n my experience (more than a decade) working for different teams, there are managers who work well in the day-to-day processes of running a team but can’t offer the riders much in terms of how to get better. The flip side is the former racer who can relate to the riders, but because they’ve just been racers their whole lives, dealing with team personalities, budgets, and scheduling is not their specialty.

Michael Byrne, however, has seemingly been able to balance both aspects of the job for the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC KTM-WPS team, and it’s showing for his riders Blake Baggett (who got his first 450SX win this year), Justin Bogle, and Benny Bloss—the latter two showing steady improvement while the former racks up wins. Of course, Byrne had a successful career on the bike with two different factory teams and 13 career podiums. But like a lot of racers, after his career ended in 2014 (prematurely from complications of a broken lower leg suffered while leading at Unadilla in 2012), Byrner didn’t know exactly what his next step would be.

“Every time I went on the track, I gave it everything I had,” the soft-spoken Aussie says. “If I can say I gave it everything I had and came off the track, even if it was a 10-point weekend and then a podium the next weekend, then that’s what it was. It’s hard because maybe I would have won the race [when I got hurt]. I had a pretty big lead at that time with a few laps to go, but I guess you never know. I was more bummed just how my injury turned out, I guess. It wasn’t really fixed right, so I tried to race again and just had issues and had to quit after that. Maybe I’m bitter, but I just feel like I probably should have waited [to get it fixed].”

While Byrne healed from his injury, team owner Forrest Butler used him as a coach for the squad’s existing riders; soon, MotoConcepts team manager Tony Alessi came calling for Byrner to work with his son Mike for supercross. The improvement, especially in the whoops, was noticeable, and Mike went on to get some better results.

“He really had a good understanding of the motorcycle,” Tony Alessi says of Byrne. “When we were all over there [at Suzuki], Byrner’s input was taken above all the other riders. His input was the best. Maybe as a racer he didn’t always perform like the level of his intelligence, in terms of setting up the bike and him knowing how to ride.

“There is another element,” Alessi continues. “You’ve still got to be a gritty racer guy. So in terms of number one and number two, that guy had it together for sure. He really knew and understood the working of the motorcycle from head to toe. He also had just the right balance of firmness with the rider, but at the same time understanding the rider’s point of view. If the rider said, ‘I don’t know if that is doable,’ then Byrner would get on the bike and actually do it. Then it would be like, ‘Oh, okay, that’s how you do it. I get it.’ So I’m pretty sure that that obviously played a big role in helping Mike during that season. He’s really a precise, accurate, professional guy for sure.”

“Tony and I had a great time,” Byrne says of Alessi. “I think Tony is a little bit misunderstood sometimes with some stuff. The way I looked at it, if I gave Tony a reason why we’re doing this and explained it out to him, then he would totally be on board with whatever we wanted to do. Obviously I was still riding quite a bit back then when I was working with Mike, so it was nice for me to be able to jump on the bike and give my opinion of supercross stuff and settings and just kind of backtrack a little bit of stuff for him that I figured would help him. Luckily enough, it did, and he definitely improved a lot that season. I really enjoyed it.”

Byrne’s work with the #800 really opened some eyes and made others in the pits realize he was more than just an ex-rider looking for a job. When his relationship with MotoConcepts ended, Byrne started working with his old team, the Butler Brothers.

“I don’t think I was quite as analytical [when I raced] as what I am now,” he offers. “I don’t think the technology was around then either. You’d be in the truck freaking out because you’re two seconds off, and then realistically, nowadays, if you’re two seconds off, I can actually play the video and show you exactly where that time is, whereas back when I would race, all you would see were the segment times. Now you can literally find the exact moment where they lost that time, and then it’s like, ‘Oh, okay, it’s not so bad. I can clean that up.’”

As for the settings on the bike? That’s something you learn over time. Part of Byrne’s job is trying to figure out exactly what a rider is trying to really say.

“The testing and the knowledge stuff, I guess, as far as bike setup goes, it’s more that I think I can usually pick apart what they need just from what they say, and then actually breaking what they say down into what everyone else can understand,” he says. “Sometimes they’re trying to say it but they’re not saying it right, and it’s just confusing everybody! I can take what they’re saying and go, ‘I know exactly what you’re saying,’ then turn to the team and say, ‘What he means is this.’ They tell me what they’re feeling and then I usually turn to the suspension guy and say, ‘All right, do this.’”

“Just because you’re a fast rider doesn’t mean that it translates over to other things,” Butler says. “He’s just one of those select few that, in my eyes, had it, and then I think everything he’s done with the team and people he’s worked with has proven it.”

manager also has to deal with lots of personalities from day to day. The team spends a lot of time together, and things can get tense. Of course the riders are another deal entirely, as their emotions go up and down with every lap and every moto. And then there are the people surrounding these riders—parents, wives, girlfriends, agents, trainers, whoever. It can be . . . a lot.

“It gets stressful sometimes between everybody,” Byrne says. “Just keeping everybody’s emotions in check, whether it be the riders, their families, moms, dads, girlfriends. . . . We’re trying to do this one thing that everyone’s trying to push towards, but you’ve got to try and keep everyone’s emotions in check so no one’s panicking because he’s thinking this is all wrong. The hard part is just to take that step back. If they just took a step backwards and took another look at it, they might realize they’re kind of freaking out for nothing.”

No backward steps taken for Michael Byrne, though. He’s proven himself to be better working with riders than he was as a rider—and that’s saying something. His own racing career has passed, but the sky’s still the limit for Byrner.