chief, and you also have Dan Fahey the team manager. They both came over from the road racing side. They used more data and electronics in that field. Was bringing those two over to the motocross team a sign that Kawasaki saw the data and electronics coming to motocross and supercross? Is that a coincidence that they’re here, or is it part of the vision of knowing data is coming?
The company stopped road racing in 2009, but they kept those two guys. We also brought back one guy, Jeremy Robinson, who is our machinist but is also a very knowledgeable guy. He worked in MotoGP for a few years, actually, with factory teams through Ohlins. We have a lot of talented people on the team, and the data side of things is second nature to them. It’s relatively new to our sport, especially in the two stroke days. The two-stroke era, the tuning of the bike is black magic to begin with. Four-strokes, there’s a little more of a clear path to begin with, but the data has still been a huge part of helping us get to where we want to be and getting the rider there also.
I do also remember Ryan Villopoto telling me that a Kawasaki is a Kawasaki, and you can’t make it handle like a KTM. You have to maximize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses, but you can’t make a bike perfect everywhere. He seemed to buy into that, but it has to be difficult to get a rider to buy into that. How do you feel about that?
I do feel like there’s some truth to that. If you strip the plastic off of most of these bikes, they look pretty similar, maybe not a Yamaha because of the engine design, and of course you have the KTMs with a steel frame, but the bikes look similar, and it often comes down to small things that really set the character of a bike. Yes, it’s true that each bike has its character, and especially in the U.S. where we have a production rule. You can modify the character, but each bike has strengths, and each bike has weaknesses.
So, Anderson doing so well at age 29, Eli doing so well at 29, and Malcolm Stewart is also 29 and is having his best year yet, this is not what we’re used to seeing. Riders at the very top level, we’ve seen a lot of them hit age 27 and they’re ready to be done. Are you surprised to see this level of rejuvenation at this age?
I think it’s great that it’s happening. Yes, the riders move around, but the teams make such a huge investment in these guys through the years. When you get riders up to the level of Tomac, Anderson, Stewart, it’s sad to see them walk away like Ryan Dungey and Villopoto did. When they walk away at such a young age, it’s such a big loss to the sport. Regardless of who they ride for. I love the fact that this sport is so competitive, there are so many good riders and teams, and we’re so lucky to have that. We have six or seven OEMs out there producing quality bikes and they have good riders that can all compete for wins. You look at other motorsports, that’s not the way it works for the most part. I like it if we can keep the riders around. I joke about this but, three or four years after Villopoto retired, we’d still have fans come around our truck saying, “Hey is Ryan going to sign autographs today?” So that shows you the impact Ryan had on the sport, and then we lose them when they’re in their twenties. But at the same time, you see how much pressure is on these young kids. Look at Kenny right now. We can’t afford to lose Ken Roczen. He’s such an important part of our sport, a gentleman, a great rider, and to see that happen is really unfortunate.
What’s interesting here that most people probably wouldn’t realize is, yes you’re competitive, but you’re not competitive to where you only care about Kawasaki. You’re not saying that anything that is worse for your competitors is good for you. You want to see Eli Tomac and Ken Roczen still around the sport even if they don’t ride for Kawasaki, and they might even beat you.
I think it’s not worth doing this if there’s no one to beat. I say this number, but people think I’m crazy, but if you look at the factory teams in total, and how much money they spend in supercross, motocross and amateur MX, it’s 125 million dollars a year. At least.
Okay! Wow. That’s the total budget of all the teams combined.
Yeah combined.
Wow.
Yeah, so when you talk about that kind of money being spent, we need the sport to be better than it is. That means having star riders leave the sport, that’s not good. We need the people, and talent comes in all forms. I worry that, what if the manufacturers say it’s not worth this kind of money, and then they pull back? We don’t need that, either.
So that leads to a question I always have. I do not believe Kawasaki is saying “We sell this many KX450s, which equals making this much money, which equals this much budget we can spend on factory racing.” At some level this has to just be what these teams and manufactures do, and it’s just part of their culture, and they’re going to spend a lot of money on racing no matter what. Or are the dollars and cents actually important?
Well, the dollars and cents are always going to be important. We have a lot of abacuses in our company and people are moving those beads back and forth. I’m not the team manager, Dan [Fahey] is. A big part of my job is selling racing internally. It’s keeping us in front of management, executive level management, and Japan, to prove that we’re viable in this business and how important it is that we are competitive to win races and championships, and what the does for our company, our dealer network, and what it does for our brand and our customers. Racing is a critical component, because these are the only products we sell with a number plate.
That’s a really important perspective to have. So many people love this sport and want to make it bigger and better. But I always warn them to be careful of rocking that boat. Don’t change it too much. Factory Kawasaki and the other teams have been racing in these races for 50 years now. 50 years! That kind of stability is almost unheard of in most motorsports. We’d all like it to be bigger, we’d like the riders to make more money, we’d like the privateers to make more money, hey, I’d like to make more money and you would like to make more money. But we have to be careful, if you upset this balance too much trying to make changes you could wreck the whole thing, and Bruce you’ve seen other racing forms do that, and yes that support actually left.
Yes, again, we’re very fortunate to get the kind of support that we do. We’re fortunate that all of these teams are competitive. That’s what drives this. I always used to say that if all of this went away, the manufacturers would go into a dirt field somewhere and race each other. That is just what we want to do, and yes that’s part of it. But the value of the success of racing, and what it does for the brand, that’s a big part of our push. I go back to 2005 when I was Director of Racing at Kawasaki, then I got moved into marketing. I didn’t have much background in marketing, or any, but luckily, I had good people around me. But the president of Kawasaki told me that he moved me into the marketing job because we had not been doing anything with our racing success, and he knew that I could do it. So, it’s an important part of the company and the culture, how we work.
Yes, so there’s an aspect of the team that is just 100 percent focused on the results. But there is an impact with it being a show, and how you market that success. It’s not just win the races and everything else just magically falls into place.
It even goes further than that, because the racing success we have here in the U.S. goes all over the world. There’s certain pressure on us because of that, too.
Watch the full interview with Bruce here:
