Five Minutes with ... Mitch Payton
MAY 10, 2007

Matthes puts Mitch on the spot in Vegas.

 

By Steve Matthes
Photos by Simon Cudby and Allison Kennedy

There are many factory teams out there that have huge budgets, lots of staff and unlimited resources, yet they don't win as many races as the Pro Circuit team. There has been one constant throughout all of the wins and championships, the owner Mitch Payton. Pro Circuit truly races with what they sell and even though I represent one of his main competitors, FMF, I figured I would sit down and talk to one of the most successful team owners in the history of the sport.

RXC: Congratulations on what seems like your 800th championship. You almost had one with a Canadian but settled on the Kiwi winning it. Where does this SX year rank for you?
Mitch Payton: They are all rewarding, the west coast was great with Ryan (Villopoto) and Pourcel winning, that was awesome. When we went to the east coast, we had a lot of expectations for Ben and we had a part break in the engine and that put us 25 points down right away. We thought that it would be too much to come back from. Then we had Darcy [Lange] and he surprised everybody by being in the championship hunt all year and I'm very proud of him.

This year was one of your best ever statistically, where does 2007 rank for you?
It doesn't matter that much for me, as far as sweeping the races or anything, as long as we get the title, that's all that matters to us.

 

Thanks to Mitch, Canadians got to watch Darcy Lange race his way to third in the West.

 

You took a chance with Darcy Lange as a fill-in for Metcalfe, what did you see in him as a racer?
I think his strength was that, when he came to the first round, he had already been racing and right from the first practice, he had the best time. It looked like he had the whole track dialed and I think it was from doing all those arenacrosses and he was sharp and quick right from the start. Those are such condensed events that you have to go out and hammer right away. That worked in his favor.

Let's talk about all the riders you have hired over the years. Was there one that stood out that got you some unexpected finishes?
You know, one that I was really proud of was Jimmy Gaddis in 1993. He had ridden for a long time for Suzuki and never really did anything and we were in a last minute jam putting everything together, all the riders were picked late and our budget that year was literally zero. He won the championship and won one race and stood on the box at every round. That's what we tell people every week, if you can make the podium every race, you stand a great chance to win the championship.

What about a rider that didn't do what you thought he could do, maybe disappointed you?
Not really any one rider. The ones that disappoint me, truthfully, are the ones that don't work hard and are punks, flakes etc. I kind of end up battling with those guys, they disappoint me and I don't like that. As far as any of the guys that have ridden for me, if they're trying hard and they are giving it their all, I'm fine with that.

How bad did it hurt to sign Bobby Bond's paycheque every week?
That was one that was difficult, we couldn't get through to him, and he wouldn't listen to us and it was just….. I thought there was a lot of talent there, he just wouldn't listen and we truthfully didn't get anything out of that and obliviously if he had gone anywhere else the results would have been the same.

What has the four-stroke done to supercross?
I don't think it has made that much difference. You better just accept it, they are here and they are not going to turn around and make a two-stroke that is going to come out and dominate again, that's just finished. You know, it's here; it is what it is. They are a challenge to work on, and they are a bit more temperamental. There are some things that are really difficult to do well on them, and everything you try to tackle, the investment in the development, and the time it takes to develop it, is really time consuming.

What do you think about the AMA's idea to bring the bikes down to 350cc?
I think if you ask what everybody thinks, they all agree that a 350 is the perfect size for supercross. But even though I just said that it's a better choice, I don't think it's going to happen. Honda, Yamaha, Kawi, Suzuki and KTM all kind of blew their wad and spent millions of dollars developing the 450s because that's what the rules said. So now that they made those, and just one day we all said, “Hey, we should make a 350!” I think the amount of money they all have to invest, over hundreds of millions of dollars. I think they should work on the track safety and the track designs, maybe slow them down a bit. The noise is a big issue, and the AMA is being fairly conscientious about that, they are picking away at it. It's making the aftermarket guys work harder to make quiet exhausts and that's better.

Do you agree that we have a Supercross “problem” like a lot of the media and fans are suggesting?
Well, the problem is that in the 450 class there is not enough close racing. But when McGrath was racing, he dominated and he flat took everybody to the house. Then Ricky had his turn and now it's James that is the guy. Everybody wants it to be four guys battling but that has not really ever happened, and I am not sure it will.

With my job as the FMF guy for Parts Unlimited, I think it's interesting to talk about your and Donny Emler's relationship.
Our relationship is good, I love Donny! We are friendly competitors, and I think we both want to do well. I'm sure he tries hard at his company and I try hard at my company. You know, there are times that we cross paths and it doesn't work out perfectly. I can call his shop and talk to him for a while and he can do the same. We are fierce competitors if it will sell us more pipes.

What is the key to your success as a race team? The bikes? The team?
I thinks it's everything. It's not just one thing, it's a package. The bike helps, it is really good right out of the crate, and I think that we are Pro Circuit racing, we make racing parts. We build engine parts, suspension parts, triple clamps, you look at the bike, those are all the pieces that we make and sell. We also, and not a lot of people know this, we supply every factory 450 with something from us. You don't know what it is and I'm not going to tell you, but that is a good indication for us that the parts work. They are buying this stuff and that should tell the customer something.

Is there one bike from Kawasaki or Honda that stood out for you? Something that you guys put a lot of effort into?
I think we did a great job with, and you can ask anybody that raced with us back then, the Peak Hondas were bad-ass. They were fast. That was cool, we had a lot of bikes that weren't so good out of the crate that we were able to win championships with Ricky, and a few other kids, where the bike was behind a little and we still won. And I think a lot of people talked down about us when we were going to race the four stroke in '04. I think a lot of those same people were impressed that we picked it up so quick.

Pro Circuit won the East and West Lites titles this year with Villopoto and Townley.

 

When did you know that Pro Circuit was really starting to become what it is today?
It probably really started taking off in 1984, Goat Breker rode for Honda and won Tokyo Supercrosses running one of our pipes. In 1985, we were gaining momentum, a lot of the top privateers were using our stuff, guys like Danny Storbeck and Jeff Hicks. They had holeshot nationals with our pipes. In 1986, Ricky Johnson was factory Honda and it was the first year of the production rule, in 86, we had RJ running a pipe, Yamaha running cylinders and heads, Suzuki ran the pipes also. Kawasaki picked pipes up in 87. The last year of two strokes, we had all four OEM's running our pipes.

Is Darcy going to come back and ride next year?
I don't know, haven't talked to him yet. We are going to talk to him, from what I heard and I haven't really talked to him about it, he wants to do Arenacross again and then jump into East coast with us. That would be great.

Maybe I can dust off the wrenches and you would have an all Canadian team….
Yeah, that would be sweet; you can pull out the maple leaf.

I can't let you go without talking about Ross Pederson, you supplied him motors and pipes back in the day. What do you remember about him?
I just remember that I would go to the races and we helped out a lot of guys back then, like Hicks and Storbeck, Fred Andrews and Tom Carson and they all had to race against him. They all said he was just a wildman, and he was tough. The thing was he would take you out and then if you wanted to fight about it, he would! None of those guys wanted anything to do with him, he's pretty big.  He was good to me and he was a tough sucker, that's for sure.

Alright, Mitch thanks for your time
Thank you.