here is a new cottage industry in the supercross/motocross space that’s only recently started to really take shape. However, it’s a narrow field, as candidates are required to have a very, very good track record. All six of the major OEMs currently involved in Monster Energy AMA Supercross and Lucas Oil Pro Motocross have embraced the idea of having a brand ambassador on the payroll—someone who is well-known and highly respected as a past champion, charismatic and still very capable on a motorcycle, and who has both experience to share and time to spend on the development and marketing of new motorcycles and the minting of young prospects. In other words, if you don’t have a championship pedigree and market-ready chops, there’s probably no job for you.
If you look online in the Racer X Vault at the results of the legendary Jeremy McGrath’s racing career, all of his major wins and championships came aboard first Honda motorcycles, then briefly Suzukis, and finally Yamahas. But if you go all the way back to the very beginning of his career, his first lines in the Vault in 1989 and ’90 are aboard a Kawasaki KX125. As a matter of fact, his first professional win—the 1990 Las Vegas 125 Supercross—came while he was on Team Green. And that was just enough of a connection for Kawasaki to call on McGrath in 2014 when they decided they needed someone to assist their young riders at the amateur and professional levels, help develop the KX line, and also market the brand across all platforms. In other words, they needed a brand ambassador.
“I am excited to reunite with the team and do everything I can to promote Kawasaki and help all of the Team Green riders,” McGrath said when he accepted the gig. “During my racing career and even since retirement, I always kept my eye on Team Green for the next stars of our sport. At this stage in my life, giving back to the sport I love is a top priority, and for that I feel Kawasaki is the best fit.”
The need for a brand to have someone like McGrath comes in part from the shift in training and testing practices over the last 20 or so years. Today’s riders are so focused on keeping a strict schedule when it comes to training, practicing, dieting, and even travel, they don’t have as much time for the extra things that come with the job of being a factory rider, like doing open houses at motorcycle dealerships, autograph signings at the races, press intros, and new-model launches. Call it the Aldon Baker effect.
McGrath works a lot with the Team Green kids, and he’s there for factory-level guys, too, although he admits he doesn’t really work closely with, say, Eli Tomac.
“We go talk about starts and some of those things if he asks about it, but him and his dad have their own program going on,” says the seven-time AMA Supercross Champion of the four-time AMA Motocross Champion and his father, John. “I think I’ve got a lot of knowledge to pass on, but I’m definitely not going to force anyone to use it. They’re going to have to ask for it. My relationship with Eli is great. We’re good buddies, and his dad is a good guy. I have a lot of respect for those guys, but again, if Eli needs some help from me, he’ll ask.”
here is a new cottage industry in the supercross/motocross space that’s only recently started to really take shape. However, it’s a narrow field, as candidates are required to have a very, very good track record. All six of the major OEMs currently involved in Monster Energy AMA Supercross and Lucas Oil Pro Motocross have embraced the idea of having a brand ambassador on the payroll—someone who is well-known and highly respected as a past champion, charismatic and still very capable on a motorcycle, and who has both experience to share and time to spend on the development and marketing of new motorcycles and the minting of young prospects. In other words, if you don’t have a championship pedigree and market-ready chops, there’s probably no job for you.
If you look online in the Racer X Vault at the results of the legendary Jeremy McGrath’s racing career, all of his major wins and championships came aboard first Honda motorcycles, then briefly Suzukis, and finally Yamahas. But if you go all the way back to the very beginning of his career, his first lines in the Vault in 1989 and ’90 are aboard a Kawasaki KX125. As a matter of fact, his first professional win—the 1990 Las Vegas 125 Supercross—came while he was on Team Green. And that was just enough of a connection for Kawasaki to call on McGrath in 2014 when they decided they needed someone to assist their young riders at the amateur and professional levels, help develop the KX line, and also market the brand across all platforms. In other words, they needed a brand ambassador.
“I am excited to reunite with the team and do everything I can to promote Kawasaki and help all of the Team Green riders,” McGrath said when he accepted the gig. “During my racing career and even since retirement, I always kept my eye on Team Green for the next stars of our sport. At this stage in my life, giving back to the sport I love is a top priority, and for that I feel Kawasaki is the best fit.”
The need for a brand to have someone like McGrath comes in part from the shift in training and testing practices over the last 20 or so years. Today’s riders are so focused on keeping a strict schedule when it comes to training, practicing, dieting, and even travel, they don’t have as much time for the extra things that come with the job of being a factory rider, like doing open houses at motorcycle dealerships, autograph signings at the races, press intros, and new-model launches. Call it the Aldon Baker effect.
McGrath works a lot with the Team Green kids, and he’s there for factory-level guys, too, although he admits he doesn’t really work closely with, say, Eli Tomac.
“We go talk about starts and some of those things if he asks about it, but him and his dad have their own program going on,” says the seven-time AMA Supercross Champion of the four-time AMA Motocross Champion and his father, John. “I think I’ve got a lot of knowledge to pass on, but I’m definitely not going to force anyone to use it. They’re going to have to ask for it. My relationship with Eli is great. We’re good buddies, and his dad is a good guy. I have a lot of respect for those guys, but again, if Eli needs some help from me, he’ll ask.”
| Although he hasn’t raced professionally since the 2007 Motocross of Nations, Ricky Carmichael is still closely associated with Suzuki, the last of three brands he rode for as he amassed a record 15 major championships during his greatest-of-all-time career. |
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| Although he hasn’t raced professionally since the 2007 Motocross of Nations, Ricky Carmichael is still closely associated with Suzuki, the last of three brands he rode for as he amassed a record 15 major championships during his greatest-of-all-time career. |
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| Although he hasn’t raced professionally since the 2007 Motocross of Nations, Ricky Carmichael is still closely associated with Suzuki, the last of three brands he rode for as he amassed a record 15 major championships during his greatest-of-all-time career. |
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JEFF EMIG
JEFF EMIG
Husqvarna wasn’t really competitive when Jeff Emig was winning titles in the 1990s, but the brand, dominant in the sixties and seventies, was revived by KTM a half-dozen years ago and is now a perfect fit for Fro. Husqvarna wasn’t really competitive when Jeff Emig was winning titles in the 1990s, but the brand, dominant in the sixties and seventies, was revived by KTM a half-dozen years ago and is now a perfect fit for Fro.
hereas only a sliver of McGrath’s professional success was with Kawasaki, literally all of Ryan Villopoto’s wins and championships came aboard green motorcycles. And that created an awkward situation after RV retired completely from racing in 2015 and started looking for his next gig: McGrath already had their brand ambassador gig on lockdown. So RV’s people seemed to take a different page out of the results vault—or rather a different vault altogether, as they went to the Loretta Lynn’s Vault—to show that many of Villopoto’s earliest minicycle racing results came aboard Yamaha YZ80 minicycles. And just like that, the nine-time AMA Supercross/Motocross Champion became Yamaha’s new brand ambassador.
And he’s good at it, too, embracing the role of showcasing the product wherever and whenever Yamaha sees fit—125cc All-Star races, track walks at big amateur events, even an off-road intro deep in the South Carolina woods. Villopoto now has a smile on his face we rarely saw when he was racing, because it was all so serious and cutthroat for him as an athlete, and now it’s just so much fun to be out riding and having a good time. Maybe that’s why so many, including himself, refer to him now as the “world’s best retired rider.”
Like McGrath and Villopoto, Emig is working with an OEM as a kind of influencer, or brand ambassador—but unlike them, Emig had never raced a Husqvarna before. That’s because when he was at his zenith in the nineties, the once-mighty Husqvarna was practically nonexistent in America. And when they were bought and revived by KTM, the closest person they might have had to fill this role was former pro Andy Jefferson, but he already had a “real” job with the brand! So they reached out to Emig, who spent his career aboard Kawasakis and Yamahas. Jeff accepted because the brands he rode for already had Jeremy and Ryan. And he understands the notion that some people might not get how he’s now with a brand he never actually raced with during his career.
o does Emig’s work with Husqvarna mean he’s still a professional rider? Not exactly, he says. “I get paid as a former professional racer who’s 21 years past his prime. I am quite certain that Jason Anderson and I are not in the same pay grade!
“It’s kind of like having a relief pitcher in the bullpen,” he offers. “I mean, what does a retired professional racer do if he doesn’t race? Well, my career in broadcasting and my skills as a media host and things like that also come into play, but it’s more about all of us riders that have this position and continuing our career, continuing our passion for riding motorcycles and growing with the sport, growing with our group of fans that are our demographic, and inspiring people to want to go ride motorcycles.”
Emig adds that this new role as a brand ambassador has one perk: “We don’t ever have any more bad races. We don’t ever get beat anymore!”
| (This page) Ryan Villopoto hooked up with the Blu Cru after his professional career ended and now has a semi-permanent smile on his face. (Below) And after nearly three decades with Suzuki, Travis Pastrana informed the brand in December that he was making a big change in order to update the two-stroke arsenal he prefers. |
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| (This page) Ryan Villopoto hooked up with the Blu Cru after his professional career ended and now has a semi-permanent smile on his face. (Below) And after nearly three decades with Suzuki, Travis Pastrana informed the brand in December that he was making a big change in order to update the two-stroke arsenal he prefers. |
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icky Carmichael rarely had bad races. He had solid success with all three brands he rode for—Kawasaki, Honda, Suzuki—and has stayed with the brand he retired on, Suzuki, since 2007. His roles include helping in the development of the RM-Z line, as well as promoting Suzuki across all platforms: everything from building a pontoon boat with Suzuki outboard motors to having four-wheeler demo rides at the GOAT Farm to riding a custom Suzuki Boulevard from Loretta Lynn’s to Sturgis, North Dakota.
Unfortunately, Suzuki has been struggling as of late, and development of RM-Z models has slowed as a result. But the GOAT has been staying busy with other post-racing partnerships with Fox Racing, Monster Energy, Cometic, Slick Products, and more. He’s also, of course, the color analyst on NBC Sports’ coverage of Monster Energy Supercross, as well as the host of the Ricky Carmichael Daytona Amateur Supercross.
nother former Suzuki superstar might have fit the brand ambassador role perfectly, but with Carmichael firmly in place, there wasn’t room for Ryan Dungey after he retired in 2017 with nine SX/MX titles of his own—the first few of which came aboard Suzukis. Dungey was with Red Bull KTM for the last half-dozen years of his career, so he transitioned into something of a brand ambassador there, though he wanted to work more closely with the race department. But when you have none other than Roger De Coster at the top of the KTM/Husqvarna pyramid, and five straight AMA Supercross Championships between the two brands, there’s not really as much of a need for the help that Dungey wanted to give, despite the fact that he was responsible for three of those titles (’15-’17).
That’s a big part of what led to the shocking news in the fall that Ryan was investing in GEICO Honda to become a minority owner and advisor. He was taking all of his success and experience from racing on yellow and orange and mixing it into a bold new red.
“Between all that and being involved with the Honda organization, there are a lot of positives, and I’m excited to get to work.”
Ryan Dungey is now, for the first time ever, a Red Rider.
his story was going to end right there. But there was still one brand out there without an ambassador, and one former racer/brand ambassador who was looking for a new bike to ride—and a particular type of bike that his longtime brand no longer made.
Just as 2019 was ending, Travis Pastrana informed his old friends and teammates at Suzuki that, after 28 years, it was time for him to move on. Pastrana did not have an actual deal in place with Suzuki; he just felt loyal to the only brand he’d ever raced, making him a self-appointed Suzuki ambassador. He wrote a letter to thank the brand and Jeff Cernic for getting him on RM80s as a kid and then staying with him throughout his remarkable career, which lacked the championships many expected of him, but through the X Games and Nitro Circus made him arguably the biggest superstar the sport has ever known. He explained that he had never really evolved to four-strokes, and Suzuki stopped making two-strokes years ago. Despite his longtime partner Ron Meredith’s best efforts to keep his fleet of 2003 to ’06 RMs running, “they are simply too old to trust and too difficult to find at shops around the world if something breaks.
“I haven’t been fast enough to compete with the best in 15 years, and with the resurgence of the two-stroke in media and moto culture, it’s a better fit for me to keep mixing gas,” Pastrana wrote in his farewell letter. “I haven’t had a formal deal with Suzuki in a long time now, but still wanted you to hear it from me before you saw any videos where I wasn’t on yellow.”
To put it differently, orange is the new bike for Travis Pastrana. 
