[Gator]

Un fan allemand a approximativement traduit en anglais sur Vital une interview de papa Roczen dans un magazine d’outre-Rhin. Dire que ça vaut son pesant de cacahuètes est un doux euphémisme… Enjoy!

 

About the team

"The RCH Racing Team is not a team, but a randomly mixed bunch of self promoters. In this so-called team there is no team spirit, because everybody just works for his own interest. It’s about money. There are people on the team, that obviously have no function, but they’re getting payed. For example there is Mark Johnson, who was brought in by Carmichael from the Indycar series. This man is just superarrogant and he has no clue about suspensions. That affects the mood of the team and the performance of my boy. It’s purely about sponsors and money at RCH, Ken is just a playing ball. I have never experienced something like this in all the GP years."

About the management

"I’m sure Ken would leave the team immediately. But that isn’t easy, because his management is also involved with the team. […] If he violates the contract, he’ll have to pay 2’000’000$ fees. Also, his manager Steve Astephen has no clue about the sport. For example, at the beginning of the outdoor season, he told Ken: "Tomac doesn’t ride in your league, why do you let him pass you?" When I heard that, my jaw dropped (Original german saying: ‘blieb mir die Spucke weg- my spit stayed away). […]

There is already a little Clique that developed around my boy and success in the sport is only a small part. He has no control, not over the bike and not over the team. Of course Ken noticed this too. Actually, the vibe was gone after 2 months, because the people in the team already tried to part him and Kelly Lumgair. These people never were in the workshop, and Kelly was a real confidante for Ken and it was a really hard decision for Kelly, to go with Suzuki. He gave up the best job in the world then. And now he goes back to KTM- any questions?"

About Ricky Carmichael

"Of course Ricky isn’t a bad dude, but as a team chef, he is an insult for Ken Roczen. It’s hard to believe, but he shows up a couple of times during the year, waves and lets out some cool patters. You want a tasting sample? ‘Everyone has problems with the air forks. We can’t make the shock that good, or else it wouldn’t work with the fork.’ I know that he doesn’t even watch Kens races, but he rather drives out with his boat. Other than that, he seems satisfied with how everything is going."

Did they lie to Ken from the beginning on?

I’ll shorten it up a bit here: They don’t get the suspension working because nobody cooperates with each other, for example, in the workshop they just rebuild the complete bike. The 19th place in the first moto isn’t the result of his back, but of a completely unrideable bike(!!!). They didn’t even start preparing for Supercross so far.

Roczen searches for solutions himsel

"We tried to clarify that internal, and tried to bring a german suspension specialist, that Ken trusts blindly, into the team. Of course that was rejected. Then we tried to get a stock Suzuki, but ended up buying one ourself. The german suspension guy came and was completely ignored by the team. Ricky knew who he is and why he was here, and just asked if he was spending his vacaction here. We then tested with the stock bike and Ken was 3 seconds (Hell yes, 3 effing seconds!!) faster than with his factory bike. With stock suspension and a stock engine."

Shortened ending: They tried to contact everybody, Geboers, sports boss of Suzuki in Japan, but they couldn’t help because RCH is no factory team. Only Suzuki USA offered help by the factory team, but that was rejected by RCH. At the middle of the season, they wanted to test, but RCH said: ‘No, we only can next week’. They had their guy, but RCh brought 7, which all didn’t help. They were allowed to ride Baggetts suspension later, which RCH worked on after 1 race- with result of Ken not liking it anymore. Then they wanted to see the contract with Showa, if they could get a new one, a 10 year old one or the old one of Baggett. But RCH didn’t show it to them. He also said, that if the air forks won’t work, they will go back to the traditional forks, which they did, as we all know.

What could’ve solved the problems?

"At the middle of the season, they should have fired all the incapable people and replaced them with our confidante. Then we would’ve had a unstoppable Ken Roczen on Suzuki. But because of the arrogance at RCH, only escape remains for Kenny.

[tmv]

Pourquoi tu crois que Villopoto est venu faire semblant de faire les GP?

[fabrice.74]

au demeurant… KTM n’était pas si mal que cela…

 

"On sait ce qu’on perd mais on ignore ce qu’on gagne"

 

quoique c’est un peu une habitude chez la famille Roczen de se plaindre

 

[Gator]

On n’entend pas Ken se plaindre… Le paternel par contre… J’ai pas souvenir d’avoir lu un truc aussi radical…

Au finish, entre ça et les petites vannes de Matthes, je ne serais pas surpris si on ne revoyait plus K-Roc chez RCH après ce we…

 

[Gator]

Y a longtemps que t’as pas regardé les tarifs, hein?

;-)))

[fabrice.74]

et peut-être….

"l’herbe est toujours plus verte ailleurs"

[jazz 375]

 Amazing. Difficile à croire pour un top team. 

[gunsho]

Finalement rien de mieux qu’une moto stock 🙂

[dirt d]

 Même ce week-end, ça risque d’être bizarre comme ambiance sous le auvent…

Note qu’aucun des cadres importants du team ne se rend plus sur les courses depuis un bon moment… 

Note aussi que l’interview donnée par le père à un journal allemand papier remonte forcément à il y a un petit moment.

Or, RCH vient d’embaucher Oscar Wilderman, ex-22 Motorsports en charge des suspensions, peut-être donc la situation n’est-elle plus aussi mauvaise à l’instant présent (mais d’autres éléments laissent penser le contraire…).

Bref, c’est pas la joie pour Hart, RC and Co et si Roczen s’en va, c’est à se demander si le team va survivre à cette énorme déflagration…

Autre scénario possible : re-re-re split entre K-Roc et son père… 

En fin de compte, on ne s’ennuie pas, avec ce garçon et son géniteur.

Reste à savoir si on est dans une config’ comme on en a connu (type Pichon, voire DV) ou si on dérape vers le Alessi.

Comme disent les Ricains, on s’assoie dans le canapé et on sort le pop-corn pour mater tout ça. 

 

[Gator]

Faut dire que ça fait un moment qu’on sent l’ambiance un poilou tendue, hein… Mais là on entre dans la 4e dimension.

P.S. "Le auvent"? Haaa non, Xavier, pas toi… Me dis pas que tu vas te mettre à sortir des "tant bien même" à longueur de phrases…

;-)))

[Gator]

Chuis sûr que DV12 va aller se faire dédicacer son exemplaire des maximes et aphorismes, lol…

 

[hurricanana]

 Quand on voit son talent au guidon  sa gestion de carrière n’est pas au même niveau:Il ne respire pas trop la clairvoyance le Kroc, mais a sa décharge quand on a mené sa carrière comme il l’a fait  en étant toujours bien encadré ,on doit avoir tendance à se prendre pour Dieu et se voir gagner meme dans un team "b" mais la suite lui prouva que non.

Vivement qu’il retrouve un team a la hauteur de sa vitesse en piste…

 

[Gator]

Cette sombre histoire est de plus en plus distrayante….

;-)))

 

Racer X was quickly contacted by Ken Roczen, who wanted to get his side of the story out.

“I didn’t know about this interview at all,” he told us on the phone last night. “I was very shocked as I read that. This is very extreme. I’m 21 now, I’m my own man, I speak for myself. I choose to be on this team, that was my decision and nobody else’s. Have we had some struggles? Yes we did. Have we worked hard and tried to turn things around? Yes we did. The last couple of races have been a lot better for me. It’s been a tough year for us and we’re still trying. Nothing is ever perfect. Yes, we figured things out later than we would have liked to have. But the bottom line is, I speak for myself. My dad is thousands of miles across the pond. The only person who can make a statement like this is me. I’m old enough to choose my words and make my own decisions and say what I want to say.

“The team and I, together, have worked very hard to make some progress,” he continued. “We have changed a lot of things we have needed to change. A little late, but I made the decision to go with the team I’m on and I’m going to give it 100 percent and I know the team will, too. I’m my own person and I know when it’s time to open my mouth and say things.”

There’s no doubt Kenny’s first year with the RCH Suzuki has been a struggle. Monster Energy Supercross started well but bombed out with injuries, and he’s lost the defense of his 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross 450MX title. Roczen has been fairly outspoken about not finding the right settings on his bike in the nationals, which seems odd considering he left Red Bull KTM last year so he could ride a Suzuki. But Kenny keeps telling us he’s committed to the team and working through the problems.

Only, there is a problem now. With his dad’s interview, behind-the-scenes struggles have been laid bare to the public, and that’s never good when a rider and team are trying to make things work.

“When we started in supercross, we found a pretty good base setting,” Kenny tells us. “We always tried to improve here and there, but we didn’t really make a step forward. But I had something I had spent a lot of time on and something that I liked enough to be able to ride up front. After the injuries and stuff, things turned around a bit, and part of that is the injuries, you have to take time off. I have to say for the outdoors, things started to get more difficult. From the beginning on, for outdoors, I never found something I was happy with; nothing that I would say was easy to ride. We had struggles. But you’re going to have struggles everywhere. Every brand, some years the bike will be great, and other years it’s brand new and it’s going to take some time to develop everything.”

So Roczen and the team keep working. We’ve heard about trying a spring fork instead of the air fork. We heard they’ve done some testing with the Yoshimura Suzuki team.

“It’s headed way more in the right direction now,” he says. “Yes, like I said, things can still be better and more consistent, because every time I try things I end up going back to the same direction still. Since Unadilla we did some tweaks that have helped me out and stuff.”

Roczen tells us his dad has been back home in Germany for over a month now. “We still have a great relationship, but we’re not talking every day and a lot of things have changed for the better. It’s hard for him to be across the pond and really feel it or see the steps we’re taking, not only with the bike, but with team relations. I’m guessing it would be hard for any person to pick up on that, so that’s why I’m kind of bummed he made these comments without talking to me.”

Still, the switch from success with KTM to RCH Suzuki, which had not had a rider at Kenny’s level yet, is going to make some people wonder. Many have pointed to Roczen’s agent, Steve Astephen, who is also the agent for team co-owner Cary Hart, and helps sell sponsorships for the team. Astephen is adamant that he also sells sponsorships for a variety of teams and isn’t a representative for RCH. He says only one team sponsor, Dodge, is of his doing, and he’s completely uninvolved with any other part of the team besides Roczen’s deal. Further, he says from day one he wanted Kenny to stay with KTM.

“If it was my fault that Kenny switched teams and then he wanted to leave, he would have fired me by now,” Astephen told us. RCH at the time was the offer and bike Kenny wanted.

Kenny says he has no regrets about the switch. “I have never asked those questions. I put that on myself. I wanted to switch. I would never look back and be like, “Man I wish I would never have done this.” I was down for a new chapter in my life, and for a change, that’s what I wanted, that’s what I went for. I’ve never thought about just throwing this all away.

“My contract is through next year. I never gave up on it [RCH],” he continued. “It’s tough for a rider in this position and I’m sure it’s tough for the team too [when things aren’t going well.]. We needed to get better, and maybe we could have gotten it together more quickly, but my opinion was never that I’d just throw things out. That’s not who I am.”

[tmv]

Lol, comme quoi la ponctuation, ça a son importance…

 

[noss.72]

 Ca à l’air passionnant cette histoire, mais en comprenant 1 mot sur 10 c’est pas facile … 🙂

[Auteur]

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