The Inside Line Podcast | Mike Williamson 7

Mike Williamson's recent departure as Eli Tomac's crew chief at Monster Energy Kawasaki had lots of tongues wagging in the forum. We know people were looking for answers, and we covered an assortment of topics with him, including some distant and recent history.

GuyB
4/24/2019 2:58pm
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B00tySweat33
4 years ago
Awesome interview. I would liked to have know if Kawi had the opportunity to keep Aldon on retainer when RV retired, before ktm hopped on the opportunity. People say his program isn’t for everyone but I think his focus on mental toughness would have really helped Tomac. This was a great interview though, thanks guys!!!
c50 peace 3
level
4 years ago
Pretty weak or should I say cowardly interview. Listened to the whole damn thing waiting for that one question about Tomac. Just wanted you to ask how much of you leaving was due to Tomac or due to management? Was it difficult to work with Tomac ?

Even if he didn’t answer or felt inappropriate then oh well. You never know. That’s the job of media and journalism is to ask the tough questions not play nice so they won’t be mad at you.
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B00tySweat33
4 years ago
There’s always a pre interview conversation about what is ok to talk about. Being that MW is professional, and Tomac is still racing, they made the right move to steer away from that stuff. While I’m curious as well, it’s not really the time and MW doesn’t want to burn any bridges. Not to mention that it’s none of our business and we should be happy that they are giving us any insight at all.
c50 peace 3
level
4 years ago
Good point but with all the controversy they should of touched on it a little. They didn’t go there at all. Maybe in a few years we will know more of his side.
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GuyB
4 years ago
Maybe it matters less than you think. I know it makes a great talking point for you, but I’ve never done an interview worried about whether I’ll be denied access in the future. Mike was playing nice.
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speedman
5 years ago
Good job of sustaining the suspense--thought you were sneaking up on Area 51 when you asked about changing parameters like offset, but didn't quite get there. Fine job of treading carefully, GuyB, and Williamson is an astute observer.

Couple takeaways: MW implied that RV was riding Weimer's settings, not the other way around, because Weimer would come up with good settings and RV would change one thing just to be the alpha dog--but MW evaded the question of whether Weiner was then required to ride the settings as changed by RV, which would mean Weiner was truthfully claiming he was forced to run RV's settings, not his own.

Another was MW also finessing the matter of the change in Tomac's linkage in 2017, implying that the change was MW's idea but not explicitly claiming so, not being clear about whether it was driven by rider demand. He did reveal that there was also a spring rate change involved if I heard correctly, but he was strident in saying it only worked for a while (i.e., only with that generation of chassis). A good job of sounding like he was addressing a point that Steve Cox/Nerd raised, without really doing so. Possibly the wrong guy is trying to go into politics--MW was slipping the punches like a boss.

As for the semantics of employment ending, I'm old enough to remember when there weren't so many fine gradations like giving notice, quitting, being allowed to resign, being let go, being laid off, not having your contract renewed, being fired, etc. If your employer gives a choice between swallowing your pride and doing things someone else's way, being allowed to resign, and being fired, you can take the second option and say with complete sincerity that you weren't fired . . . But the whole truth is that your employer was forcing you out. And that would have been a better, more accurate term for Nerd to use than "fired."

A good podcast, stuff like trying to anticipate JS7's speed so they could give him the proper settings: "Are you going to do superhuman this moto, or just faster than everyone else?"
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CivBars
4 years ago
After listening to the whole pod, the Stewart suspension talk was most interesting to me too. "Are you going to do superhuman this moto, or just faster than everyone else?" That got me thinking about suspension changes on the fly. Handlebar mounted buttons that you can switch your engine maps with already exist and that could be adopted to control the suspension too/ instead. I know that in off road driving they have 'smart' shocks that can be adjusted as your racing and they have a certain level of self adjusting independently through uneven loads. I don't know how that would work for forks, but I could see how having the different settings would be safer! Superhuman JS7 setting to start the moto and after he's done gapping the field he can dial it down.

https://rzr.polaris.com/en-us/sxs-innovations/dynamix/
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