Five Minutes with … Andre Laurin
MAY 15, 2008

Suzuki/OTSFF/Rockstar Energy Drink team manager, Andre Laurin (right), is proud of his all-Canadian lineup this summer. The team lineup includes: Mitch Cooke, Tyler Medaglia and Brady Sheren in MX1, Jeremy Medaglia in MX2, and Missy Hackett will represent Suzuki in the Women's National Series.

By Danny Brault
Photos by Dan Stenning

We finally caught up with Suzuki/OTSFF/Rockstar’s Andre Laurin for our final interview with the “big four” MX1 team managers. We tried reaching Laurin last week, but he was driving through the mountains of Montana on his way to a snocross test with Yamaha. It was a busy winter for Laurin, who is involved with snocross north and south of the border and was a co-sponsor of the Suzuki City/Rockstar East Coast Lites team in supercross. Now, he’s shifting his focus to the Monster Energy CMRC Motocross Nationals.

RXC: Andre, I finally reached you. So you were in Montana testing sleds?
Andre Laurin: Yep, we were doing testing for the Yamaha four-stroke snowmobiles for 2009 and 2010. It was some development stuff we were working on. It went well. We had a couple of new athletes there, well Steve Taylor was part of that program already, but we had Iain Hayden up there too.

Is Hayden switching over to Yamaha for snocross?
I’m going to give him a really sweet contract. He rides well and we started together, him and I, and the opportunity is right for him to come on board. He loves the product and was super fast on the Yamaha.

You sure keep busy, Andre, with motocross in the summer and snocross in the winter.
Lots going on! Snocross doesn’t normally carry on this far, but because of the developmental program, we had to get a benchmark for where we’re starting the season. We’d have gone again to test in June, to Mackenzie, British Columbia, but we knocked off everything we needed to do in four days.

That’s good, now you can concentrate on dirt bikes.
Well, even in the winter I’m still working on motocross; on the weekends it’s snocross and during the week it’s motocross.

So how do you feel things went in your partnership with Suzuki City for the East Coast Supercross Series?
It went good; it was a long learning curve. I wasn’t there every weekend to absorb it all, but there are a lot of politics, and if you’re going to be aggressive with it, you need the right athlete and be in the face of everyone all of the time. It’s not something I’m going to give up on, but it’s at what level I’m going to do it next year.

And Suzuki City is running an outdoor program in the AMA Nationals this summer too, right?
Correct. Michael’s got a program to race outdoors, but he won’t have a semi and all that because there’s not enough funding. He is continuing on with four athletes this summer.

Adam "Stu" Robinson is partnered up again with MX1 rider, Mitch Cooke. Stu's also the team's suspension tech and the man behind RG3 Suspension Canada.  Busy, busy!

What was your evaluation of Tyler and Jeremy Medaglia’s performance at the Gopher Dunes Provincial two weeks ago?
I was really, really impressed with both of them and how focused they are. I’m stoked about Jeremy and his aggression; he has his game face on all of the time.

Jeremy definitely has the speed and talent, but I was surprised to see OTSFF hire such a young rider and throw him in with the dogs right away.
You know what? If we can get a top five I will be excited. I think he’ll do better, but let’s have realistic goals with Jeremy. He has the focus to push for more than that and I’m not concerned there. Nick worked with him all winter and is stoked how the kid is devoted to do what he wants to do. It’s nice to see that at such a young age.

Are you looking at Jeremy as a developmental rider?
I see him being on a 250F for a minimum of three years, unless he wins the title right away.

What’s going on with Mitch?
Mitch is good. Stu and the RG3 group just got back from out East. They were helping dial in his suspension and spending that extra private time getting him dialed in.

How many years now have you been involved in running a national team for Suzuki, Andre?
This is our fifth year. We started in 2004 with John Dowd.

Do you have any specific races that stand out?
I’m definitely proud of what [Gavin] Gracyk did at Walton [in 2005 when he won both motos], and just working with Dowdy and what we’ve learned from him. Every time he came up, it was exciting. One that stands out was when Dowdy crashed at RJ’s in 2004, suffered a concussion, and still went out and finished third [laughs].

Any new sponsors on board this year?
Troy Lee Designs is now offering us a full line of product, Lucas Oils is on board, and MotoKuhl from out West is involved.

I think I’ve asked all of the team managers this question: what are your predictions for Ste-Julie?
Let’s see …  I just hope nobody crashes [laughs]! Right off the bat, last year, we had Josh [Woods] go down. I see Mitch in the top three, I don’t see Tyler being anywhere but top five, Brady I’m hoping for a top 15, and with Jeremy, boy, I’ll tell you what, he can do a top five for sure and anything above that, he deserves it. But we never know what to expect.

No, you never do. See you in Ste-Julie, Andre!
Thanks, Danny.