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1076
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4/1/2008
Location
San Antonio, TX
US
Edited Date/Time
5/2/2021 9:03am
Hate to give the clown his due, but seems Geoff was spot on with his prediction of future KTM dominance in US moto. Believe he made the prediction around the time they hired Dungey. Of course ol' Geoff deservedly sustained a proper beat down from the entire Vitard community, myself included. Winning 6 of the last 7 450 SX Championships, turns out ol' Giff wasn't too far off. Amazing how far the brands come in the last 8-10 years. Hard to deny their success at this point.
Hire the best manager, some of the best riders, the best trainer.
Just to be clear, not shitting on KTM, just the clown you are referencing.
Their 250 effort is still pretty week though.
Is he the guy that makes up interviews/steals them and passes them off as his own?
The Shop
Jiff is the FIM/Luongo’s version of Joseph Goebbels.......
I'm allways wondering why they can't figure out their 250 us effort.
Consumers still do take winning in MX seriously, and that dirt-bike race cred will carry across an entire brand.
Its also significantly lighter than the rest.
Nice job Stefan Pierer. Come a long way from pds and wood screws
The Japanese did not and instead went into defense, and protected their bottom lines. This alone allowed KTM to close the performance gap with the Japanese, which they always trailed, and the have the most relevant products when we came out of the downturn.
Pit Row
Suzuki gone at the top level. HEP Suzuki is far off a proper factory team. Still a good team but not factory, and the bike is not the best. Even if they would be ready to sign a top level SX rider (Anstie is top outdoors), it's gonna be difficult to attract a rider because of the bike.
Kawasaki has two guys and that's it. No satellite teams. But the contingency is class leading so they dominate the privateer market (but that doesn't help Tomac or AC).
Honda has MCR and Muc-Off Honda, so they're ok i guess. But only Brayton's bike comes even close to factory level and he is probably retiring soon.
Yamaha. Well at least they have three 450 riders. No support teams.
In AMA KTM was limping a lot with aquisition of Alessi, etc. until they got Roger but in 250 they still got TLD squad with shitty luck and amateurs turning to be not so great... KTM needs a better amateur program with inhouse factory 250 effort imho. So far they are running away with being able to buy talent in 450 but it might not work out in the future.
KTM’s have always been plenty fast. I had one back in the mid to late 80s, way before they were cool, or very good, but hell it could holeshot.
Even in the 90s and early 00s, they often had the highest hp figures. What they lacked though was an overall finish or finesse. They had quality components that didn’t gel together. Awkward ergo dynamics, suspect suspension and bits that broke often. How’d they fix that and become the industry leader in 10 years or so?
Self belief and a huge investment and commitment to back themselves. Someone on the KTM board had big balls and it paid off.
That pre-season, Dungey had a photograph of him taken standing next to the bike holding what looked like Happy Birthday balloons, as if to say, "Look at my amazing new present." Roczen wasn't allowed to ride the prototype because he'd adamantly told Roger he would never re-sign with them, and that, my friends, might have been the biggest mistake of Roczen's life. One can only wonder what might have been, had Rozcen decided to stay. Oh well.
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