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I think he referred to the power. Chase has obviously ridden the Kawi, and it sounds like he got to test one of Prado's engine packages. Spoke a bit to much i think 😄
I mean Herlings said the same "I would kill myself If i had Prado's (KTM) engine".
That's promising for Chase. Power will not be an issue.
He has been getting top 2-3 starts for the last 3-4 weeks though so that theory doesnt hold up.
Last week on pulp nicoletti dropped some knowledge that I hadnt heard anybody say yet, and phil kind of slipped up and said he doesnt know if hes allowed to say it. Hes on kawi too so hes a bit of inside knowledge. He said right now prado is struggling super bad with the suspension because hes used to wp air forks and picked showa spring forks before the season. So hes suuuuper uncomfortable with the suspension and no matter what they do he feels completely lost. Matthes talked about how the teams have to order the stuff before the season and now they dont have the showa air forks to switch to to try.
Hes getting the starts now so the bike has power. The prob seems hes completely lost with the suspension and its making him completely uncomfortable and he cant push. If you watch him it looks exactly like this, his bike seems to be wallowing and he has no flow and and is lugging through stuff. It looks like he cant soak anything up and just gets beat up the whole time. If it was star racing theyd prob move heaven and earth to find some air forks, but kawasaki has its reputation for a reason so theyre saying you ordered this stuff and this is what we have.
Whoever’s giving the thumbs up in the picture needs to change that to ✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻 and tell him to go faster 😂😂
That’s a very good observation.
Jorge, more so than his team-mate, had the opportunity to test ALL the available hardware for “outdoors”…and then some…and at places other than Perris due to his injury and his scheduled “coming back for outdoors”.
So, what I’m saying as a person that wants him to kick ass is…
It’s time to grind it out and get the results.
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It’s his dad and it was a REALLY GOOD DAY of testing. A REALLY GOOD DAY. 👍🏼💪🏻
But now you are making the same mistake everyone else is. Starting power is not even in the same zip code as riding power on a 450. First off you probably have startmap that is ridiculous aggressive (not sure Prado uses one), but you anyway are at high RPM, ~9-11k on 450 after gate. Maybe even 11+k on factory 450 and start map. Not sure how far they dare to go. I have put mine up to 10.600.
Cairoli and shorty got starts on 350s. Villo holeshot on a 250 against 450. Not once but twice.
Prado ride on midd power. Or pretty much everyone does except Barcia and Tomac. That's 5-8k depending on gearing.
Maybe they have gotten more riding power now, but sounded like it wasn't good since nothing was good. I have said this also the whole time. You cant finalize suspension before power is done since it impact so much how bike behave.
I heard that about air vs spring also. I think he tested on SX with spring, and went with that for MX. Most teams swap, but other way around. At least in KYB.
Almost everyone on the Austrian brand is on production air fork (not CV AER or factory air). Maybe that is one issue, Kawi cant do a Sexton and throw WP on a Kawi even if that would be an easy fix/test. And they cant get Showa factory air fork either.
We shall see 😎🙄😁😁😁😁
All I know is that getting a top 2 start and dropping to 10th in one lap without crashing is just embarrassing. They were passing Prado like he was a C rider and it isn't the bikes fault.
Especially after the suspension debacle, KTM was willing to do what they did and have it made public because they wanted to give chase what he wanted . What more does chase want from a race team.
Results would say otherwise
He also said in one of those interviews that he was happy with the engine package. Go figure.
At some point he needs to take some personal accountability. Champions don’t blame their team they blame themselves. Look at Eli. He keeps his mouth shit when he’s not comfortable and he works it out. He takes responsibility every time he makes a mistake. He sits back while everyone speculates for 3 weeks about what’s wrong with him, he doesn’t blame anyone, says he’ll work harder and then voila, homeboy shows up and is back at race pace looking like an animal again and lets everyone know that he chose the wrong settings and even appologizes to his team for it. It’s one thing to be honest about your settings being off or being uncomfortable but Jorge just sounds like a whiny bitch. Dude is halfway to changing his name to René Cartier at this point.
If there has been , I can’t remember. I believe he is setting a new low in that category.
I don't know if it was brought up, but watch the Millville Club Vlog. They wrap up a 30 and Jorge is pouring buckets of sweat. Looks like he is smoking on fire he's so hot. Coty is sitting there just chilling like it's normal. I don't believe his fitness is anywhere near where it needs to be right now. It's 80-90 percent brain and body and maybe the rest is the bike.
I’ll second, what the hell are they doing “testing outdoor settings” at Perris? It’s a freeway on its roughest day compared to a National track. Show up at GH or Pala at noon and test on something somewhat close to a rough National track atleast. Weird
Six pages of people mostly mistaking opinions for facts.
Fact is none of us here know what's really going on.
What I saw at Washougal yesterday was a rider on the number 70 Kawasaki who was indistinguishable from any of the riders 20-40 in terms of effort level. Ok, let me clarify that because they ALL put out serious effort out there. But he absolutely did not look like anything special or like a factory rider on a factory bike to me. No fight, no heart, no grit to be seen at all.
That is 100% on the team. I have also found it so strange that Prado did so much of the prep on public SoCal tracks. Who on earth thought that was a good idea at Kawasaki?
Pit Row
All stick and ball sports? Well, not
Rugby Union; Rugby League; Cricket; Tennis (two Americans in the top 10)...
As for saying you'd be the best in football 'if you cared about it'. Do you not think the decades and decades of dedication to football and the way it's weaved into the fabric of the countries that excell at it would have any bearing on that? You think you're going to suddenly 'care about it' and start beating Brazil, Argentina, Germany, England, Spain, Portugal...and on and on - being that it is a truly global sport. Not like baseball where the World Series is...ah...only for American teams.
But didnt Kenny have his shit show at rch back in the day? He was way faster on stock bike than rch zook. His dad gave a interview to some german mx magazine and blamed the team.
https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Moto-Related,20/Roczens-Dad-on-RCH,1290565
The german mx magazine "Cross Magazin" just came in the mail and they did a interview with Heiko Klepka on RCH. It was stunning to see what he said... I'll just translate some key things from the interview, I'd have never thought that it was THAT bad. (Sometimes I ran out of translation talent and changed the exact wording, but the key facts are still right)
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.
So that's pretty much it. I would have never thought that it was THAT bad at RCH... But I guess Heiko didn't lie right here. I'm sorry for all the grammatical mistakes, my English is obviously still not perfect. But I hope you guys can understand everything!
Maybe somebody should ask prados dad whats up. Prado himself doesnt seem to know anything.
1. If the bike is so bad there shouldn’t be a Kawasaki finishing in front of you
2. No accountability and throwing the team and bike under the bus repeatedly is a slippery slope. If I was Oscar I wouldn’t feel like more summer days testing at Club- he needs the team to help him out of this and he is making a wedge between them.
3. Watch carefully what CR22 does, he doesn’t accept bull shit and has a lot of respect for Oscar and much of the Kawi crew. If he feels like Jorge is the problem he will pull back and distance his involvement fairly quickly I think
Yea yet another one of the terrible decisions. Testing there makes no sense.
Also he had started out the year training in cali as well, while everybody else was in florida or the east coast. The humidity probably kicked his dick in when he first experienced it. Then he switched to clubmx smartly.
It’s a shame he couldn’t be up there like we all expected him to. Thought he could do some damage up front, but the only thing he’s damaged is his image. I was rooting for him to do well but after seeing no heart or effort I’m out. It’s got a very Pourcel (later in his career) feel at this point.
Had no idea RC was a chef.
That must’ve been after Millville.
Put a motivated Broc on Ando’s bike for the rest of the season. Tell Jorge if he doesn’t beat a tickle, they’ll buy his flights back to Spain.
Why fight for a top 10 on a bike that can’t win.
Broc said it on Gypsy. It’s a process at Kawi.
Kawi has a culture and they don’t go to far from it. Yes, they will give you EVERYTHING within their culture.
At the end of the day, that’s basically it. Two sides one has the final say.
Prado ever mean, he got armpump?
Ive said it before and ill say it again. 5-8th place finishes, yeah we can have a discussion about bike issues. Jorge Prado isnt fooling anyone, Mitch Harrison clapped his ass on the same bike built by a privateer team. Bike problems dont run out front for a few laps then deploy a parachute..... I know Kawi has their internal management issues, but cmon. If you believe Prados failures are 100% on the bike, youre blind as a bat.
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