One-Way Ticket

SPORT JDR TEAM USA

SPORT JDR TEAM USA

ONE-WAY

TICKET Australia’s first AMA MX/SX team set their sights on the most prestigious target in the sport.

JASON WEIGANDT

T

he Arizona desert is not a place to be stranded. Outside of the city limits of Phoenix, Las Vegas sits six hours north, and Los Angeles six hours west. Between that, there really isn’t much of anything. But to the Australianowned JDR J-Star KTM team, this little desert trip is just a small part of a much greater journey – and this desert doesn’t really seem so big.

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SIMON CUDBY, STEVE COX

After all, just four years ago, this team didn’t even exist.

And now they’re running a full operation in both Australia and the US, complete with a shop, personnel, a de rigueur bigrig, and riders gunning for AMA Monster Energy Supercross main events.

That an Australian team exists in America is amazing. The fact that it’s the JDR team – in only its fourth season of racing – is even wilder.

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SPORT JDR TEAM USA

It’s a big leap from your HiAce Hilton to a transporter this size, but this is the only game they play in AMA.

Ryan Marmont turned heads during a couple of sample races and now looks likely to stay Stateside for the season.

THE DREAM This whole plan doesn’t seem quite so implausable once you meet the ambitious young man behind it.

From the moment you first speak with 21-year-old Jay Rynenberg, you find him outspoken, articulate and focused – and also very comfortable in such a radically new environment.

Like a racer, you have to believe you can do it before you actually can, and Jay definitely believes.

The passion for the sport drives him. And when you’re passionate about motocross in Australia, you always have an eye on the US scene.

“I was a racer growing up and, like every Australian kid, wanted to go to America to compete,” Rynenberg explains. “But I was a very horrible motocross racer, and there was no way I was going to end up riding there. So my racing days ended, and we started a small team back home.”

The “we” is Jay and his father, Derek, which forms the J and D to go along with the Racing part of the team name. Derek made a small fortune selling commercial fencing, especially when he expanded the company just in time for the Sydney Olympics.

The family also ran a shop called MX Rad, so they went racing to support the store. The first year effort, on private Yamahas, could have easily fallen on its face, but in came one of the legends of Australian motocross, Andrew ‘Sharky’ McFarlane.

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The Rynenbergs were working with a man named Brendon Radford at their shop. He was well connected within the industry and hooked the team up with McFarlane.

“When he went back to Australia, Andrew could have ridden for anyone he wanted,” says Rynenberg. “To this day, I really don’t know why he signed with us. I guess he just believed in

“For ’09, we bought and custom-built the semi, but it was three days late being finished, so we initially had to use a box van with five riders working out of it. But we won our very first race – we won Open-class races in our first shot! That got us from nothing to 100 percent in two seconds flat. And that’s mostly because of Andrew.”

With these wins, the team’s

“From the moment you first speak with 21-year-old Jay Rynenberg, you find him outspoken, articulate and focused.” us and what we wanted to do. From there, it just snowballed.”

SHARK BAIT McFarlane was more than just a hired racer. His experience racing all over the world, including successful stints in Europe’s GP scene and in the US, allowed him to contribute on many levels. “He was more than just a rider,” says Rynenberg. “He came on when we literally had nothing.

He helped us bring the sponsors on board, he helped design the graphics.

He helped in every single facet of how the team was able to do what it did.”

And McFarlane was still fast. After a learning year in 2008, he picked up the pace considerably in 2009.

credibility skyrocketed. By the end of the year, they had signed to become Australia’s KTM factory team for 2010 – Team JDR Motorex KTM was born. And McFarlane’s name gave them the credentials to pick up other fast Aussies, like Ryan Marmont. Rynenberg also got to meet with the KTM bosses over in Austria. And that’s when he hatched his plan to race in the US.

ORANGE FEVER To do what Rynenberg did takes either amazing courage and conviction, or just plain ignorance.

Apparently, it was the former. “When I first went to KTM, I thought they would be idiots not to support us,” he

THE McFARLANE FACTOR Andrew McFarlane’s tragic death in a practice crash at Broadford, Victoria, last year has left a gaping hole in the sport – and a huge one on the team he rode for, JDR KTM. Team Owner, Jay Rynenberg, explains.

Jay, you had plans for Andrew McFarlane to run this team once he retired from racing?

JR: In 2010, Andrew was going to race the outdoor series, and then he was going to bow out of racing and manage the team in Australia so we could focus on this US effort. He had five races left as a rider.

That’s just so heartbreaking.

What did he mean to this team?

JR: Before he came along, we had

absolutely zero credibility in motocross.

We didn’t have any product sponsors, but Andrew came on board and that all changed – it gave everyone else a little more faith in us. Could we have done this without him?

Absolutely not, no.

How will the teams’ management be structured now?

JR: I ended up managing the team for Super X, and the whole time we were looking for someone to fill that position. Andrew was so incredibly perfect for the job. Because it was such a logical choice, it didn’t dawn on us how hard it would be to find someone to fill that spot until we lost him. Now we have hired Danny Ham to run the team in Oz, and I will stay here in the US full-time.

Was Andrew involved with the US side?

JR: It was all starting to fall into place when he was still around. I would come to the US and tell him whom I talked to. He had spent time here so he knew who I should listen to and who should be avoided. He was a huge help then and would have continued to be.

What kind of guy was he?

JR: He was just an incredible person, and an incredible personality. He was the type of guy who, even if he didn’t have to, he would come over our house and exchange ideas all night long. He was so into this whole thing. JDR Motorsports was as much Andrew’s as mine, and he had a dream to come to the States and make this work just as much as I did.

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SPORT JDR TEAM USA explains of his USA goals. And they agreed, because a three-year deal with factory support in the US was signed. It wasn’t quite that simple a year ago, though, when Rynenberg was still launching his US idea. He travelled to California in January, 2010, and visited the KTM race shop in the USA. He didn’t know anyone, so he simply knocked on the door and introduced himself.

He met experienced KTM engine builder, Leighton Rice, and began talking about building a US team.

Rice recommended Rynenberg look up Nathan Ramsey, a former factory KTM racer and AMA Lites SX Champion. “I heard the buzz about some guys that had a team in Australia that were looking to put a deal together here,” said Ramsey.

“Jay contacted me, and we started talking about some things. He told me what his next few steps would be, and that he would be talking to me again in a few months. At that point I was just waiting for it to happen or not happen, and then he called me back a few months later, and he’d done all the things he said he’d do. Then a few months later, he’d bought a race shop, a truck, and was in position to offer me a job.”

Ramsey was most impressed with the Rynenberg family, saying they were solid people who he had a feeling would make a great fit for him. To further improve the team’s footing, Rynenberg hired technician Vince Berrini, who had been working at the potent Monster Energy Pro Circuit Kawasaki squad.

“Vince told me that to leave the

SPORT JDR TEAM USA Aussie Tye Simmonds gets his AMA season breakthough with a 15th-placed finish in Los Angeles.

MDK was formed by American multimillionaire Mark Kvamme, who makes money starting and selling technology companies, but also has a passion for racing. When he lost significant worth in the recession, he had to shut his team down. JDR snapped up the old MDK truck and shop at a rock-bottom price.

“The economic downturn was horrible for the industry, but the

“They do not have the budget to hire Stewart or Reed yet, but Simmonds could potentially be one of those riders down the road.” best team in the pits, he needed to believe in us 200 percent,” explains Rynenberg. “I told him where we were going, and that I had Nathan on board, so we seemed legit.”

THE PRICE IS RIGHT

The US racing industry has been hit hard by the global economic recession – meaning JDR could get in when prices were low. They found the remnants of the old MDK Motorsports team, which ran KTM’s factory US effort in 2008, for sale.

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Australian dollar is the same as the American right now, which is great for us,” explains Rynenberg. “Strong wind shakes the trees and knocks off the dead leaves a little, so I guess we just walked in and picked up some of those leaves.” It was as simple as that. “We’ve got the MDK shop, their dyno, their toolboxes, their truck,” Rynenberg continues. “It was a turnkey operation. We just renovated it and put JDR all through it.”

But visitors to premises wouldn’t even recognise the place, as the entire shop was gutted and replaced with

new equipment. Additional funding rolled in via title sponsor J-Star Motors, a luxury car shop in Southern California. Ramsey is a close friend with owner Jared Merrell, a major motocross enthusiast.

The new team is making sure they go about this new effort the right way – and thanks to MDK’s fire-sale and J-Star’s support, they had some extra budget room, too.

THE BIKES WON’T RIDE THEMSELVES They do not have the budget to hire James Stewart or Chad Reed yet, though. But 18-year-old Australian Tye Simmonds, could potentially be one of those riders down the road.

From the Outback town of Bourke to the spotlight of Anaheim, it’s a long, fast growth process for Simmonds.

To make matters tougher, he’s already grown too big to race a 250, so he’s had to jump right into the deep-end of the Supercross class on a 350SX-F. At the moment it’s nearly too much to digest, and Simmonds struggled to make the Supercross main event at the opening two rounds of the season. Disappointed but determined to do better, he qualified at Round 3 and got home in a respectable 15th and showed he was more than

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT Nathan Ramsey, the 1999 AMA 125cc West SX Champion, is team manager for the JDR J-Star team in the US – his first foray into such a position. What’s the transition been like for him?

So, Nate, have there been crazy moments trying to pull this off?

NR: Oh yeah! One thing I’ve heard is that, if it’s your first year or your tenth year, there are always crazy moments. We have had ours, but the whole structure thing we have here, with Vince Berrini, our crew chief, means we always have a solution.

With Berrini handling the bikes, you work mainly with the riders. How have

things gone for Tye Simmonds?

NR: I have to try to put myself in his place. I think he’s the youngest guy in the Supercross class. And he’s coming from a completely different way of life – it’s out there even compared to most people from Australia. He’s a mature 18-year-old, but he’s still 18, so his brain function isn’t the same as mine. Every week we work on stuff, very basic stuff, but stuff every rider has to work on. And along with all that, he’s trying to digest this whole situation.

How much of working with him is off the track logistics, such as driving licences and visa and that sort of stuff?

NR: His mechanic, Craig Behl, and his wife, have really helped on a lot of these things – helping him get his work visa, insurance, and an apartment was essential. If we had said to Tye, ‘Hey, good luck. We’ll see you at Anaheim 1,’ then we would have been in deep trouble!

And he finally made a main event in LA! NR: Yeah, we knew he could. It’s a tough situation at the beginning of the season.

There are so many good guys in the class and only 20 make the show. After not making the main at the first two rounds, we knew Tye’d get there. Our job was to ensure he didn’t get discouraged along the way.

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SPORT JDR TEAM USA capable. New Team JDR signing, Dan Reardon, planned on riding a few AMA Supercross races, but the Aussie, who had ridden in the US fulltime since 2008, tore the meniscus in his knee a few weeks before Anaheim and wasn’t able to even make the starting line.

The bright spot has come from Ryan Marmont, who is racing on the same 250 he raced the entire outdoor series in 2010. With such an old bike, the newcomer to AMA Supercross had the odds stacked against him, but he rode strong, made the main events, and delivered 14th and 17th place finishes. He then posted a very impressive seventh at Round 3, after qualifying though the LCQ. The team’s sole American rider is PJ Larsen. Larsen was an amateur star, claiming the 2008 AMA Horizon Award. He pulled off decent finishes in his rookie Pro season in 2009, but when economics forced most Lites teams to eliminate salaries for their riders, Larsen went looking for other options. He hooked up with JDR to ride Downunder, and promptly delivered the KTM team the Litesclass titles in both the Motocross Championship and Super X series.

“PJ was my favorite rider as an amateur because I love the number 27,” explains Rynenberg. “We had a personal trainer who knew him and hooked us up with him. He came over and raced Brisbane on our Yamaha and finished sixth. It was solid, but everyone was, ‘Why the hell are you going to sign him?’ Well, we did and he won a shitload of races for us. We’re glad he’s coming back over with us.”

It was the allure of heading home that sealed the deal for PJ. “When they hired me, they were

PJ Larsen returns home to America after winning the Australian Super X title in controversial circumstances.

“The team’s sole American rider is PJ Larsen – the guy who won both the 2010 MX Nats and Super X Lites titles for Team JDR in Oz.” looking at that being their goal, having a US team,” said Larsen. “So in all reality I kind of came over here to get adjusted to them and to get ready to move back to the USA. It’s been a great opportunity to come over to Australia – I’ve learned so many things and met so many great people. But at the same time I can’t wait to get home, I am getting kind

of homesick. It’s definitely going to be good. They will have two teams, and I think they’re going about it the right way.”

Two teams? Oh yes, JDR will hold it down in Australia with a separate team, including Reardon, Marmont and, ironically, Jake Moss – the rider who Larsen upstaged for the Super X Lites crown after a controversial

series finale in Brisbane.

Rynenberg has hired veteran racer Danny Ham to manage the Australian team for 2011, leaving him to stay in the US and watch his new team grow. The real goal is to market the team to a successful corporate sponsor, and gain enough money to go after a big-name rider.

“All the pieces of the puzzle have to fit before you can win,” says Rynenberg. “But I think we have three solid areas – we have factory backing, financial support and great people on the team. Now we just need a good corporate sponsor to come on board and show their support both for us and the sport.”

CHANCES OF SURVIVAL Many teams have taken a shot at AMA MX and SX glory, but very few have survived.

Mark Kvamme, a multi-millionare venture capitalist from California’s Silicon Valley, had a passion for motocross and quickly built a privateer powerhouse. It worked very well – MDK’s Nick Wey and David Vuillemin scored supercross podiums on their privateer Hondas, and the team took over the factory KTM effort for 2008. They made a retail shop out of the racing investment, creating MDK Speed Equipment and tuning bikes. But Wey’s results on the orange bikes went south, and then Kvamme lost a ton of money in the global stock crash. His advisors told him to get out of the racing business. JDR purchased the old MDK shop

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and truck for their new effort.

There are examples of private teams succeeding, though. Mitch Payton’s Pro Circuit brand is a motocross empire, now with help from Monster Energy. Suspension company Factory Connection has become Honda’s factory Lites effort, with backing from GEICO insurance. But these teams are backed by companies with product to sell, so even if the team loses money, the business can justify it as an advertising tool. Very few of the teams, like JDR, who are not based on an existing dealership or aftermarket company, have survived.

There is one good example. Bobby Reagan started Team Star Racing Yamaha in 1998, and 10 years later became Yamaha’s official

factory 250 effort. DNA Shred Stix and Energy Drink provide some money. Surely JDR would like a similar outcome and become KTM’s factory 250 squad, attract an outside sponsor, and sign a major talent?

“The team in Australia is completely selfsufficient, so this team won’t ruin that,” says Jay Rynenberg. “But this is a huge financial risk for me and my family, and the economy being so bad doesn’t help. There aren’t a lot of big corporations outside of motocross looking to dump a whole bunch of money into the sport. So for us, it comes down to a huge marketing undertaking to try to get those dollars to come in for season 2012. Then we can attract bigger riders and focus on winning races.”