James Stewart's Suspension Guy Sergio

That interview was bike setup and info packed, but Sergio took a proven setup and changed it because he thought he was going to make an improvement. The word "forgiving" in suspension terms means the suspension moves more, using more of the stroke of the fork and shock and allowing the suspension to do it's job the way it was designed. But in Supercross, more movement is the wrong direction. The suspension needs to have a certain amount of movement to settle into a corner or absorb a big impact and even small chop to a certain extent, but the trick in Supercross is to trick the setting or suspension unit itself with the settings to give the suspension some movement, but not too much movement. It's a very tricky job to do it correctly. Sergio's idea of letting the suspension move was the reason the bike didn't work, in he's own words "he failed miserable" and this is why the rider crashed more often than he usually does.

This is a common mistake with a new person coming into a new environment, in this case a race team. He wanted to build the bike his way, with his ideas and come away looking like a hero (if it works). But the risk is exactly what he experienced, if it doesn't work, your the problem because you were the one to changed the setup and second (in this situation, he was coming into a winning team with 2 Supercross Championships in a very short amount of time) the team doesn't win the Championship.

It's obvious that Brooks had the bike setup to allow the rider to go fast by looking at the evidence because Reed, Ramsey, Hill and Stewart won races and raced at the front of the field. It just wasn't one rider, there were many. At times we all made comments that these riders bike setup didn't look great, but it worked for racing and allowed the riders to go fast enough to win or run at the front.
And then with the changes that were made to the bike in 2011, we all said at the beginning of the Supercross season "Stewart's bike looked like it is working better this year, than it had in the past". Now this is going to sound strange, but allowing the motorcycle to appear to "work better", this is what caused the failure in the program. By appearing to work better, the motorcycles suspension was moving like it intended to do, but like I said earlier in Supercross suspension movement is not correct and suspension movement will not allow the riders to go fast on a Supercross course and push over their limits of speed.

One thing that I have seen for years or since the guy has been managing team's and the point guy for bike setup, Larry Brooks has given the riders on his team's a bike setup, suspension setting or could even be the chassis setup, that let them to push the limits of their speed, allowing the riders to win and win Championships. I think (and this is only a guess) that Larry Brooks knows how to set bikes up to go fast because he raced at a professional level and went fast in Supercross and Motocross himself.
Now don't get me wrong here, Brooks was never a Supercross or Motocross Champion but he was a top 5 to 10 professional rider. This gave him the knowledge of "been there, done that" and we call that EXPERIENCE. Experience, knowledge or the feel at that level is something that now many others do not have and it's obvious that he used his experience, knowledge or the feel of the motorcycle to his advantage and again the evidence is the race wins and Championships that Brooks has compiled over the years as a Team Manager and saying this, all you'd have to do is look at the record books if you don't believe me.

In my opinion, this is where the 2011 L&M failure came from. They replaced Larry Brooks and his experience with racing and race bike setup with a person they thought would trump him, Sergio the engineer that learned how the suspension and chassis works and should feel from a book or in a school class room were he achieved a huge feat and that was gaining an engineering degree. I read he came from FOX Racing Suspension in the article, but no Professional riders or Professional race teams use FOX Racing Suspension. From what I read and the video’s I watched, Timmy Ferry never liked that suspension when he was testing it.

Having an engineering degree, reading and learning how a motorcycle needs to work or needs to feel from a class room is nothing like living your life racing a motorcycle or being around motorcycles and working with them daily. "The proof is in the pudding", we saw how the whole dynamic of the L&M team changed when Larry Brooks left. It went from a team challenging / winning Championships and riders wanting to race for them, to just another race team that doesn't have a rider or a level of rider it would take to challenge for the Championship. Riders are very intuitive, they know who runs the teams and they know if they go to a team, if they will be able to get good results with the people involved, so don't be surprised if L&M can't get the level of rider we are use to seeing over there. The only rider that would rider for L&M now a days would only be a level of rider that has nowhere to go or isn't wanted by any other race team (Alessi, Grant, T.Hahn).

thanks for the insight, Larry

by the way, good job absolutely throwing sergio the suspension guy, mike alessi, josh grant, and tommy hahn completely under the fucking bus, and polishing larry brooks' (your own) balls to a beautiful shine man.

there is so much hate and discontent on this forum that is really income-related that it literally takes the fun out of motocross.

I did my best to be as clear as possible through my other posts that I was messing around with you guys and I'm not Larry Brooks.
There are at least 3 different members on this message board that people assume are Larry Brooks also. Let me try to be be very clear here, I'm not Brooks.

I wasn't "throwing anyone under the bus", as you say. I was stating my opinion and sharing some of what I've learned over the years to try to explain what I know about Supercross and suspension. Also taking Sergio's comments from his interview to fill in the blanks, hoping to help people understand the way I see how things seemed to materialize in the L&M situation.

Get over it pal and try to read what I write as another member of this board. I saw where you had read where another person flamed I was Brooks and you jumped straight on the "Hate Brooks Bandwagon". I don't know Brooks, but only what I know that he has done in this sport. There are things that I don't agree with in how he does his business sometimes, but I'm not on a witch hunt like you are, looking for him around every corner and in the Vital Message Board.

I hope this helps and if not, carry on.

I think you might want to re-read my post above. I shared my opinion and wasn't only praising Brooks. I said some derogatory things about him in there.

But in my opinion, Sergio (by his own admission) was one of the problems in the L&M camp. Chad Reed rode for L&M and when they took him away from Motocross and I didn't agree with it. It wasn't only L&M that did that, Chad had to agree and I sure don't agree with his choice. But who am I and what can I do about it?

HighCam, I agree with some of your points, but to say Sergio was a major problem I don't think is fair. I know he didn't cast blame away from him in that interview, but he said he was setting the bike up for some of the crazy jump combos james likes to try which require that extra suspension movement to soak up when you purposefully (or not purposefully) clip a landing on the way down to set up for the next hit.

Also, I don't think Larry deserves nearly that much credit for his lack of absence being the demise of James' season. I think his off-track issues with the cop thing was most likely a bigger distraction than the lack of Larry. Since the beginning of the season Sergio says he was dealing with being in charge of the bike set-up, so it shouldn't have been a big deal on that front that Larry left. Except for the fact that Sergio did have to take on some of Larry's responsibilities.

first of all the "your own" blurb was strictly tongue in cheek. second of all m post is 100% accurate. you threw 3 pro racers and one mechanic solidly under the bus.

i also never jumped on any hate larry brooks bandwagon. if you knew me, you'd know i am probably the single farthest thing from a bandwagoner there is.

ITS SO EASY TO BLAME YOUR PROBLEMS ON SOMEONE ELSE...........................another js entertainment release trying to deflect blame from himself being out of shape ...............don't believe everything you read ...........bubs is just click behind his old self and in real time that turns into crashes ..................remember when Ricky used to pressure him and he 'd crash ............well nothin has changed ,there was just a 3 year gap btween his concussions

What I dont understand is why they all just couldn't work together to move forward?
And I'm sure L&M also worked closely with Yamaha,guys like McCarty etc at one time or another...
It seems to me 10 heads would be better then 1 when it comes to troubleshooting bike setup or moving forward with engineering.

Were there any other guys on the inside sent packing by James & Mike other then Larry B.?

It also seems to me like Yamaha would/should have some say in things when it comes to engineering their top SX/MX bike in the world.James was indeed their top SX rider and L&M was their top SX team in a sense.
In a way James on that bike pretty much represented Yamaha,also.
Where were they (Yamaha) at in all this?
Have they just left their fate in SX & MX racing totally in the hands of private teams,or anyone with money that can hire a top rider? Was Yamaha also in agreement of sending Larry B. packing?

I'm not sure how it is in pro sx/mx racing now a days....as far as Yamaha's relationship with theses private teams.
But one thing I do know is...they are a very picky company in their marine division and have a lot of control even over
private dealership/service centers all the way down to the guys wrenching on motors.They also work very closely with them.They want to look good and sell the best product out there.They also go through great lengths to make people,customers,dealerships happy and also their investors happy.And having techs,engineers & mechanics touch their stuff that is in the public eye that could hurt their sales & investments has been a big NO NO in the past.
When a mechanic or tech messes up a $50-40,000.00 under warranty outboard motor and they look bad, they are not happy.They know word gets out fast and people shy away from their product and so do investors.Contracts with dealerships get pulled etc. if it is an on going thing and techs/mechanics are sent to the un-enjoyment line.

It seems simple to me. If you set up his bike for jumping quads that no one else can jump then you risk washing out the front end in the turns. It is all about give and take. The suspension will not do every thing you want, yet, so until it can, he need to learn to ride within the capabilities of the bike. He was over riding it.

x2

Makes sense to me but I would think that they would have thought about that and planned for it.

Guys, i read the interview with Sergio too. I came away being extremely impressed with his work ethic and desire to be the best he can be at what he does.

Next....i think some of you are reading waaaaay way too much into the interview, remember in an interview two guys are just talking, its not all scripted perfectly.

Also, this is motocross guys, you can break it down to a science and read way too much into the engineering aspect and blame that for James' failure all you want, but remember, its motocross. This isn't F1 or any other form of racing, while i'm sure there were times where James wasn't happy with the bike, i also have a strong feeling that it wasn't the bike that lost him that championship. There are so many other things that go into it.

And come on, James has been there before, running works KYB stuff on Kawis, now hes running them on Yamahas, i'm sure if he was unhappy with "just the suspension" then they could just go back to an old setting. Its not like Sergio would say "no way your not allowed"

Anyway, just remember, its motocross, a lot of things contribute to failure/success and most of you know its physical and mental ability that plays a huge, huuuuuuge role as well.

Along the lines of HighCam's post, I heard the same engineer/driver relationship from a friend of mine who raced Indy cars. The engineers never understood why he wanted certain set ups because they didn't make sense on paper, but driver's/rider's feel is always most important.

And this was the 1999 IRL Champion driving for an elite team.

L&M sounds like it became a dysfunctional team environment. Does team Honda let a rider hire his own engineer to set up his bike because he does not like the teams approach? No way.

It sounds like the team caved and let Stewart do what he wanted and it pretty much seems to have ruined the team. The team manager was dismissed, the star rider left, the title sponsor left, and from the Kranyak interview it sounds like there is still legal issues regarding the rider walking out on his contract.

This wasn't Sergio's first rodeo. He didn't just graduate with his Engineering degree. The guy knows suspension. You think the turds Larry used to ride are anything like the bikes today?

You bring up an interesting point...Not Sergio's, James', or Larry's first rodeo. So why did everyone get bucked? I'm sure the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Where is Yamaha in all of this?
It's obvious James had a contract with them and James hired Sergio, not L&M.
Do they just say...do what you want with our brand in the public eye.
If you make our brand look bad from a technology & mechanical standpoint,we do not care.

Or do they step in and try to get something resolved?
Or did they tell James...that is your problem...hire your own guy get it figured out!

Pro SX/MX is really just one big marketing ploy for the OEMs & other sponsors.
If it wasn't,they wouldn't invest a penny in it.

Very good read. Sergio is not only educated in mechanics (engineering), he also is a good at breaking down the subject matter so we can understand him. It was also enlightning to learn how valuable Ferry is because he can communicate the rider's perspective to the suspension guy.

Interesting how some riders have a hard time communicating thier wants/needs to the suspension guy

Best of luck to Sergio. .

sure... if you're looking through rose colored glasses.

maybe the universe was just out to get the fastest most superest man on the planet, last year

It's because massive fanboys of certain riders feel the need to put down their favorite riders competition in order to make their rider look like the correct rider to be a fanboy of. Then you have fans of the rider who gets put down wanting to defend their rider from people they think are idiots. Then you have people who think people are idiots who feel the need to consistently put down any rider. It's an endless cycle of stupidity.

Hope that answers your question.