Josh Wisenor | Talk With GEICO Honda Team Manager

INSTAGRAM | @fchonda

The GEICO Honda team isn’t going to let the outcome of the 2020 Anaheim Two Supercross be an issue for the rest of their season, and by Tuesday morning after the third round of the 2020 Monster Energy Supercross Series, the riders and mechanics were back to work at the Honda test track in Corona, California. While Christian Craig, Jo Shimoda, and Jeremy Martin clicked off laps on the soft, red clay, Team Manager Josh Wisenor took notes and communicated with the technicians about bike setup and lap times. This has been a big year for the factory-backed 250 squad, as their roster of riders is loaded (Christian Craig, Jeremy Martin, Chase Sexton, Jo Shimoda, and Hunter and Jett Lawrence in case you forgot), the base setting of the new 2020 Honda CRF250R allowed the team to find more power, and the goal of podium finishes and Main Event wins is more attainable than it had been in the past.

It’s important for Wisenor on a personal level because this is his first full season in the key position and many of the decisions come down to him. A long-time staff member of GEICO Honda, Wisenor was promoted in the summer of 2019 and immediately went to work to figuring out how more performance could be coaxed for the small-bore bike. Christian Craig and Jett Lawrence have proved that the bike is capable of good results, but they faced their share of issues in the opening rounds and only Craig will be on the track through the next three weeks. Anticipation for the East Coast kick-off is high, where three of the team’s riders will run the nine-race series due to preparation timelines or past injuries. At the end of the afternoon, we asked Wisenor to take us through the last few weeks and explain what he’s seen so far in the six riders.

The team is three rounds into the season, and Christian has done great and Jett was doing great until his injury, which is unfortunate. What are your biggest takeaways so far?

Honestly, the performance is where it should. We are back to where this team should be. Not that Supercross was terrible last year, but the outdoors wasn’t particularly good and we knew that we had work to do this offseason. It was a lot of people grinding hard and it looks like we are at a place that we want to be.

Christian was in the mix for two podiums until things happened, some in his control and some out of his control. How do you view his performance so far? You’ve seen him riding and working from September to now.

Christian has been riding great. What happened last week is in the past and he’s going to keep grinding. We will be alright.

Were you surprised by how well Jett had done?

100-percent. Not like we didn’t know it was in there; we just thought it was going to take longer to see it, so for us to see it at round two and then to have him back it up the next weekend was unbelievable. We couldn’t be happier with how Jett did and with his progress.

You were the one that walked over to him after the crash and rode the bike back to the pit area. The kid was bummed. I like how the team has let him see what it’s like to be a professional racer without overwhelming him or turning him into a machine already.

He’s still a kid, he’s 16 years old and he has to keep it light. And I think that goes for all of our riders. If they’re not having fun, I don’t think the results will come. We are serious, but we try to keep it light enough that they are excited to come and get on the bike still, not dreading it.

The weeks leading up to Anaheim One were chaotic. First was the good news that Christian was cleared to race, but then Chase got hurt. How did the team handle all of that and determine what the line-up was going to be for each coast?

Our goal was to put Chase on the West Coast, but then he did his collarbone. Jeremy was kind enough to volunteer himself because he saw what the team needed and he wanted to be a team player, and we were pumped on that. He had a get-off a couple of weeks before the West Coast started, and he was banged up. He wasn’t injured, but he was really cut up. The rear wheel ate up the whole side of his body and he had giant wounds, so we decided that it wasn’t fair for him to waste a season after not riding for a couple of weeks. We had to stack the East Coast, but it is what it is.

Chase isn’t going to be with the team next year, but that’s an admirable thing to put him on the West Coast so that he can learn the tracks and get the experience, instead of taking the chance to run the number one plate.

It would have been more ideal for his entire program, for us and for American Honda, if he had ridden the West Coast. The goal was for him to do the West and hopefully bring us that championship, then get started on his outdoor testing during the break. He’s going to be pretty stacked, but all in all, American Honda’s program should be fine.

How was it to deal with Chase’s injury? We all heard about it and waited to see how it was announced a few days later. You can’t be too pissed at him, because he’s still young.

I try to only get frustrated with the things I have control over. I don’t have control over everything and don’t try to, so my goal is to react to those things how they come. Chase and his whole corner, his dad and everything, were mad enough at him so I didn’t feel like I needed to be [Laughs]. He was mad at himself, that’s not what he wanted and there was no reason to get upset with him.

It’ll be Jeremy Martin, Chase Sexton, and Jo Shimoda on the East Coast. After being here today, it looks like Jo is following Christian very well. If he’s running that pace, it’s a good indication of what he is capable of. Do you have the same expectations for Jo that you did for Jett considered they are both rookies or do you view them individually?

Looking at their amateur careers, in that last year, they raced each other and went back and forth quite a bit. Jo has won at the Monster Energy Cup, as well as Jett, so I guess we will see. But I have full faith that Jo is going to be good. With a rookie, our expectations are for them to get their feet wet and get used to things so they can build. But as we saw with Jett, if they get a good start, it is on and these kids can run the pace. We get a show either way, right? Jett put on a show last weekend so we will see how Jo does [Laughs].

Jett made a mistake late in the race, which led to the gap getting erased and all of the other things that happened in the last few laps. What did he have to say about it?

Honestly, he was really frustrated with himself and that was the heartbreaking thing. He should have won that race, he knows that, and he is the one that has to deal with not winning and is the person that will have to think about it every day. I think that race is going to haunt him for a long time and he’s going to have a lot of time to think about it, and it’s unfortunate because of how well he was riding.

What is the status of Hunter’s shoulder injury? It hadn’t been really well known.

He released something about it the other day and we are hopeful that we can see him for the East Coast Supercross races, but we’re playing it by ear. He’s going to be relevant no matter what series he comes back for, it’s just whenever he is ready.

I have this theory, and it could be totally wrong, but a few years ago it was expected for a rider to do just two or three years in the 125 class and then move on to the premier class, and I don’t think that’s the case anymore. Now it seems like guys need three or four or five years to really mature and it seems like there are no more 16-year-old rookies, guys turn pro much later. Jett is the exception to that rule, obviously.

For sure. I 100-percent agree, those days are gone. I think you need to be 19 or 20 years old to have the “man strength,” not the “kid strength.” You need to have that maturity and body development in this day and age. Everyone is too fit, and all of the bikes are too good. So many of the variables have been erased and it’s not like the old days when only a few guys trained, and if you trained, you could run with those guys at the end of the moto. But now everyone is fit, and you have to see how you can rise above. I think it takes time and I think it’s a switch that the rider has to turn on. Once they know they should win and they truly believe it, that’s it. That’s what Ferrandis looked like last weekend. He looked like he knew he was going to win.

The 2020 Honda CRF250R is different and it’s obvious that you have an improved powerplant compared to last year. How is it?

It’s been good. Honda did a good job with the changes to the stock bike and we deal with what we are dealt. The base platform has to be good in order to have a good race bike. We struggled last year, and I’m going to say it was more in our court than the bike not being sufficient, and it was chaotic there towards the end. This offseason was about getting back to the basics, laying the bike on the bench, picking the parts that we need and getting rid of the things we don’t, really simplifying the program, and maximizing the efficiency of the bike. The hard part changes weren’t crazy, and a lot of parts are still the same. The new Honda does have a new head and piston, which did help, but we’re still on a lot of the same parts as last year.

Jeremy was impressive to see today and that’s a lot to say after so much time away. How was getting him familiarized with everything again? He did ride the 450 in the offseason, but this 250 is much different than the last one that he raced.

The biggest thing for him is the suspension component manufacturer changes, he’s never ridden Showa in his pro career. He was a little leery going in, but we’ve got him happy. With the support of Factory Connection and the power of Showa, it’s going well. Jeremy is very particular about his setup and I think we are getting him to the point of being unlocked and we all know what he does when he’s unlocked.

He looks better on a Supercross track then he ever has. I watched him at the two races on the 450, Monster Energy Cup and the Paris Supercross, and it was unbelievable how well he was riding.

With his time off, he has a motivation that I haven’t seen in a long time. He wants it really bad. It’s cool to see because his determination almost carries the team because when you have a guy that determined, you want to match him. It’s going to be interesting come the East Coast.