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So what should a team manager be responsible for?
Signing the best riders?
Building the best staff?
Building the best bike for each individual rider?
Signing sponsors?
Staying with in budget?
Or does a good manager do all of these things and then makes sure that everyone has everything they need to do thier job and that they do thier jobs properly?
So wouldn't getting the bike set up ultimately be his responsibility?
Rider training and fitness? Making sure everything is being done properly and done properly?
I'm sure Lars doesn't book the flights and hotels but you can bet he damn sure sees that it gets done.
Look at kawy in the 250 class. Mitch has seen over it for sooo long. Not to long ago if you didn’t have a pc ride on a 125 you were hoping to get second at best. Now pc keeps struggling and I wouldn’t exactly blame management.
Yea he won over there because he was the best guy and was there for a long time. That doesnt change the fact that he was winning by a minute and 30 seconds in races on the Honda and was absolutely putting belt to ass. Then he never looked as good as that on the kawi and then once he left to yamaha he immediately jumped back up a level and won everything. Theres a noticeable drop off in his kawi years.
Again hes an all timer so he still got it done, but he left even more championships on the table there than he should have. Starting with that sx championship vs dungey where he should have won but couldnt make it happen. On the yamaha he closes that out.
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Yea some one earlier got downvoted for saying it, but Prado is fading HARD with 10-15 to go.
Look at the record books prior to spouting nonsense. During his 6 years at Kawasaki, Eli brought home 3 450 MX and 1 450 SX championship. 4 years at Star have netted 1 450 MX and 1 450 SX title. Let’s look at wins. In 6 years on Kawasaki, Eli won 24 450 MX races and 34 450 SX races. 4 years on the Yamaha have produced 16 450 SX and 5 450 MX wins. To say that he’s been more successful since moving to Star makes me think you’ve only followed the sport since 2021. If anything, he’s certainly spent more time in the hospital since he switched.
He won more 450 MX races on the Kawi in both 2018 and 2019 than he has in the last 4 years combined on the Yamaha.
Even if you take the alien out of the equation, if you compare Prado with Hunter, it is plain to see that Prado can run the pace for a bit, but his fitness won’t allow him to close it out at the moment.
Which is crazy to say given he’s the MXGP champ his fitness was obviously fine last year…. Maybe he’s going crazy with all that shitty American food LOL
Someone posted a clip of Prado saying his V02 max is in the 70s. Hard to believe his fitness is that much of an issue if that was a truthful statement. I do agree it certainly looks like he can't hold the pace though. He dropped off right as he got passed for the lead redbud moto 2 which is interesting....
edit to add link
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/tWzPvNekeIM
It doesn’t have to be fitness OR the bike….they can play off each other. Anyone who’s ever ridden a poorly setup bike knows that you might be able to turn a fast lap or two on it, but it’s going to wear you out no matter how fit you are.
Agreed, but if you’re gonna blame your team and bike every time they put a microphone in front of you, it isn’t a good look to go from 2:08s at the beginning of the race to 2:17s at the halfway point of the moto. Especially when your competition is still running the same lap times they did in the opening laps.
An earlier poster theorized the bike setup is beating him up. I think they might be on to something. He knows the fitness he needs for 30+2 from gp’s. His bike looks faster then a few weeks ago and Kawi Japan has been working on the motor but anytime you and significant power you’re going to affect the chassis and handling.
Almost like the bike set up is tiring him out causing his lap times to drop…
So far it seems like he has been right. He said he needed a better engine. Kawi got him one and his results and starts have been better. Clearly still a ways to go though.
Is going from 1st to 5th in the second moto at Red Bud really better than going from 8th to 6th in his second moto in the first race at Pala? Again, I’m sure he’ll get better, but he needs to take ownership of his results and quit whining about his bike being too slow. His bike being slow isn’t what caused his lap times to drop like they did in the hot and humid second moto yesterday.
I'd say Prado is the problem. He isnt adapting well. All the factory teams and bikes are capable of winning. He needs to get in the right head space, adapt his riding style abit or something, regain his confidence etc. Hes needs to accept that things are different and needs to stop fighting against it. Work with what's he's got and make it work.
Yea I think so. He wasn’t close to holeshotting first few races. Seems like they are getting the starts figured out. Hes also likely still building strength and stamina in his shoulder that was operated on. Not everyone is a freak like Jett in recovering from injury and you could argue major shoulder surgery is a harder rod to come back from then knee surgery because of the complexity of the joint and all the small muscles around it that need strengthening.
Remember 2024 when Eli was coming back from Achilles he thought he was 100%. It wasn’t until way later with the benefit of hindsight he acknowledged he wasn’t actually at the level he thought he was.
He already said he can compensate for it some, but not for 35 min.
Kawi is like a 350 stock, and needs to be reved and someone commented that is what the team has said also, ride it in lower gears.
Tell Tomac or Herlings the opposite and ask them to ride at high gears and low rpm and see how well that goes. Wouldn't make top 10 and would be all over the track.
He has already said also he has told them what they need for the engine. He is just waiting for new things to test. Not going to be easy for them to make a rideable, durable bike with a lot of extra power.
Chassi and suspension seems to be going fwd at least.
No factory bike could be setup poorly. Not setup properly for a riders style sure but, these guys know what they’re doing. Add to that that it sounds like Kawi has been working incredibly hard to get the bike right for Prado. The bike just can’t be that bad at this point. It’s got to be something else.
Pit Row
The difference is also: MXGP is 30 minutes endurance race, AMA MX is 30 minutes sprint race.
Note: About Pro Circuit, in the past it was always Mitch who came up with the fast Frenchies and with the best prodigies out of the US Amateur world. But he seems to lost his trust in fast Frenchies and MXGP racers and the best prodigies are all falling into the hands of mainly Star Yamaha.
They need to Clean House way over due
It could be the adjustment to the crappy food we have in the US.
It commonly effects regular non professional athlete europeans that come over, and it's probably worse for a guy pushing his body to the limit every weekend.
So your saying the level in the us is higher? How do you explain MXON?
I get it if you’re moving from Europe to the US for some office job, but prado is a professional athlete. If it really is a diet issue, that’s completely on him and total rookie stuff.
He won 2 motos by a minute and a half, it’s not like he was James on a 125 just smoking everyone for years, im a Tomac fan btw. Kenny had some back issues and other issues with the team and bike for the outdoors in 2015 too or I don’t think Tomac would’ve gapped Kenny like that. If you really think about it every 2nd rider on any of the factory teams weren’t winner. Ferry and DV12 in 03, 04, 05 weren’t winners, Byrne wasn’t a winner as a 2nd rider at Kawi and factory Suzuki, whatever factory 450 team that DeanO, Weimer, Tedesco, Andrew Short, all those guys weren’t really winners on whatever 450 team they were on. There’s always going to be a #1 guy on a team and where Tomac went, that’s where he was on a 450. Did all the bikes for all the guys above suck cuz they weren’t winning? IMO the Kawi didn’t hold Tomac back, it was his dumb mental mistakes. How many mechanical DNFs did he have with Kawi? Those 2 in his last year outdoors with them and one at red bud are all I can think of off the top of my head. Kawi had a top guy like every other brand.
How do you explain it?
AMA based riders have made up the majority of the top 10 for like 4 of the last 5 years. USA hasn’t done great in all of them but ama riders have. I don’t agree with that race meaning shit in the ama vs mxgp fan rivalry though. I did all the digging a while back and posted it.
Yea fair call, I completely forgot about the Lawrence boys & oz.
My bad.
Is there a chance Kawi spent too much on Tomac and went Hella budget on their tuning in his last year and still now?
I bet mitch could make that thing breathe more power than that quad racing mod shop currently does.
He won one race by over a minute, relax. And he also only made it through 5 motos that season. Some could argue he was riding over his head before he crashed out of the season. He never looked the same on the Kawi AND the Yamaha because he destroyed both shoulders and it changed how he rode. Eli had a much more fluid style on the Honda. We've never seen it since his Lakewood Crash. He left championships on the table because he was mentally weak at the time. Blaming the Kawi is asinine
Many would say RC’s bikes were setup poorly.
I worked with Dan at Dasa back when he was the R&D for Pjs factory Kawasaki's jet ski race team yes they were two stroke Motors but the guy left no stone unturned and they were very dominant! He gave El all the horsepower he ever wanted he's one of the hardest to please lol! All while being in a chair just like Mitch!
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