Editorial

The Midas Touch

Everything turns to gold for team Suzuki

By Matt Fredmonsky

It's good to be under the yellow tent these days. Suzuki is dominating practically every form of off-road racing this year.

In the ATV motocross national series, teammates Josh Creamer and Dustin Wimmer have won all three races so far this season. After three rounds, defending champ Wimmer is two points and one overall win behind his teammate, Creamer. They finished one-two at Birch Creek this weekend. Just three rounds in, not too many other racers have had much to challenge these two with. Every big team but the Yoshimura Rockstar Makita Suzuki squad has experienced some kind of mechanical issue that affected a race outcome this year.

Team Yoshimura Rockstar Suzuki riders Dustin Wimmer and Josh Creamer are dominating the ATV MX nationals so far this year.

In the woods, defending champion Chris Borich is dominating the GNCC ranks on his Yoshimura-backed LTR450. Borich has four wins on the season and a comfortable lead over Yamaha's Taylor Kiser in the points battle. Like the motocross scene, Borich hasn't had much of a challenge presented to him this year.

On two wheels, Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Ryan Dungey wrapped up the Supercross title well ahead of the final in Las Vegas later this month. Granted, injuries to James Stewart, Chad Reed and Ryan Villopoto surely helped the young rookie grab his first SX title, but no matter what that's not an easy accomplishment. This year's supercross title for Suzuki comes on the heels of the dirt bike national outdoor title, which Reed nabbed aboard a yellow machine last year.

American Suzuki's senior advertising manager, Steve Bortolamedi, said it best at the International Motorcycle Show in December.

"Suzuki products are truly industry leading and we stand behind them 100 percent," he said. "We proved that last year with our six titles."

Suzuki is definitely the powerhouse of the off-road racing world. What does that mean? Of all these racers, I'm only a true fan of Dungey. And therein lies the rub. America loves an underdog.

The ATV motocross action so far this year has been pretty exciting from moto to moto. But that excitement can lose its edge if you know that, come August, a Suzuki rider is going home with the title. The same could be said for GNCC racing or the dirt bike national or supercross titles.

The conundrum, at least for me, is that our sports could benefit more from seeing the kind of dominance greats like Jeremy McGrath, Ricky Carmichael, Bill Ballance, Gary Denton and James Stewart have shown. Their kind of prowess helps shine a spot light on off-road motorsports. That brings in outside sponsors, who help keep big factory teams like Suzuki afloat (think Rockstar energy drink).

Bill Ballance, left, has nine GNCC titles under his belt and has his own brand of Yamaha YFZR's available. Gary Denton, right won eight titles in his day. No other ATV racer has come close to winning as many titles as these two legends.

In January, I challenged Dustin Wimmer to be the next true ATV champion and start racking up titles like Ricky Carmichael did in order to help shine a bigger spotlight on the sport. Deep down, I'd like nothing better than to see someone like Josh Upperman walk away crowned the pro ATV motocross champion. But I'm still rooting for Wimmer because, though it may be a little less exciting, I still believe the sport of ATV racing could benefit more in the future from a name as big as Carmichael than by having a slew of underdogs take turns winning the title year after year.

The gamble is that having one rider with the Midas touch could backfire like a 450 in need of a fresh spark plug. It could actually lead to a lack of fan participation. But if precedents stand, having riders like Carmichael, Stewart and Ballance - who drew the attention of Sports Illustrated, got his own cable TV show and put his name on a special edition ATV - can only be good for the sport.