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A pulp MX Network production. A cerebral and experienced look into the racing action from the week that was this is Industry Seating with Jason Thomas Presented by Guts Racing Works Connection, TL Speed Shop Unmatched Supplements, Firepower Parts, Grandstone Boots and Fly Racing welcome to the Industry Seating podcast. My name is Jason Thomas. I'm coming to you from parts unknown on vacation this week but it gives me a lot of time to do things that I like to do that aren't so necessarily work related like this podcast and this week we're going to talk about a few topics that some current event stuff a little bit meandering through topics not necessarily like race related, not all that much results based but things like the Kawasaki second 450 spot which we kind of finally have resolution on. Some thoughts I have on Tomac's coming move to ktm. I know there's been a lot of conjecture about is he going to go to Cali. That was not a thing. He is going to KTM and has been going to KTM for a long time. I want to talk about Sexton and his overall situation, what I think about this Kawasaki move and just kind of where he's at career wise and otherwise. And Deegan's 450 News, I want to kind of talk about that, what he's planning for 20266 from how I see it, how I could see that going good or bad and finally some Jorge Prado talk because why not? That's what we do. Before we jump into those though, I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Guts Racing Works Connection Unmatched Supplements, Grantstone Boots, Fly Racing, Firepower Parts and I feel like I'm missing somebody but maybe not. I don't have my notes right in front of me but thank you to all the sponsors of course could not do it without all of them and yeah it's been a fairly quiet offseason I'd have to say nothing too necessarily crazy going on and that's okay. Like that's part of the off season. That's what these riders have earned. It's. It's absolutely necessary for them to have a positive and productive following season is to have a good off season. Like that's just, that's just how it works. So oh I miss TL Speed Shop. What an idiot. TL Speed Shop and of course race-rentals.com thank you to Jason Cobb and his team. I don't know how I missed that anyway. But yeah, I mean this it's just a natural cycle and for you Know most of you are long time fans. You get it, what's coming though. And I kind of, you know, the Paris or excuse me, the Australian races are happening. Congrats to Dean Wilson. He's won both weekends so far after some drama this past weekend. But outside of Australia, there's not a lot happening in the racing world right now. It's, it's arguably these next couple of weeks, late October, early November are the quietest periods because the superstars are using this time off and we're going to get into, you know, the WSX stuff. You know, the guys like Tomac and Deegan and Rocksen and these guys go make a ton of money at their full cash grab events, make no mistake. But I mean, who can blame them? My entire off season back in the day was chock full of cash grab type races. So who am I to judge, you know, even though they're at odds with, you know, Monster Supercross and SMX as an entity, which of course I, there should be no debate on which side of that argument I'm on. As I work for and on the broadcast team for smx, I cannot with good conscience blame these riders for going. I would probably go if I was racing, you know, take myself back 15 years ago. I probably, probably am one of these guys that's going to be in Argentina and Australia and wherever they happen to go. I think there's one in Cape Town maybe this year. I don't know, I don't follow it super closely as you can tell. But anyway, the point is this is kind of the quiet time and some guys are testing, some guys aren't. And the reason you'd be testing. I've been writing about this a little bit on Racerhead and other places. You have to basically test to get plugged in parts built by the oem, right? Like there's a narrow range of things that the teams are going to order and this is the time to narrow that list down. Say like Honda. I don't know that Jet and Hunter have really been testing so much. I actually talked to Hunter last night just via dm, just, you know, small talk, whatever. I don't know that they've been testing so much, but a lot of times there is testing going on right now. I think Sexton was testing in California last week. But you have to get a working range of things. You want triple clamps, linkages, engine parts, suspension parts. All these components have to be built by someone, right? So you go through this testing process and find out, okay, I like these Things, these things are just an absolute no, we're never using those. They're way outside of our range of possibilities. So you kind of leave those off the list. But everything else that maybe you would use in a certain set of circumstances, like soft track, rough track, slippery track, deteriorating conditions, mud, like you work through all these scenarios, not that you can replicate them, but you see what's usable. And then they build an order sheet that will go off to their vendors, whether it's the OEM or aftermarket suppliers, and those parts get ordered and that takes time to build. And you need all of those things in place when you show up at Anaheim. That's just how it works. So this testing period is not necessarily, hey, this is going to be our race setup. Like we need to be dialed. It's more of are any of these pieces usable? And of course they are. But it's trying to make a working list of what your range of items across all gamuts across the entire motorcycle will be for the following season. So I hope that came across as I intended. But it is an important time and you're hoping the goal for whatever team you may be on, like, you know, Cowie is Brock Tickle, Honda's Trey Canard. I know some, some teams don't have a specific guy, but you want them to really narrow that list so it takes load off of the race riders. You don't want that to be a arduous process, that they're just endless items they have to try. That just takes too much time and it defeats the purpose of an off season. Like, you basically eliminate the off season in that scenario because you have too many things for them to do. So you want a great test rider like Tenard is, and he has a very good understanding of what those guys like. Therefore he can build a list of possibilities around that. And what also helps a ton and is if you don't have a big change, like a bike change from year to year, right? So Honda's bike is going to be the same. Kawasaki's bike is going to be the same. KTM's bike is going to be the same. All those things very much help because you don't have to start from scratch like Honda, Honda last year, you could see it go back to A1. Look at A1 and look how off they were. Look at how bad. If you slow mo and look at like Jet and Hunter's bikes in certain sections of the racetrack, they were completely lost on setup and they worked through it. They got better. Kudos to the team for really putting in hours and effort and finding solutions and the riders giving good direction. But they were way off. And that was pretty obvious to everyone watching, especially if you know what to watch for. They had. They couldn't ride the bikes right to their potential of what they're capable of. They were nowhere near what they should be doing right. I think. I think both of them were like outside the top 10. Like 11:12, if I'm not mistaken. That's incredible. When you look at the trajectory of their season, think about what that means. Think about how far off they were to be. 1112. And I know Jet crashed in the first lap. I understand all that. But still, like, look at. Look at jet at St. Louis coming from last and getting fourth. The difference from that to Anaheim, that's kind of what I'm getting at. So you want to. It's really nice to have continuity in your motorcycle because you avoid potential situations like Anaheim one. That's really the point. Okay, so talk through a few of these things. Garrett Marchbanks is going to be the second 450 Cali guy. We haven't. We. That's not official. We don't. Don't have the pr. But I feel confident in it enough to say it here. You know, you've seen Steve Mathis tweet it. I'm in a million group texts. So a lot of times Steve will get information. And I'm not like a newsbreaker. He. Everything that I'm going to say here, Steve has probably already tweeted the headline of and it's just not the game I want to play. Like, I'm not a. I'm not a headline maker as far as news goes. I don't want to be that guy. It's not my role. What I like to do is take the news and then analyze it and give my take on what that actually means. What is going to happen because of that news? What should you expect to see as the casual or very dedicated viewer and fan of the sport? That's what's fun to me. I'll leave the news cycle stuff to other people. That's what they're very good at. They chase news stories all the time and do the research. That's fine. Good for them. It's just not what I'm interested in. So marchbank's news is already broken as far as unofficially, from what I understand, Cameron McAdoo was in consideration. He tested the bike, but they didn't go that direction. And I don't think that Cam wanted to go that direction in the end. Now, was that the end all, be all reason it didn't happen? I can't say. But I do believe that Cam did not want to go down that route. And you may be asking yourself why that sounds crazy. Why would he not want a full factory cowie 450 spot? And that's a fair take. Like, I get it. I understand why you would say that and I certainly can empathize with that opinion. This is really the reason. Okay. Cam is one of the highest paid 250 guys, and if it's strictly from the team side, he probably is the highest paid 250 guy. Now it gets murky with some of this stuff because, like, Shimoda has his own gear deal. Deegan is going to have a hybrid deal. So he's going to be extremely highly paid in 250e supercross, if that's what he does. So it does get murky that way. But if you're looking strictly at what does the team write a check for, then McAdoo is right at the top. If he's not one, he's, he's right there with those other guys and there are reasons for that. When he signed, he was winning a lot of races in the title fight and it made sense. So he's going in his second year of that deal. And we all know last year was not great, right? Injured most of the year and really not what anybody would have hoped for. But at the time, I understand why he would have been paid that. Because he's. Mitch is paying the guy to win and guys that can win are going to be in demand, like teams I'm sure were pursuing him. It's not like, even though Mitch does love McAdoo, he is a big, big, big Cameron McAdoo fan, as am I. So that's important in this scenario. That is important. But Mitch isn't going to write a huge check just because he's like, yeah, man, cool. I want to give you all the money, you know, like, no, it still, it still comes down to demand, right? If Mitch could get away with paying McAdoo 100 grand less. And I think Cameron's. This is, this is speculation, so don't shoot me. And I'm not trying to, but I think he's in like the 350k range for people that are interested in that kind of thing. Okay. If Mitch could get away with paying him to 25 and Cameron was happy with 225, I mean, Mitch would do that, right? Like, he's not out to like hurt Cameron's financial future. But it's also like there are budget concerns and 125 grand to apply to other things, team wise, staff wise. Maybe he could get another rider. Like the March Banks thing, perfect example. The March Banks thing would have been much easier to get done. Remember how long that lasted? Like he was getting podiums and outdoors and they still couldn't get the deal done. They didn't have the money to pay him. And Mitch, I think Mitch was going to end up paying himself. But Cowie didn't have the budget to pay Marchbanks, which I think he wanted like 200 grand or something like that. Think about how easy it would have been to get done had the team had another 125 grand or 150 grand to work with if they didn't pay Macadoo that well. That's all ancient history. But I'm saying that's how. That's where it matters. That's why Mitch wouldn't be like, yeah, just give it to him anyway. I don't care if, if the market, if we're like way overpaying him, just give it to him. Like, that's not how it works. Even if they want to because of situations. I just told you where they couldn't get March Banks done. It would have made life so easy to get the March Banks thing done this summer in a different way of that. So for McAdoo, the reason he didn't want to take the 450 spot is a circling back. He. He was very highly paid and is very highly paid on the 250. Okay. He gets really good bonus money in the 250 class to win. And look at the landscape for 26 Deegan, we don't know. But I would say McAdoo will likely be on an opposite coast of Deegs. I would say that McAdoo probably is on the west because he's had so much time off to prepare. So McAdoo goes west. Who's there to win? Vial's gone, Hampshire's gone. Deegan gone. Like, the door is open. Really. Right. Like, we know Davies will be great. Davies will probably be west. Jaime should be really good. There will be good guys. Don't get me wrong. Jordan Smith, another guy, they'll be gone. He's going for 50. So the point is the door is wide open and McAdoo knows that. Now you're taking March Banks out of it also, which I'm not saying Mark Marchbanks was winning, but he's Going to be good. The door is open. Is that is a the point and it is a very big point because for McAdoo it's like 50 grand a minimum to win a race. Okay so figure all in. It's probably more like 60, 70 when you add in track money, you know, any individual sponsor bonuses. So let's say 60. Let's say 60k, it's fair. All in. Figure if McAdoo's healthy and he's betting on himself, why wouldn't he, he's healthy. Let's say he wins two races. Okay, we don't even know if. I don't, I don't know if Bomar is racing or not. That's another guy that could be out race winning guy in 25. So to further my point of how open the door is, this is what McAdoo is thinking about. Let's say he wins two races, that's another 120k. Now he's up to 470 and of course he's going to think about championship. That's, that is, this is the biggest aspect of this conversation is championship potential. If McAdoo wins a championship, which I don't know if he will or won't, can or can't. Right. Injuries have, inconsistency have been a problem for Cameron McAdoo, that is an unarguable point, full stop. But if he did, that's another at least, at least 500k for McAdoo. Okay, so now you're pushing a million dollars and let's say if he did win a championship he's going to make more than, he's going to win more than two races and figure it. To win a championship you've got to get podiums because a podium. If McAdoo is healthy in 26, he will be on the podium most of the time and that's 30 to 35k all in for second and let's say 15k all in for third at minimum. Okay, minimum, maybe 20k for third. It just depends on how the deal structured. So you can see how the money adds up really quickly and you're talking about eight or nine races of potential for that. Let's say he's on the podium every single time, which won't happen probably. Let's say it's five podiums, two wins, two seconds and a third and two thirds. I'm going to say six out of eight or nine because I think he will be that good. You can see how quickly the money adds up and it doesn't matter Specific dollars because we're all, we're guesstimating anyway. But you see where the potential dollars add up and why, why Macadoo doesn't. Wouldn't immediately jump at the 450 opportunity. That's it. That, that is in a nutshell, that is why. And I've heard people like speculating like that's crazy. He would network. Yeah, he would because he is betting on the potential upside of himself. And if he does really well, he will either resign for another deal on a 250 for a lot of money. He's in, he's in no danger of pointing out, remember. So he would get another deal for a lot of money, say maybe re up at that 359 number for two more years because Mitch, Mitch does love him. So Mitch isn't in any hurry to get rid of him from what I understand and what I believe. So he has a potential to make a ton of money and really leave his stamp in the 250 class. Now what is, what is the financial side of the 450 deal if he, if he decided to do it? Okay, there are, there are upsides to the 450 deal. It's not like the 450 ride is a terrible option. And if I was Macadoo, how would I go about trying to negotiate the 450 side? Had he entertained that option and it sounded like he tested the 450 so there was some sort of possibility there. Okay. His deal in Kawasaki pays these salaries. His deal is 350. Let's say Cali is like, well, you're already getting paid really well. We're not upping it. So what is Cameron's gear deal worth if he is going to be on his own? 450 deal and let's assume Fox would want to keep him. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. I don't know how that would work. He's probably 150k guy all in on a 450. And because he's unproven, he's been hurt a lot. He's not a like a superstar personality. That's probably what the market would bear.150k on a full factory Kawasaki spot compared to like there's, there's big money for that spot but not for McAdoo. Right. Like it's really late in the cycle so no one has any budget left. That's a huge dynamic part of the dynamic. So he's going to be, we're going to be scraping, everybody would be scraping budget to make an offer to him. And also there's just not a ton of like demand on that front. Like nobody's going to be like, we have to clear budget, we gotta get Macadoo. That's not really a thing right now in the apparel world. I'm just telling you it's not, that's not a slight against McAdoo. That's just the expectation of results for McAdoo. Is he going to be a top 10 guy? Sure, that's fine. Is he going to be healthy the whole time? I don't know. But he's not going to be a podium guy and he's not going to win, not going to do that in the 450 class in 26. So let's say he gets 500k in salary. There's not going to be a lot of bonus opportunity for him. The factory teams don't like to pay outside the top three. Can you finagle it? Maybe some teams are more willing to than others but most teams want to pay top three because that's what gets the camera time and that's what they, they reward excellence. So I don't think there's a huge opportunity. Maybe, maybe they push it to top five or something like that and maybe he gets a few top fives. But even then that's not guarantee. Look at the lineup. You can't guarantee me that McAdoo would get any top fives in 450 supercross. Like you can't. And I'm not saying he wouldn't either. I'm just saying there's no possible way you can guarantee me that with the lineup we're going to be facing. So there isn't a huge upside in earnings potential past that. And that, that to me and that's, that's all what it's all about. McAdoo feels like he can make 500k on the 250 with pretty good certainty. Okay. Like pretty solid chance he makes that on the 450. He's guaranteed it. But what's possible past that is the game for McAdoo. There's another half a million to 750k on the table for a really strong season. If he does it in the 450, I would say more realistic is somewhere like another 100k in earnings and maybe some more sponsor deals maybe like so it's really where's the upside type thing in this play. I would say also, you know, if I'm McAdoo and I have this cowie thing, I probably want a two year deal. Like, hey, you got to extend me another year if you're going to push me to the 450 when I'm not ready for it yet. And that's arguable point. I don't want a one year deal and then be looking around with nothing in 27. Like that's not fair. I don't know that Cali would offer that or not. I don't know that Kawi would lock him in. And maybe they could do it where it's structured. Hey, if it doesn't go that well, we can put you back down in the 227, which I think they would be up for that. Maybe there was some sort of angle to be played there, but McAdoo in its purest form isn't going to want to be on the outside looking in at the end of 26 with no deal and a so so 450 year. And I'm going to tie this into Vow because this is a very big reason why Vow went back to Europe because of this whole dynamic. And I really broke this down in July of this, this year. I walked around the Notre Dame campus and talked about vow for 45 minutes of this exact situation. And you don't want to put yourself in a do or die year in your first year in the 450 with no contract security on the backside of it. That is a losing play and that is. That cannot be stressed enough how important that is for your career job security to position yourself accordingly. Going into the 450 class and for V, it was the worst setup ever. He's not a good whoops rider. He's. He would get his butt kicked in that aspect of 450 supercross. He's a good starter, he's good in the corners, he's average in the rhythm sections. I would say maybe below average of the elite and way below average of the elite for whoop speed. That doesn't equal success in the 450 class. You have to be excellent or way above average in the corners and like have like incredible racecraft like a guy like Webb and then be average in the loops. I would say Webb is average in the whoops. He's not great. He's not even close to the top guys. But he's average. He's okay. He can, he can make it work. He just, he's not going to win races because of his whoop blitzing ability. We know that. Okay. VL's nowhere close to that. Like web is much better than V out in the whoops and I know that sounds crazy, but just trust me when I tell you that's, that's the truth. Vow a 250 in Supercross blitzing loops is pretty easy. And I say that on a relative basis. 250s handle much better than 450s ever will because of the weight and maneuverability and the less, less inertia. And there's a lot of physics involved. If VL can't blitz whoops really well in 250 that's going to get worse on a 450, much worse. So for Vow, he was looking at this situation going okay, so I'm going to have to move up because he pointed out championship wise I'm not going to do that well in 450 Supercross. I think that's a fair assumption. It's one I would make publicly. And then what? Then what? Where are you going to go? In 27 there are no teams that are going to be like beating your door down. And this opportunity that he had to go to Honda would have been filled by somebody else with a two year deal. So he did the prudent thing. He went back to Europe for €750,000 apparently per year. And he has this opportunity for Honda HRC to build around him for the long term in Europe and him make a ton of money and have job security. I think he did the right thing. I think this is the same exact situation as McAdoo in America on Cali. He would go ride that this year, make good money. I think he would have a higher upside than VL in the 450 but it wouldn't be a whites out year. And then he, he would be kind of fishing around for a ride again unless you want to move back down. That, that's the tough part of this whole, whole dynamic. So in the end, did McAdoo do the right thing or not? I don't know. That's for him to decide. But I certainly understand why he did it. He wants to win races and fight for a championship in the 250 class and then if he does that, he will make his move to the 450 class in due time. And also you got to think about like some of these guys are going to be leaving when he would make that move. The Rocksons, Tomax, some of these guys are going to retire. You know, I don't know how much longer Webb will be around, at least another year, maybe two. But he's not going to be around forever. These guys are going to start leaving the sport and it will make the job easier for a guy like McAdoo. So that's also a part of this, is biding your time and understanding how this all works, understanding the cycles of this. So you walk into a situation where A, there are more job opportunities and B, your opportunity for good results improve because lack of writers. Like, that's just, you know, like just common sense and common math. Okay, enough on that. Sexton to Kawasaki. We knew this is happening forever, right? Like, this has been a long time coming. And if you'll remember, I said something about the hat going on backwards and a lot of people laughed and I was, it was tongue in cheek some. But I do think there was an underlying message there where Sexton wasn't happy anymore and he didn't really care. Like, it was like his kind of defiance in the moment. Like that that's. He's not going to get fired for doing that. But that is frowned upon. It's not smiled upon doing that move. Like, it's all jokes and fun and games. I would almost guarantee you. And I heard there was, I heard there were emails sent about this. I can't prove that. I don't really care. I'm just telling you, I've been around this sport my whole life. That move is not one that is taken all that lightly. Sponsors teams, you know, like, Red Bull is one of the coolest companies in the world. I don't think they, like, freaked out about it. But if you're KTM or Red Bull, you're not stoked. Like, that's what you're paying for. You're paying for branding on national television with one of your elite athletes in the sport. Okay. Whether they got really angry or not doesn't preclude the point that they didn't love it. And it's, it is a, a very specific move by Sexton to do that. That was not an accident. That was premeditated. And all I wanted to say at the time was there was something going on. There were, there was unhappiness behind the scenes to cause him to do that or at least allow him in his mind to say, you know what? I don't care. I want to wear it backwards. And I don't really care because I'm not happy. Like, that's, that's really it. That's, that's what I believe to be true is his unhappiness. And just trying to think of the right word, malcontent there opened the door for him to do that mentally where he didn't really care about the repercussions anymore because. And this is it. Because he wanted to leave anyway. So if, if cool, fire me. I don't care. I'm leaving any. You know what I mean? That's where it's, that's where it's at. Like, if you've ever seen people like quiet quitting at work or doing things like if somebody wants out of a relationship, they just do really, really ill advised stuff like disrespectful things to their spouse because they don't care. They probably want out anyway. So they really don't care what the punishment is anymore. Like, you can't penalize me because the penalty would probably be what I want anyway is kind of what I'm getting to. So for Sexton, we cowie, I don't know how this is going to go. I don't have any reason to think this is going to be the answer. I don't. You can't tell me that the, the Cali program has been incredible lately. And I don't. I think it's fine. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it's not like him going there is like, man, look how good they've been doing over there. This is going to be the answer. Anderson really hasn't done much Prado. Good God, that. What a disaster. Since a rilla, you know, he's been hurt and whatever. He hasn't done anything either. So I don't know. I would say there are a lot more questions than answers with Sexton going over there. So time will tell. I just, there's no reason for me to think this is a home run, slam dunk type move. Like, why would I ever think that? What proof would I have to think that? With Sexton I saw someone tweet at me and it doesn't matter who, but they said something like, okay, so Reed switches teams, rode for five different teams and blah, blah, blah. And that's cool. But Sexton switches teams and the. It's not. It was, you know, he's taking a shot like saying like, where are we making such a to do about Sexton switching teams? And while these other guys, Chad and Stu and these other people switch teams also. To me, there's a big difference here. When you look at Sexton, he's gone from Honda in 23 to KTM in 2425 and now Cali in 2627, like in succession. And all three of those were unhappiness where it was the driver. That's the point. It was not about opportunity or I got offered a ton more money, which we've seen, like, that happens. This was Sexton really unhappy at the end, making it very well known about his unhappiness at the end and switching teams, thinking the grass is going to be greener on the other side. That is different than, like, let's say Chad, for example. I'll give you what and I'll explain for Chad, okay? He rides for Yamaha from zero, comes over in 02. He had been at Cowie in Europe, right? Comes to America, Yamaha. Troy stays with Yamaha from 02 until April of 08. They signed Stewart and Chad wanted to stay. He didn't want to leave. He was trying to get a raise. He was getting $5 million from San Manuel and Yamaha. He wanted a raise because he won the championship. They told him there was no more money to be had. You remember, we're entering, we're about to go through the great financial crisis. So there were cracks in the system at the moment. And Larry Brooks had James Stewart in his back pocket waiting to sign a contract. And basically Chad had until midnight of like April 29th or whatever to sign this deal. He didn't sign it because Steve asked to fin his agent, who did a great job for Chad for many years. This is not a slight against Steve. I just think maybe if you wanted to say anything, he overplayed his hand and he didn't know about James Stewart, like, waiting in the wings. And you could say that's a miss from Steve. Fine, whatever. I'm not here to debate that. In the end, as soon as Chad didn't sign the deal to re up, they signed James Stewart the next day, period. So when Steve went back, and this is a long time ago, this is how I remember it, Steve went back on Monday and said, hey, we need to figure this out. Like, we need to get this deal done. Like, we're not asking for the world. We just need to see some sort of increase to recognize his success and championship in 08. And Larry said, sorry, man, that deal has expired. We have moved on. And Steve was like, wait, what? Larry, like, told him, like, we have moved on from that situation, that opportunity. It got really ugly from there. And Chad ended up getting a deal done with Rockstar Suzuki to go to Factory Suzuki. And there was a lot of hard conversations. I heard Chad yelling in the other room about this deal because it was a lot of money on the line, a lot of money. That was probably the highest paying ride in the sport at the time. And Chad Just lost that. He was really, really unhappy with how that went. Let me be really upfront with you. He was very unhappy with how that went. So Chad was forced into change on a Suzuki in 09. That's a notable difference from Sexton right there. Okay. He goes to Suzuki. He wins in 09. And I don't really remember what the catalyst was. Oh, they signed Dungy, right? They signed dungy to the 450 spot at the end of 09. And that kind of killed the opportunity. Like, that budget got absorbed by Dungey. And Chad was. He could stay. I think he could stay, but it was going to be like a huge pay cut, which was crazy for Chad because he was on fire at the time. But I think Chad felt disrespected by them giving Dungey all that money and him. Him being, like, in the fight to win the championship all year. Okay, so in comes Cali Monster. And Cali with a huge offer to go to Kawi in 2010. So Chad took that offer to basically keep his pay in line. And also I think he felt a little, again, disrespected by Suzuki. And I don't really remember it that well. I just remember the Cali thing coming along and it was a lot of money. And he's like, nope, I'm going to go this direction, whatever. So he goes there. You could say that's a little bit similar to Sexton, but I don't really think so. Like, from what I remember, it was more of like, they. The team decided to go a different direction than Chad with Suzuki and Cowie, than the rider deciding. So that's a little bit different than the Sexton setup. Anyway, 2010 was a disaster. Chad gets hurt at Phoenix, then he gets Epstein Barr and he has, like, all this. These ailments. Whatever he did, he basically doesn't race all summer. So that crashed and burned. Like, how he left the team, like, that was all a whole different thing than Sexton. It was injuries and illness and everything went really bad. He didn't really jive with the team. So a little bit of shades of Sexton there, but that was more injury and illness than a Sexton thing. And I'm sorry, I keep comparing this to Sexton. I just want to show the similarities and differences and try to be objective. Chad really had nothing in 2011, like, as far as, like, big money paying deals. And so he decided to go out on his own. Not a lot of people believed in him. Coming out of 2010, he had a really rough year. I remember a Lot of people including Mathis, kind of writing him off. And he said, screw it, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is. I'm going to build my own team. So he went out on his own and he rode Honda 2011, 12 and 13. Ended up getting a factory bike, factory parts, factory, help, spent a ton of money. I probably regrets a lot of that. Like, he really expended a lot of his financial, long term financial security in that exercise. And the last thing I'll kind of say on the reason he switched in the end from Honda to coy again in 14 was Honda changed their bike a lot in 2013 and he hated the bike. He did not like the 2013 Honda. That's it. Like, in the end, that was why he moved away from Honda at the end of 2013, is he did not like the motorcycle in 2013. He loved the 2012, didn't like the 13. I was like, I can't. I can't ride this bike. I cannot do my best job on this bike. And he went, you remember how good he was in 14 and 15 on the Cali? Like, it wasn't like he was too old. It wasn't like he was. He had lost his touch. He just didn't like the 2013. So I don't know, I just wanted to kind of walk through that because that the guy's tweet kind of. I was like, man, that's, that's really not, that's not what this is like. You're, you're trying to draw parallels between those two things. And I lived through that. I was in the midst of that, like, as close to it as you can possibly get. And it was not. It was not this. So anyway, we'll see how it works out for Sexton. But my only concern with Sexton and why I brought it up was he seems to be constantly searching for something. Like he's always looking for what's better. Like, he's never like, this is really good. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna kick ass on this thing. It's always like, it's not good enough. There's something else out there better. I need to be finding that next setting like that. I just think that's a, that's a fool's errand. I do. And, you know, Sexton could tell me a hundred reasons why I'm an idiot for saying that. That's fine. It's just my opinion. I think he spends too much time thinking about what he can change versus really locking into this is what we have to work with. These are the options at hand. This is what I signed up for. This motorcycle is what I signed up for. Very similar to Jorge Prado at Kawasaki, when you sign up for a bike, sorry, that's what you agreed to. You signed the contract. You tested the bike. That's for you to be like, have enough foresight to say, yeah, this isn't going to work. Like, I can't jive with this motorcycle. And if they change the motorcycle in the midst of your contract, that's a different story. That's a different deal. Like Chad in 2013, it's a different dynamic. Like Cooper Webb, they changed the bike from 21 to 22 in the midst of his contract, and he hated it. He hated the change that they made to the motorcycle going into 2022. That's why he left. That's why he left. Like, if you want to know, in a nutshell, why he left ktm, he didn't like the change to the motorcycle. Like, it doesn't really. And go back and. Go back and read interviews with Plessinger and Malcolm Stewart and Webb and all the people that were on the bike during that time when they changed the bike, and they'll all have the same story. The bike wouldn't go through the whoops anymore. It's really simple. I was writing about it, talking about it. That's it. So it's a different dynamic if you're in the middle of the contract and they change it. But when you test the bike for the next year and you're like, yep, I'm testing it. This is going to be my bike. Do I like it? Do I not? Can I win on this? That's on you. And you have to take some accountability in that, in your decision. That's what I truly believe. Okay, so we'll just keep an eye on the Sexton thing. We'll probably circle back to it. I'm sure Tomac to ktm, he's going to be fine. The only things I worry about, you know, he's going from. He's been on these kind of aluminum chromoly chassis to more of a steel frame. So I don't know how that's going to go. Like, it's. It's going to be the first time he's ever been on an Austrian bike. And a lot of people say that switching to the Austrian bike is a. It's a big difference. Not everybody can do it. Look at how Prado switched from the Austrian bike to a Japanese bike. Was a big difference, not in a positive way. So does that show up? I don't know. Not drawing conclusions. I'm just posing the question. I don't think the KTM is as fast as the Yamaha. That's another thing. Tomac wants the fastest bike you can build him for starts for lots of reasons. He just likes to ride the piss out of it, for lack of a better term. I don't know that KTM has the power on tap that Yamaha does. It's not for me to say I haven't ridden both bikes. I'm just saying what I see and hear as an insider. I don't think the bike's quite as fast. So does that matter for Tomac? Are his starts comparable? Do they get worse? Time will tell. And then I think they're going to have to work through the clutch thing. You know, he's been hydraulic clutch. He likes a cable clutch. Can ktm, will they give him a cable clutch or not? I don't know. We'll see. Something to watch. See what they. What he shows up with on the bike. But that's just another dynamic of this. And also the last one is switching to WP suspension. It's another dynamic of this. Right? He's been working with the same suspension guys for a very long time on whether it's Kyb or Showa on this specific Japanese type suspension. Going to WP is a change. It's just another change that he has to work through. And I'm not saying that he can't navigate all of these things. I'm not. I don't know. The uncertainty and change as a. As an entity itself creates uncertainty. Change in and of itself is a risk. It is. It can be. It can be upside. I think it's hard to say. It's hard for me to believe that the KTM is a huge upgrade to the Yamaha. That's hard for me to believe. It can be sideways or it could be worse, But I don't believe that it's a huge upgrade. That. That's just my personal opinion, that they could be the same. Like, there's nothing wrong with the ktm. Like, I don't believe that. I think the KTM is a very, very good motorcycle, but I don't believe that is. It is a huge upgrade to what Yamaha and Star have built over there. That's just. It's pretty simple. Pretty simple. Take for me moving to Deegan on the 450. Okay, so Deegan is going to race the 450 in two WSX rounds. That was announced. I kind of already knew, but it was announced. That's going to be fun to watch. It's fine. But I think the questions now are, does Deegan race the 450 in the West Coast 450 rounds? That, that to me is, is the unanswered question. And it's a really fun question. I think now my take on it is pretty simple. For most people this would be a no brainer if you are McAdoo or someone like that who are good 450 guys. Like Hampshire last year, he did it at Daytona two years ago. Getting that seat time and kind of like getting your, your feet Wet on the 450, I think is a great opportunity. Gives you a ton of experience. You find out where you stand, you can maybe realize, hey, I got a lot of work to do. Like there's a lot to be learned, good and bad. Like, I wouldn't say the bad. It could just be like, holy cow man, we're way off. Fine, you have time to get there. At least, you know, at least you get a wake up call. I don't think Deegan has the same opportunity. I don't think that the situation is the same for Hayden. And the reason why is because of his larger than life personality, social media Persona. He's just because he's Hayden Deegan in the end. And you can say that's not fair. Life's not fair. So what if you're trying to expect fair, you're gonna be disappointed most of the time. Okay, Deegan leans into this stuff. He likes to be larger than life. He likes to make headlines, he likes to, you know, all that stuff comes with, he's a huge superstar. He drives Lamborghinis. He has, he gets paid a ton of money. His new deal I'm sure is multi million dollar deal for 450 and he's going to be wearing Fox soon. Those two things go hand in hand. The social media side, millions of followers, training with Jake Paul and doing all these things that's going to make him a very rich person if it hasn't already. But the downside is you are not afforded no risk situations. If he goes to Anaheim and he doesn't do well, he is going to get lambasted. Lambasted. Lambasted by people on the Internet. Everybody that wants to take a shot at him, that doesn't like him, that's been waiting for their moment like they got at Vegas is going to lean into it with everything they have. And I don't know that they care. I would, I would guess it bothers them a little bit. Nobody wants to gets torched online. But it's, it's a risk. It's a risk that he would if he didn't do well, if Jet just dominated him. Right? Like that's the setup. Everybody's talking Jet Deegan, if Jet half tracked him, which is a real possibility. I'm just going to be completely honest with you. That's a real possibility. Hayden doesn't, doesn't get the benefit of the doubt where people are going to be like, ah, it's fine. Don't worry about like, okay, smart people, objective people will do that. Fans are not going to do that. Good and bad. The Deegan fans are going to be pissed. The Deegan detractors are going to be smiling and laughing and taking shots on the Internet non stop making jokes on his DMs. It's going to be rough in that aspect. So that is the risk for Deegan. Do you want to set yourself up to possibly disappoint and just get raked over the coals for it or do you bet on yourself and be like, no way, we're not going to get smoked. Like, I'm Hayden Deegan. I'm going to be in the fight right away and I'm going to send headlines around the world leading up to it and through the event. There's that, that's the upside. And also there's an aspect of this and I'm thinking about talking about this at a 1 if he does it. Hayden Deegan is kind of the kind of guy where I don't really care what you say about me as long as you say something about me. And there are a bunch of people have quoted that over the years. There's that part of it where the narrative, just the noise is enough upside for the Deegans to be like, it's worth it. Like if we suck, we suck. But man, everybody will be talking about us going into this race. So it's an interesting dynamic to think about. It's a really complicated kind of situation to parse through and a lot of. I think it's a difficult decision to make, but I do think it is one that the Deacons are working through right now. It is one that they're having to kind of game out about and maybe they already have a hard line drawn where they're like, no, this is exactly how we view that. I don't know. But from the outside it would be one that they would probably want to walk through mentally and think about is, okay, is this worth that? Is the juice, worth the squeeze? Because if we don't do well, we may have to just stay off the Internet for a week or two. Like, I don't know. It would be interesting to kind of question to ask and we'll get more news and we'll certainly this narrative get cranked up seeing how he does in Argentina or in Australia. Let's say he what if he went out one man, the narrative is going to get loud for him. Racing a one right like that is going to be very, very interesting to watch unfold. So just kind of want to walk through what I thought about Deegan's decision there and what he's. What he has to decide is more important. And I think how those WSX rounds go may determine that. If he goes out there and he's good right away and he's battling rocks and maybe beats Tomac and whatever, I think it's going to be hard to talk them out of doing it. I do. I think they will look at and say, well, he's riding really well. He's not going to get smoked and there's too much upside to leave on the table here. If he's not good and the but he struggles with settings and he kind of gets smoked at those rounds, then maybe they say, you know what, let's just do our thing. Let's go win the 250 east championship and we'll move up in due time. Like, let's just stick to the plan. But there is, I think there's a lot to work through there and we'll certainly talk about it more after these WSX rounds. The last note I have before I go down to the pool is Jorge Prado. And news hasn't broke yet, but I'm telling you, he's going to be on Red Bull ktm and he's going to be taking the vacant motorcycle that they were going to give to Tom Vial. That vacant 450 that they were going to apply to Tom Vial because he pointed out is going to be where Jorge Prado lands. Just be patient. Wait for the press release. It's coming, though. He finally got out of his Cali and Monster deal. I don't know if he had to pay anything or not, but it's done. Done. He's been released. We saw news of that and he's going to be at Red Book atm. So there's going to be a lot of press releases coming. Tomac's coming, Sexton's coming. March Banks is coming, Prado's coming. There's a, there's a lot that's going to be released, I believe maybe November 1st through November 4th. I don't know why the timing is that way, but I think that's what's coming. So just keep your eyes on that. So whether Prado does well or not, we'll see. We got a lot of time to talk about Prado and a KTM and I, and I kind of want to devote an entire podcast to Prado and the motorcycle at some point. So maybe I'll do that next weekend but not, not today anyway. So he is going to be at Red Bull ktm. Just, just plan for that. Thank you again to all the sponsors, Guts Racing Works Connection, TL Speed Shop and their website race-rentals.com youm can go jump in side by sides in the desert. Unmatched supplements. They keep me healthy and I'm getting stronger by the day so check out unmatched sups.com promo code is JT10 can save yourself some money over there. I'm just telling you they have the best products in the market period. It's all I use and I swear by it. Promo code at works connection is JT23. They just have brand new easy ups. So if you're in the market for an easy up, check out the Works Connection Easy ups. They're brand new, they just arrived so check those out. Guts Racing Best seat covers and graphics in the game. Full stop. Grant Stone boots. Best shoes I've ever worn. I have so many of them. They take such great care of me and I'm telling you if you work in an office environment you like to go out on the weekends. You need to check these things out. Their product is first class and I cannot believe the improvement and just range diversity I've seen over the years. I've been with them since the jump. They had one product when I first started working with them and they have been fantastic partners over the years. Of course Firepower Parts and Fly Racing. Thank you to all of them. Thank you to all of you for listening and we will talk to you next weekend. See you.