Industry Insights | Ft. Jensen Hendler

In this installment of Industry Insights, we talk to Yamaha Star Racing's 250 Team Manager Jensen Hendler about getting his start in the industry, how he became Star's Team Manager, some of his roles, the Deegan Effect, and more. 

For the full interview, check out the Vital MX podcast right here. The audio version below includes a lot more of Jensen's story. If you want the condensed written version, scroll down a bit further.

Jamie Guida – Vital MX:  Where are you from, and what is your earliest memory of motocross?

Jensen Hendler: I'm from a small area in Washington state called Tri-Cities in the Southeast corner of the state. It's actually desert and we have sand dunes just outside of town. Within an hour's drive, there are pine trees, but it's similar to the northern part of the desert in which Phoenix, Arizona, is located. I didn't grow up racing motocross. My first race bike was a 1998 CR125 because I started at 15 years old. So, I raced for a while but realized that I wouldn't pay the bills from racing. 

Vital MX: What came next?

Jensen: I went to school at MMI (Motorcycle Mechanic's Institute) in 2001, where I met Brad Hoffman, who owns Star Racing Inc. I then moved back to Washington and worked at a dealership. I later had my own shop. In 2012, my wife was pregnant with my second kid and made a comment that she would live in California. This was during the winter when business was slow, and I thought, "If we're ever going to do it, now's the time." So, I called Brad and asked what he had going on. At the time, Star and Valli were merging, so I closed up shop, sold my house, and moved to Southern California. I worked for Star and Valli, working with Weston Peick in Supercross and Gareth Swanepoel outdoors until he got injured. It's weird because now I work with him every day. I realized I couldn't support a family and live in Southern California on what a race mechanic made, so we moved back to Washington State, where I worked for a small shop called JMC. We started to grow, got another place, and added to that. Around 2014, some local guys, Chris Howell, and Noah McConahy, talked about going racing. I helped build a couple of bikes for them for 2015, and when they went to the first round, I went with them. The owner of JMC (Mike Cobb) said, "Let's get them through A1." He came down and had never been involved in a Supercross race like that. He saw what was happening and said, "There's no way these guys can do this alone without mechanics." He decided he'd send us to the rest of the races. Then we had a fun mover the next year, a Renegade the following year, and eventually a semi. It turned into me being back in racing again. I was building all the engines, mapping the bikes, and managing the team on the weekends. That was until Covid happened, and with it being a dealership team it didn't make sense to keep racing. During that time, dealerships couldn't keep bikes on the floor, service was two months out, and we were selling parts like crazy. The goal of the team was to promote the dealership. We were spending half a million dollars a year to promote a dealership that couldn't keep up with its already established business. It was out of control. Bikes couldn't be put on the floor because they were sold before they got there. He reached a point where it didn't make sense to go racing when we couldn't keep up at the dealership. 

Vital MX: Did you want to step away from racing?

Jensen: I'm a racer at heart. I love racing, the excitement, and it's what drives me. At Loretta's that year, I talked to the guys at Star about them moving to Georgia. So, I called, and they needed a guy for Christian Craig at the time, and I thought that sounded good. Going into that 2022 season, Brad called and said that Seth Rarick, who was the Team Manager, was leaving, and we talked about guys who could possibly fill the spot. The next day, he called and said, "I didn't want to tell you yesterday because I needed to convince Bobby (Regan), but I want you to be the Team Manager."  I had concerns, but he told me he and Jeremy Coker would help me, and I'd be fine. I said, "Ok," and here I am three years later. 

Vital MX: It would be easy to discuss the positive aspects of being on a team like Star versus a satellite team like JMC. Instead, what are some negatives? Being under a magnifying glass and less freedom come to mind. 

Jensen: The negative of being with a team as successful as this is everyone wants to see you lose. Nobody likes us. We have a massive target on our back. Teams that were super successful in the 90s haven't been as successful in the last ten years. They want to beat us, and I get it. Another thing that could be a negative but drives us is that you have to maintain that. Much like a rider who wins the championship, it's even harder the next year. They have to win, and they are expected to. The pressure is totally different. The team wants to be better than the day before. It makes the time fly by. 

Vital MX: With a team the size of Yamaha Star Racing, you deal with many personalities and sometimes need to be a bit of a babysitter. How do you manage that to ensure each personality gets what they need?

Jensen: My father is a Business Management major who does motivational speaking. He jokes he owes all of his success to manual labor because he tried it once and didn't like it. He's a hustler who deals with different types of people every day, and he's taught me a lot. He taught me every person has a different personality and how to deal with that. I may talk to someone who is confrontational totally different than someone who is humbling or needs direction. I'm a soft person and Bobby Regan gives me a hard time about that. He says I may be too nice, but it's how I deal with people and problems. My dad made me watch a motivational speaker once who wrote a book about an open-wheeled car she drove from Portland, Oregon, to New Orleans. Every day, something would happen, and she came up with a saying that applies to everybody's life and every situation, "So what? Now, what?" The quote pertains to dealing with problems. When something happens, you can't change it. It's already happened. It's how you deal with that problem going forward. That's the "Now what" part. What are you going to do now to deal with whatever it is? I try to teach my kids the same thing. I use it every day. It's never-ending, and with eleven riders, there are eleven mechanics, two engine guys, two suspension guys, our trainer Gareth Swanepoel and I've been involved with the 450 side a little since Jeremy Coker left. It's how you deal with situations that make you the person you are.

Vital MX: Talk about the Deegan Effect. He brings not only his talent to the table but a large fan following and media hype, which can create chaos around the team on race day. As a Team Manager, how do you manage it?

Jensen: Haiden was very successful very early on. He brings a massive following; if you walk by our truck on Saturday, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's so bad other teams don't want to park by us because the fan base is incredible in front of the truck. That's all positive for us. I love seeing it because it's great having the fans hooting and hollering. It causes us to stay on our toes and do our best. He's hard on equipment and ensures my engine and chassis guys are doing their best job. Myself, too. I need to make sure he has what he needs to do the best job he can, whether at the races or here at the Farm. He gets a lot of attention, but I wouldn't say more than anyone else. Our job is to cater to all our riders, which can be tough with a team this size, but they all deserve equal attention. We've put things in place because of that. We've never had two full-time suspension guys, but we've hired another to come in to handle the day-to-day service due to the workload we have. That allows one guy to focus on developing and dyno'ing settings and ensuring testing goes smoothly. I've also pulled Trevor Carmichael from the engine department and assigned him as the 250 Crew Chief. In the history of Star Racing, we've never had an active Crew Chief, but it allows us to better manage the mechanics, pay more attention to the motorcycles, and make sure everything is done the exact same way to the motorcycles every time. This will sound crazy, but I personally do every electrical item on our race and practice motorcycles that needs modifying. That way, only one person is doing it, and if there is a problem, there is no question of whether this mechanic did it differently than that one. You can trace it back to me, and I can better manage it if a problem needs to be addressed. Moving forward, Trevor will be doing that.