American-based contributor Steve Matthes shares his thoughts on JDR Motorsports in the AMA.

Everything I knew about the JDR KTM before the season started could probably have fit on the inside of a bun on a cheeseburger. Seriously, I had no idea who these guys were and what they were doing in AMA supercross and motocross.

I heard that there was this mystery KTM team coming, but to be honest, if I had a dollar for every time I heard a new team was coming in and they were going to be top-notch, I’d have…well, a lot of money. This is nothing new in our sport over here.

But then things got interesting when the rumor mill churned out that the team was indeed for real, they got the old MDK semi-truck, support from KTM and made a couple of hires that signified they were legit.

The owners of the team hired long-time pro rider Nathan Ramsey to be team manager and Vince Bereni as crew chief. Both guys had been doing their thing here in America for a while, Ramsey had just retired from a strong career and Bereni was working at Pro Circuit on the race team as a mechanic.

I first met Vince when I was working as a mechanic at Red Bull KTM early in this decade and he was working for a French KTM guy (whose name escapes me at the moment). Vince was over here on a working vacation. He’s good, people, and smart.

Ramsey was different from your average star rider that doesn’t even know how to make plane flights. He had toiled in the trenches for a long time as a privateer and sort of self-made himself into a rider that won a regional supercross title as well as a 450 supercross at Pontiac, Michigan all those years ago.

Ramsey, one of the good guys in the sport, was going to manage an effort of riders Tye Simmonds, PJ Larsen (an American who once was highly touted and had to go back to Aussie to get his mojo back).

And then there was a cameo from Ryan Marmont, whose brother Jay was a factory KTM rider few years back when he wasn’t laid up in plaster, and Dan Reardon for a few races.

So how are they doing here? Well, I’d say the results so far are mixed. The team certainly looks professional, they have a nice looking operation and the pits are good, but the most important thing, you know, is how you place on the track. That is the thing that’s biting them a bit.

Let’s start with Simmonds. I’m not saying the guy’s been bad, I mean crikey (you like that?) for your first year of racing American supercross to go out there and qualify for half of the 16 main events is definitely something to be proud of.

Unfortunately Simmonds’ best finish was at the last round at Las Vegas when no one really cares about the results – we’re all watching the championship battles.

Tye, who apparently is only a kid but yet can grow a beard and is huge, did well for a first effort and even more so when you think about how a guy his size was put on a 350.

Again, there’s been good solid finishes for Simmonds (who sits in 16th after four rounds in motocross after he missed Budds Creek altogether due to sickness), and Tye would be a good guy to have as your second rider – the type of rider to learn all about this American stuff.

Larsen was really looking good in practice at the first round of the east coast 250 series, like really looking good. Like, maybe top five good when he collided with a Stewart in the first lap of the main and that was it, he never really recovered from that. A few good rides, a few more injuries and currently, he’s on the sidelines.

Larsen can be a good solid 250 guy, no doubt about it and it’s too late to pull the plug on him like the American teams seemed to do. He’s just got to stay healthy, which goes for every rider in the pits other than James Stewart and Chad Reed because they own their own teams and are in no danger of being fired anytime soon. At least one wouldn’t think so…

Things like missing the San Diego round altogether because of injuries is a tough thing to do, especially if you have a major paying sponsor, which the JDR team does not have right now.

The parking in supercross is based on your points and you have to have the solid riders, the name guys, to get any recognition for your team. That’s where JDR team is right now. What do they want to be? A feeder team for young Aussies to learn the American racing game or a team that’s in there week after week looking for top 10s and maybe even bigger things?

And I say this not knowing anything about the finances behind the team. Maybe the owners are loaded and don’t care one bit about getting better and attracting more dollars for sponsorships. Maybe they just want to be a primary-Aussie team while they literally burn through dollars. I’m not sure.

By the way, no offence to the owners, but they piss me off. Because why can’t there be Canadians who are loaded and want to start an American racing team? (Editor’s note, our mate Matthes is Canadian!).

That would be awesome and incredible for my home country! We could finally maybe have some riders who do something on the toughest circuit in the world. Not since the mighty Jean Sebastian Roy quit racing in America in 2001 have Canadians had anyone to be proud of.

The rich Canadians don’t even want to start teams in their own country, never mind in America. So in short, god-bless the JDR guys. If I was an Aussie moto fan, I would send these guys flowers and chocolates every month with a note that emphasizes how grateful I am and to see if they need any help sweeping floors?

I spoke with Ramsey for a bit at Budds Creek and he’s happy with the way things are going and he knows it’s not going to happen overnight. But at the same time, he knows that these riders have to grasp this opportunity that JDR has given them(I don’t know the owners if I ran them over with a forklift to be honest, otherwise I would put their name in here).

I say that because these types of rides, rides with salaries, good equipment, good people and resources behind you, don’t come around every day.

I could go on and on telling you about American teams that looked just like JDR did on the outside but yet had nothing there once the curtain was pulled back. There was no testing, there were no salaries, and there wasn’t anything like JDR seems to have.

In short, it’s awesome for the sport to have a team like JDR/J-Star/KTM here and seemingly putting in a solid effort, they just have to get better on the track to get more recognition.

And that, my friends, has always been the hardest part.

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