Jake Wiemer on Pulp

What rider has left kawi happy with them? Eli was over them at the end, Jason wasn’t happy

JW is rad. Wish more guys would give the corporate guys the 🖕🏼

This Kawi management beaviour (regardless of magnitude) combined with the absolute bullshit with not sending riders to the MXoN makes me wonder if they actually hate the sport…

You’re not wrong, but here are his words for accurate context. 

“So what I'm saying right now, I'm not speaking about what's happening today. Potentially, I will say this, potentially their struggles from today are because of the lack of testing and component trying and data that they did not collect over the last 20 years.
So they're maybe not exactly sure how to develop a motorcycle that what I would call alive, quick handling, nimble, it does what you ask it to do. So I will say that, but beyond that, I'm speaking about what he said in my time there, and as far as that, go ahead.”

Agree. Jake’s comments are very consistent with what the Tomac team was putting out there 

I would take what Weimer said in relation to time. He rode before Tomac and even Tomac was a few years ago. Who knows what it is really like there now? AC states repeatedly on his podcast the Kawasaki team will do anything a rider wants, this week he stated the team would even put a tractor tire on the bike if Sexton asked for it. Of course current evidence doesn't look good.

I'm sure he believes that, but he never rode for anyone else and is a self described people pleaser. Not sure he's going to have great insight on it. 

Posted this in the sexton thread as well but I found it really interesting. Almost 4 years old but listen to what he's saying. Easy to see how taking the "we know what works" approach too far ends up being putting riders in a box. Definitely seems like if there's a discrepancy between their interpretation of the data and what the rider is telling them they are feeling, they don't have much use for the rider's feedback. 

Pretty sure AC is still on Kawi payroll 

Yeah.... I usually agree with AC, but while he's (presumably) cashing green checks. I'm out on this one. They stuck with him through a TON, I don't blame him at all for having their back. I wish he would just not get involved in the specifics especially related to the team.

imagine if they had cr22 as test rider instead of a guy thats never won, and barely podiumed..

It all went to hell when they let Fisher go 

imagine that.. Goose, Reed & Decosta at a testing day. 

Jake may not be wrong, but RV did win races with factory Kawi as a 450 rookie in 2009, won races in 2010, got with Aldon and got in shape and won 4 straight SX titles and the 2 outdoors championships that he completed with Kawi “not letting RV veer too far off their settings”. That seemed to work pretty well for them. The bike could’ve been better, but all those bikes around that time period could’ve been from the Honda, yamaha, ktm, and suzuki. Jake also got to train with Aldon by being teammates with RV, and I think they trained together with Randy Lawrence, so Jake kinda followed where RV went. I like Jake, but I don’t think his results would’ve been any different if he was on factory Honda or ktm in those years. 

Jake said they wouldn't let him ride with a stock upper triple clamp. Was he not able to take the bike and put one on by himself? Are/Were the bikes locked down that much? 

I support Jake, just asking questions 

Was that why they found something in Davey's locker? 

This is not about why Jake did or didn't perform well. It's about Dan claiming that Kawi was always willing to try whatever a rider requested. Jake's calling BS on that. That's all. 

If you really want to stick to your 15 year old kid analogy....go look at the starting line of a Schoolboy class race. Plenty of 15 year olds out there running X-trig clamps, FCP engine mounts, Pro-Circuit links, spring conversion kits, etc etc etc. So yeah....I would say lots of dads are perfectly willing to try stuff on their kids bikes. Even vet riders and "professional practice" rider run aftermarket clamps and links and such. Not a big deal. Or at least it shouldn't be.  

No, he didn't... he said he could see that MIGHT be part of the problem. A lpossible ack of data from testing variations for all this time.

And lets keep in mind that AC has only experienced Kawasaki his whole life. We have multiple riders and entourages with experience from other teams telling us that Kawasaki is rigid. And this is from a very broad timespan, we're talking 15 years or more (At least 2010-2026). 

The evidence is there, it's undeniable. It's up to Kawasaki to realize they need to step it up and change. Yamaha did it when they scrapped the inhouse 450 factory team and let Star Racing run it, the rest is history.

Last year during the Prado saga, Kawi had Taka do some testing for them, and I can’t remember who interviewed him, but he said along the lines of; “ you test the factory suspension, then ride on stock suspension and it’s better, somethings wrong”. 
Yet everyone continued to throw Jorge under the bus. 
I also see Taka’s now at HRC, not surprised after that 😂

Yes yes yes, Johnny Hopper!!! I know!!! 🤓

Still:

Maybe it's just their Tier 2 guys they don't change much for? Like in Formula 1, the vehicle is usually developed for their 'A' driver.

RV, JS7, Anderson all had great success on Kawi. Ok.. Anderson not so much, but he had some flashes and a few wins.. 

If you listen to the interview Jake says, RV wasn’t happy with the bike especially in the second motos outdoors. The bike beat the crap out of him, “paraphrasing”. He also said, it was a chassis issue and they would not allow any changes to the chassis. Jake gave Dan props for getting the 13? Chassis homogenized so the could run it early and RV won on it right away. 

I like it when these guys are able to speak their minds by no longer being connected to the brands. 

Posted the main part of this in the Chase thread too, but made a few changes. 

Snapshot of Kawi to the start of the century.

Ricky Carmichael (1999-2001) Didn't RC leave because he felt they wouldn't make the required changes to the bike?

James Stewart (2002-2008) Red Bull/ Monster gate.

Ezra Lusk (2002-2003)

Michael Byrne (2003-2006)

Tim Ferry (2007-2009)

Ryan Villopoto (2009–2015) Their best guy in recent times continues to express a team change would have extended his career. Relationship tarnished with Kawi USA for doing the GP deal.

Chad Reed (2010) - Bad go of things.

Jake Weimer (2011–2014) Always expressed Kawi gave him RV’s set up and had zero willingness to deviate from this/ work with him on the bike. - glad Jake verified this lol!

Fabien Izoird - (2011) fill in.

Brett Metcalfe - (2014) fill in.

Davi Millsaps (2015) Locker gate. (Do we know what the substance was yet?!)

Wil Hahn (2016) Injury after injury..

Josh Grant (2015–2017) Fill in

Eli Tomac (2016–2021) Ended badly right?

Adam Cianciarulo (2019–2024) Injury after injury..

Joey Savatgy (2018–2019) Ended badly.

Jason Anderson (2022–2025) Has he performed better on the RMZ this year?

Jorge Prado (2025) Ended very badly 😂 bike dissatisfaction expressed. Team dissatisfaction expressed.

Chase Sexton (2026–present) Notorious for bike set up issues - is this a surprise he’s not performing as well?

Garrett Marchbanks (2026–present) If the #1 seat at Kawi has been less than desirable, the #2 certainly is.

I'm sure someone can get the stats together better than me, but maybe we can get Lewis to do a rapid fire line of questioning to some of the guys willing to speak up about their time at Kawi - then throw those to Dan to get his/ Kawi's stance? Obviously we have Jakes position, but more the merrier eh? Not to hate on Dan or Kawi, but everyone learns from honesty and transparency right? Even if it's ugly, may give the Kawi guys insight to the changes they need to make.

As a few have said - Yamaha went through this with their in house team. Changes/ bike development locked away and the infamous "blue pig" career killer the bike become known as. Appreciate they stepped away from full factory for a few years, but Reed has gone on record to say that the issues he faced with bike development, especially in 05 with the ally frame YZ era to his return in 2016 were still very much the same.

Are we now at "green pig" status with the bike?

Yep with a username and post history like yours thank you for your totally unbiased opinion 

Jake is a legend for that interview

I wonder if Kawasaki need to hand their 450 program over to Pro Circuit, worked for Yamaha. Remember how bad the Yamaha 450 was and nobody had success on it for years, then they handed it to Star and just like that it was the best 450 around. 

You can add Roncada (2001/2002) to your list...

It’s really not that hard to listen to what Jake says before commenting ? Not sure why you’d even comment with out knowing what he said