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Hats off to Star Racing. They have done, in a little over a year, what Keith and his Gucci Crew could not pull off in the last 8 seasons. There must have been some serious mismanagement coupled with tons of corporate red tape. He has made some real bone head moves while sitting in the top seat. One is not signing McGrath for one last season. McGrath said in a interview, if he would have had one last year, he would have been Yamaha for life. Not to mention you have the current bike that has been winning shootouts just looking like shit on the track.
Glad to see Yamaha finally turning the 450 program around!!!
Arrivederci Keith!!!!
Glad to see Yamaha finally turning the 450 program around!!!
Arrivederci Keith!!!!
Mitch, Ping and a few others have touched multiple times on the fact that once the Japanese make up their minds, they do not stray from that decision.
I feel that stubborn business model got Keith most of the grief from the peanut gallery and riders.
So Star Racing being privately owned makes them somehow immune to corporate Yamaha? Even if what he says is somewhat true, it's on the leading figures in the factory team that they weren't able to do better with what they had and didn't play the political game with corporate Yamaha well enough.
The Shop
That seemed to be the case with Chapparel and L&M, so yeah, makes sense that Regan told corporate that it was his way or nothing.
Yamaha wanted someone to offload it to.
Reagan said “I’ll do it, but I’ll do it my way, just like the 250s”
Yamaha didn’t have many viable options.
Most of his career success was largely in part due to being in the right scenarios at the right time, but not necessarily due to him being a great leader or team manager savant. It was also VERY apparent that he was mostly motivated to climb the Yamaha corporate ladder....which usually means playing the yes-man role. Not being brave enough to ruffle corporate feathers in fear that it could impact his career path was a significant reason why Factory Yamaha was so constrained by the corporate politics. This had a DIRECT link to why things were slow to develop, resulting in Yamaha undoubtedly falling behind some of the competition.
Keith tried to pin most of the team's shortcomings on Yamaha Japan, but when you read between the lines of the interview in what he is saying, it leads to a lot of excuses that are common with poor leadership skills.
I'm not trying to bag on Keith, I think he's an OK dude with a legendary career, but I just don't feel that he was the cat's meow when it came to leading a Factory team.
-Bobby has nothing to do with the actual Factory Yamaha 450 team.
-Keith is to this day the best person I worked for in the industry… By a mile…
Post a reply to: What’s up Keith McCarty!!!