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Chase Sexton: MFMOTP
Most Frustrating Man On The Planet
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Chase is a great rider who places a lot of trust on the front of his bike and perhaps doesnt know how to tune it himself or change up his riding style to adapt to it. Kawasakis are not known for great front end feel and feedback and his move to Kawasaki surprised me a bit because of his style.
I hope they figure it out soon and he adapts to steering with the rear a bit more. I’m thinking he needs to be on a Suzuki for us to see his full potential
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Hey at least Larocco would have climbed back to 3rd!
Oh to be a fly on the wall inside the Kawasaki camp... there must be some stuff being said there that is less than polite.
The current-gen KX is not rear steer. Apparently issue is that the bike either under-steers or over-steers. They are trying to find the happy middle ground.
Only 3 years to go .
It’d be interesting to see a running list of changes made to the bike for each race thus far and through the entire season. I don’t have the time to research it through visuals right now but may try to put something together in the future.
Chase's situation reminds me of a guy I know who didn't like who he was working for in a corporate job and just started working for someone else on his own. Able to because he was good and his mgmt didn't know how to deal with it. Similarly Chase could park his bike under the PC Kawi tent and it would be tolerated IMO as long as results improved. Didn't leave Kawi, didn't really stay.
Sounds like grounds for termination to me.
I’m a front end feel guy myself.
I bought a new gen KX because of the reports of it being more of a front end steering bike.
I didn’t gel with it at all and sold it and picked up a Honda. 100% more feel in the front.
But maybe I’m like chase and can’t set up a bike.
Prado years?
😏
Must feel like dog years, right now...
JT on the Pulp post show said "Hey, ya'll remember Nashville '24 when he crashed, blamed the mechanic, stormed off the track and wouldn't talk to anyone? That's EXACTLY what it feels like over by the Kawi rig right now"
Yaa I don’t remember many 6th from Larocco, Chase is just getting smoked right now
There are literally so many things you can change on the bike to remedy almost any situation. C'mon this rocket science is not rocket science.
From oil weight to oil height (volume) to springs to shims to valves to different mm tubes to the settings of compression/rebound and more just in the forks. Same with the shock. You have 100 things you can do to each, (or more).
Then you have every off set and thickness you can play with in triple clamps, every C/L to C/L & geometry change in linkage, & rear link. Location of axle in swingarm. You could even add or subtract stiffness in the frame like KTM did for Webb a few years back.
I mean we could go on and on, but you can make every bike being raced by the manufacturer's today a perfect or very near perfect bike. I'm sorry but at some point it's on the rider.
Do I think Webb, Tomac, H. Lawrence, Roczen or Sexton can win this year on the Kawasaki? God damn right I do. And the only guy in that group who rides for Kawasaki HAS won on that bike this year. It's high time for them to figure out what Chase needs, If Chase even knows what he wants. But, finally, when he's at near perfect or perfect, the excuses need to stop and Sexton needs to be back up front, whether it be podiums or wins. It's on him!
I had to come back to this and add an edit. It wouldn't hurt Kawasaki nor Chase to work on starts all effing week too. The guys starts have sucked this year for the most part. First or top 3 in the first turn and maybe his results would improve!
The dude in a wheelchair with a pipe shop would turn this entire thing around
Let’s be honest, his own team hasn’t been hugely successful in recent years.
Pit Row
You made me think of a different kind of pipe shop...
You could do all that and it’s still a Kawasaki. Which is ok.
You just need to ride it as such. Some folks are better at adapting to different steeds than others.
I hope he adapts.
Chase winning Anaheim 2 made me feel like he had, in his case, quickly found something that really worked. I don't follow things as closely as some here, but I wonder how much the bike changed between A2 and Arlington and what didn't work for Chase in A2 even though he was able to work around it and win. I really wonder how this will translate to outdoors for him because I can only ever think about his insane charges he accomplished on both Honda and KTM during MX.
Probably already posted somewhere, but I thought that was conforting to see how positive Chase was.
😉
"I felt more comfortable going into this weekend, and the bike was working great with the adjustments the team has made. My start in the main event made things tough, but I focused on making smart passes and being consistent. I've still got a way to go to prove myself, but the team and I are heading in the right direction."
If you’re talking about the race recap pod, that was not a direct quote of what JT said. Regardless, I hear what you’re saying / doesn’t change the point of the message.
After listening to Will's comments on what Team Green told her about identifying "the part" that needs to be addressed to give Chase "the feel" he's looking for and seeing what all they've done to the bike so far, I could only think of one thing that couldn't be easily addressed under the Production Rule but would still affect the bike no matter what else you did to it.
The frame.
Curious to see how this shakes out, but based on what we're hearing it sounds like this might be "the part" they've identified but can't fix during the season. If you've swapped out everything else, what's left? 🤔
Mitch & the PC bikes ain’t the problem , its a Levi , whackers & Seth needs to stop being on the injury report list problem , despite wht happened at the SX finale last season with juju & RJ , Seth brung them back to title relevancy
It’s like when Drew Brees got his big contract (60 mill over 5 yrs) back in the day. He was on fire, and then (mediocrely) rode out his contract and the retired a happy weathly man.
I didn’t hear it that way. I heard it as they’re working on it but don’t have the exact solution as of yet, not that they can’t solve it. You could be right and maybe it’s the frame and they’re designing everything else to compensate, or it could be that they just couldn’t get the right parts designed and tested in time for last weekends race
It's just a guess based on observations and the whole vague way things were worded.
Someone needs to tell Chase to shut up and ride. Just ride the damn bike.
I actually thought Chase looked better this weekend 🤷♂️. Start sucked again, but he was basically last to 6th and 5th was ~15 seconds ahead by then.
Post a reply to: Panic Button for Chase/Kawi?