Danny Walker

Tony Wenck:
Welcome to Pit Pass Moto, the show that keeps you up to speed on the latest in motorcycling, brings the biggest names in motorcycle racing right to you. I'm Tony Wenck, along with PJ Doran and Dave Sulecki. This week we've got Danny Walker, but first here's the latest in the industry.

PJ Doran:
Well, big news in the flat track/road racing world has been that JD Beach, one of our favored sons and former National Road Racing Champion has announced he's going full time AFT racing. He's of course been dipping his toe into the flat track series, our national professional series for quite a while. Seasons. He's always been around doing it and of course, it's where he grew up. Now he's making it as full time job with Estenson Racing. That team just continues to absolutely light the AFT world on fire. They're running hot rod bikes, they're developing the Yamaha and clearly there's money to be made if professional racers like JD Beach are saying, "Yeah, this is now my primary." I bet he goes road racing for a number of reasons and...

Tony Wenck:
I think it's interesting to see that JD Beach is going to not just dip his toe in flat track. We know he's a massive talent on two wheels no matter what he throws his leg over. But you would think, to see a guy that's that successful in road racing say, "I'm going to go do full time AFT." I think it speaks volumes about the series. I don't think AFT's making money, but I think they're apparently doing something right to get a rider like JD Beach to say, "I'm going to be a full time AFT guy."

PJ Doran:
And it'd be nice to talk to some of the interested parties I think to find out is it more a case of, this is where he wanted to go or there aren't that many rides in MotoAmerica, which we unfortunately know to be the case and well, when he calls with the first job it's the...

Tony Wenck:
Well, yeah, that could be the case.

PJ Doran:
Maybe I should say it speaks volumes about AFT maybe it speaks volumes about MotoAmerica.

Dave Sulecki:
Yeah. It's awesome to see riders extend themselves in other disciplines. It reminds me of the 1980s, when the road racers just didn't road race, they did everything else. They flat tracked. They had a Grand National Championship where they had to race every discipline to get the number one plate. And I think it's cool. I really do.

PJ Doran:
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And rest in peace. Nicky Hayden was one of the last guys that we really talked about saying this guy could hit the grand slam, could get the grand slam. I think JD Beach, he's got most of the components now. He's a guy who can have a lifetime grand slam and he's young enough. If he gets motivated he could probably do the one year deal. That's the big one that they talk about. Pulling off all those required wins in those various series in the course of a 12 month period.

Tony Wenck:
Is that still a thing?

PJ Doran:
It's recorded old guys like myself.

Tony Wenck:
You mean it's recorded or it's duly noted?

PJ Doran:
It's noted. News agencies again, guys like me, and then Road Racing World would tell you if someone was in danger or in close proximity to pulling off a feat of that nature.

Tony Wenck:
So guys like Pit Pass, us, we'll blow it up because we like JD.

PJ Doran:
It means something. Yeah.

Tony Wenck:
And truthfully, when we first had JD Beach on, I didn't know he had a speech problem. And he is actually worked through that. He's gotten... We've had interviews where he didn't miss a beat. It was really good and it comes back and forth and stuff. But when you're sitting there talking to the kid, that's what gets me. Because when you're just sitting there rapping with him at the race, it's all smooth sailing.

PJ Doran:
Yeah, you'd never know.

Tony Wenck:
You'd never know it, so. It's pretty... He's such a bad ass and you can't help but love JD Beach.

Dave Sulecki:
So PJ, from a technical level, these guys, these road racers slash flat-track guys, they know how to do one thing really, really well. And it's... Maybe this is a good segue for our guest, but they know how to slide a motorcycle.

PJ Doran:
Absolutely. And Danny Walker, the smooth talker is definitely a guy who can do that.

Tony Wenck:
All right, we're going to go to former road racer, Danny Walker, who we of course know from American Supercamp and the owner of the genuine Broaster Chicken Honda Team. But first we've got some trivia PJ.

PJ Doran:
This week's trivia question is, what year did Yamaha introduce the mono shock to production motorcycles? Another one that I know the answer to. I'm going to keep it to myself until after we've talked to a superstar, Danny Walker.

Tony Wenck:
All right. Joining us now is one of the most respected names in flat track and road racing and he'll probably say otherwise, but he's a very modest man. One of my very favorite interviews, Danny Walker joins us now. What's up Danny? How are ya?

Danny Walker:
Hey guys, what's going on? I'm excited about your new format and now you can actually get me on, because you can edit out half the stuff that comes out of my mouth so you'll... People will actually listen and you can actually have it in a reasonable timeframe.

Tony Wenck:
Danny Walker is a guy that we've had on Pit Pass for ages. I've taken the American Sitwell, I signed up for the American Supercamp. You pretty much made fun of me the whole time. I thought I knew how to ride a motorcycle until I did the American Supercamp.

PJ Doran:
Did he use the yardstick on you and just smacking you on the helmet then?

Danny Walker:
Yardstick? Had you met him. Yardstick? You'd need a shovel out for that dude. He's hard headed man. He literally... He didn't even start listening until I got the shovel out and threatened him with a shovel.

PJ Doran:
They do pushups and I don't do pushups because I can't. So we have a new thing called Hip Hop Abs that we do at American Supercamp. But that's old news.

Danny Walker:
I say that at every camp still, dude. I had Marine Corps guys looking at me two days ago in Yuma, last week in Yuma, Arizona doing one of our Marine Corps camps and I'm like, "All right, well if you can't do pushups, we'll accept Hip Hop Abs still."

PJ Doran:
Your legacy continues Tony. That's amazing.

Danny Walker:
Yeah, you do. You set a standard.

Tony Wenck:
He's like, Oh, why are you so excited on the swaddle? Just you need to go into a quiet place and calm down and come back because you're just spastic on the swaddle and I'm like, "This is just how it..."

Dave Sulecki:
It's a toggle switch for Tony.

Tony Wenck:
Yeah, this is where my idea is like, "It's not effective."

PJ Doran:
I think I might have told him to go to the restroom and have a personal private moment and relieve some stress, but.

Tony Wenck:
It is what you said, but I wasn't go- I forgot we're not on radio. We can...

PJ Doran:
You should see it. You should've seen him on a road race bike Danny, because he had a clearly crazy fast. But I was watching him crash every corner and I was just solid enough on a road race bike. I was like, "Dude, you are going to eat it. For sure. It's not a question of if, it's a matter of when." And he's like, "Whatever. That's how I ride." I'm like, "Okay."

Tony Wenck:
No, what I said was, "Of course."

PJ Doran:
"Of course I am, that's why I ride."

Tony Wenck:
That's what we do is we figure out...

Danny Walker:
That's why I ride.

Tony Wenck:
Yeah.

PJ Doran:
Tony, are you still riding? Are you still getting to ride?

Tony Wenck:
Me? Yeah.

PJ Doran:
Yeah?

Tony Wenck:
Actually, I just got back from Baja. I hit a coyote.

Danny Walker:
Cool.

PJ Doran:
Oo.

Tony Wenck:
And that didn't go well, But yeah, I'm actually headed to... 42 years old, I'm headed to WW Ranch with Club 57. I'm going to train.

Danny Walker:
Cool.

Tony Wenck:
From... Yeah, I'm going to train January and February into bike week, March, with a bunch of kids that are literally half my age or less.

PJ Doran:
You're going to have a blast.

Danny Walker:
Sweet.

Tony Wenck:
And I asked the guy... Yeah dude, it's going to be fun. And the guy's like, "What do you want to get out of it?" And I go, "Ah, nothing."

PJ Doran:
More fit.

Tony Wenck:
Nothing. No, not even that. I just want to...

PJ Doran:
But you will.

Dave Sulecki:
Win Loretta's?

Tony Wenck:
For sure.

Danny Walker:
Yeah, win Lor-

Tony Wenck:
So they spend two and a half... Shut up. I got eighth this year.

Dave Sulecki:
Oh, you did awesome this year.

Tony Wenck:
Yes.

PJ Doran:
Oh, it's going to help you in Loretta's big time.

Tony Wenck:
And Mike Brown said he may not be doing Loretta's next year, so there's a chance that I can be like...

PJ Doran:
Oh.

Dave Sulecki:
Uh oh.

PJ Doran:
Top five guy.

Tony Wenck:
Top five guy.

Dave Sulecki:
That moved everybody up one spot.

Danny Walker:
Top seven.

Tony Wenck:
Top seven with a little luck.

PJ Doran:
No, you've lost weight substantially since last year. You're going to be in better shape and you're going to be off of training with young whip-

Tony Wenck:
70 pounds.

PJ Doran:
Whip ass guys.

Tony Wenck:
And I don't drink in the United States. That's my rule, so.

PJ Doran:
It's an international thing. It's an international law thing.

Danny Walker:
That'd be a tough one.

Dave Sulecki:
Tony starts throwing whips, man, it's over.

Danny Walker:
That's awesome.

Tony Wenck:
Listen. Danny Walker is a incredible motorcycle rider. His wife's way out of his league, obviously, Mick, but you are really, I think a real feather in the motorcycle industry's cap.

Danny Walker:
No.

Tony Wenck:
I think that a pillar in the motorcycle industry, in the racing industry anyway. You have been-

Danny Walker:
I think that's the first time you've ever said anything nice to me. I like that. I appreciate that. Holy cow.

Tony Wenck:
... instrumental in a lot...

Danny Walker:
You want me to come back to camp for free or what?

Tony Wenck:
Yeah, obviously I'm pimping you for a free camp, but. You've been instrumental in a lot of rider's careers in road racing. We're seeing some changes. It was interesting to see Yoshimura is not going to take the lead on the Suzuki thing. I want to talk to you about that, but.

PJ Doran:
And JD's move, which we know you can-

Tony Wenck:
But first, let's talk about American. Let's give it your time, American Supercamp. What are you up to? You're not going road racing, right?

Danny Walker:
Man, not road racing. Now we've actually had time to kind of focus back on an actual business that makes money, that's... Well not a ton of money because we're still the same price we've been for the last 18 years. We haven't had a price increase yet. And still, and we're one of the cheapest schools of our type. We've got a few people that have kind of copied our program and charge quite a bit more than we do. But if they can make it work, that's awesome. But yeah, we've been slammed busy with camps. And the Marine Corps thing still we, we still been doing camps for the Marine Corps. That got a little weird this year. I don't know if you guys are paying attention at all. There's some weirdness going on in Washington right now. I don't know if you've turned a TV on or anything or listen on the radio. But I don't care what's your stance is on that, but it has affected our funding for doing our Marine Corps camps. And for those...

Tony Wenck:
Really?

Danny Walker:
It's about saving... Yeah, yeah. We got two of them got canceled in New River and Quantico, Virginia in October. They just... Funding got allocated for something else, got moved, re appropriated or something. Isn't that the official word they use?

Tony Wenck:
Yeah.

Dave Sulecki:
Sounds political, yeah.

Danny Walker:
Got re appropriated for something else. Yeah. So that was a real bummer, because man, those are just so rewarding and they're so awesome. And to have those guys show up that have been to the camp before and say, "You saved my life", and "I was on my street bike and a car pulled out in front of me, and I came around a corner, I was going too fast."

Tony Wenck:
Oh, it's huge.

Danny Walker:
And that just... It just makes... Yeah. We should be doing these for free kind of a thing and it really, really makes it worthwhile. And we just took a bit, it was kind of a pain in the butt just to get the one done down in Yuma, Arizona. It was kind of a last minute, weren't sure we're going to have funding, weren't sure if we could get the facility again, but we pulled it off.

PJ Doran:
Where do you do that in Yuma? On the base or in town somewhere?

Danny Walker:
No, we actually found the fairgrounds right across the street from the base has a sweet outdoor horse arena and they've actually brought some clay in and mixed it in with that sand and it's just some sweet dirt. And it's a really nice place. Plus the weather for us was 70 degrees in Arizona and we're-

Tony Wenck:
Plus, Algodones is right down the road.

Danny Walker:
Yeah. We-

Tony Wenck:
Did you go to Algodones?

Danny Walker:
No, no we didn't go there. No.

Tony Wenck:
The border town. It's so good. I love going to Yuma. I lived there for a winter. It was so good.

Danny Walker:
Really?

Tony Wenck:
Yeah. The sand dunes are right there, of course.

Danny Walker:
Yep. Sand dunes are there. It's really awesome. They got tons of motorcycle riders down there and just some great dudes, just some great Marines. And like I said, it's proud to be an American when you're down there helping those guys. So it's awesome. So we're supposed to do five of those this next year. We'll see. They're going to try and get that all... Task order all ordered and funding all approved up front. So it's not kind of so wishy washy. And our camps are just hammering, selling out. Most of our spring's camps right now, I think Gainesville's, Georgia's still got some openings, but most of our spring camps all the way through May are above 50% full already, if not already sold out, so.

Dave Sulecki:
That's great news. That is great news.

Danny Walker:
Yeah. That is good news.

PJ Doran:
There's the counterpoint to what we were talking about in our opening news and previous episodes. Many of "That's good news for the industry", right there. I think we have to take that as a positive step. Danny, I had a question specifically about what was your awesome road race team that you ran? I mean you brought so many super talented guys to the forefront of MotoAmerica. What's the status on that for our listeners? For me personally, I want to know, because again you, I mean you really brought something awesome to the track. It was great seeing what you did every year and watching the racers that you clearly developed move on, and all.

Danny Walker:
Well, I mean, that was the whole reason we did that. I've been a part of some pretty big teams in the past that had some pretty big funding. But, I've told Tony in the past that I had a gentleman that came to camp and his name is Jeremy LaTrasse, and he was one of the founders of Twitter and he's a huge motorcycle fan, huge road race fan. And he got to meet JD Beach and Gagne and some of those guys when they were coming and helping at camp. And he's like, "Let's do it. Let's do a race team." And I'm like, "Holy cow dude. It's a lot of work and it's a lot of money and it's about the dumbest business model you could ever have." And he's like, "Let's do it." We got after it and we did it right, and-

PJ Doran:
We love those guys, we just love those guys.

Danny Walker:
Yeah, yeah. We did it and thanks all to him for making it happen to start with. And but then it just, it was getting harder and harder and harder to justify the time and energy that it takes to be at that level when it costs you money every year. And the last couple of years, Supercamp was sponsoring our race team program, and we're like, "Okay, this doesn't make any sense."

Danny Walker:
Plus, besides doing 28 two-day Supercamps all over the country, we were doing 10 races and three tests and we're like, "Okay, that's 40 some odd, 41 weekends, 41 events that we're somewhere, wait a minute, that's how many weeks are in the dang year?"

PJ Doran:
In the year.

Danny Walker:
It was like, "Wait a minute." And I felt like I could have been a Supercross mechanic or motocross mechanic where you're just never ever, ever home kind of a thing. And we just said, "Hey, let's not do that anymore." And American Honda decided since they didn't have a bike, it didn't make a lot of sense and it was... I'm okay with it. I didn't really miss not going to the road races this year and got to ride my trail bike a lot more and play some hockey, so that's an actual life.

PJ Doran:
Did you just a question regarding the physical property, I mean, do you sell a team when this happens? Or do you just sell the equipment or keep what you can reuse for other purposes? How does that go? I'm curious.

Danny Walker:
Yeah. We did all the above. Yeah, we did all of the above. I mean, we were able to help out Jayson Uribe that's racing AFM on his Honda with some of our stuff. And we sold a couple bikes and sold one to Al Lamb that that he was using for his guys that Mikey Rush rode at the Salt Flats for a land speed record. Sold him one of our Superbikes and went out there with the thing as it came off the road race track, literally came off the road race track, and went almost 200 miles an hour, so. I think with a little bit of work and a better tire that that thing will definitely go 200 miles an hour with Al next year. And sold our semi to a car team, the [ENSA 00:15:33] car team that... So they bought the semi and just yeah. Tried... Got rid of everything that we've got. I still got a ton of Honda cool, Honda Superbike parts if you know anyone who wants to build a Honda super bike. I got some really cool stuff man. It's awesome.

PJ Doran:
Jeff Wright would love to have some of those parts if the price is anywhere near reasonable.

Tony Wenck:
That's true.

PJ Doran:
I know a guy who would...

Danny Walker:
Oh, I got a Suter pull, full on super swing arm.

PJ Doran:
And he's an internationally known bike builder.

Danny Walker:
Yeah. I got a Suter, the full on new Suter swing arm with the linkage and the right shock and the wheels and brakes. And then basically pull the swing arm pivot bolt out in the brake line and bolt the thing on and go. It's pretty sweet. Besides the trick World's Superbike, Koltovich Ten Kate pipe, and full tie system pipes and a bunch of that kind of stuff. And the... Yeah, we got a lot of stuff still.

PJ Doran:
I'll put him in contact with you. I'll talk to him, see if he's interested because yeah, that's... He builds custom bikes. They won't go to a race track, but boy they'd really make a cool looking built up system.

Tony Wenck:
I gave him a ZX7 from my barn and it was a piece of crap.

PJ Doran:
And he turned it into a-

Tony Wenck:
And he sold it for 10 grand.

PJ Doran:
... a piece of art. I mean he turns motorcycles into art.

Tony Wenck:
It was in '91, ZX7, red, white, and green. Or green, white, and blue.

PJ Doran:
It was cool bike.

Tony Wenck:
And I said, "Just give me first shot at buying it." And I wouldn't have spent that anyway.

PJ Doran:
No, no way.

Tony Wenck:
But it's so bad ass. The guy, I saw it on on Instagram, I went...

PJ Doran:
It's insane what he does with-

Tony Wenck:
"Hey, that like... It is." Yeah.

PJ Doran:
Yeah. He's an artist who puts his love into motorcycles.

Tony Wenck:
So...

Dave Sulecki:
He has the disease pretty bad then. That's good.

Danny Walker:
We've got enough stuff we could build a full other... And as soon as my crew chief Scottie Jensen, he's been working for HSBK with PJ Jacobson now. So as soon as he actually gets a little free time, which might be when he's 90, he's going to put another Superbike back together for us and I still have enough to build a whole other second one with some trick stuff, so.

PJ Doran:
Show up at a track day and hurt some feelings with that bad boy.

Danny Walker:
Yeah, that's just what I need is a full Superbike track day bike. That'd be awesome. Huh? Problem is, I'm no smarter than Tony.

PJ Doran:
Yeah, I see guys doing it. I see guys doing it. They're just...

Tony Wenck:
That's what I need is what you mean to say.

PJ Doran:
They're usually intelligent about it. Yes, guys like me and Tony never end up with, "Oh, you want to have some fun today?"

Danny Walker:
Oh man. The motor we got for that thing, literally on our Dyno here in Colorado was making over 220 rear wheel horsepower. That thing's, it's a beast.

Dave Sulecki:
Whoa!

PJ Doran:
Holy cow! Yeah.

Danny Walker:
It's a beast.

PJ Doran:
My ZX10 I think made 180 and it was pretty stocked.

Dave Sulecki:
Wow.

PJ Doran:
But very easily on my Dyno and not the cheater Dyno. It was the-

Danny Walker:
No, no. Yeah, ours is like this...

PJ Doran:
It was the real Dyno. It was making...

Tony Wenck:
Didn't you sell your Dyno?

PJ Doran:
Yeah. We sold our Dyno because it never got used. I ran my ZX10 on it. A couple of other people ran their Per- we did a lot of seven horsepower pulls-

Tony Wenck:
A lot of fun.

PJ Doran:
... with Chinese 125s really dialing them in. That was the majority of its use.

Dave Sulecki:
You could barely turn the Dyno.

Danny Walker:
Yeah. I got some TTR 110s we might need, or 125s we might need to put it on there. See how they're making... What kind of horsepower they're making. So, no.

PJ Doran:
We did that a lot.

Dave Sulecki:
So Danny, talking about the American Supercamp, and going down your lesson plan is kind of fascinating. Point to the ground. Look where you want to go, dance with the bike, all of those things. Where the heck or how do you tell people what crack to crack means?

Danny Walker:
Well, I tell him that, especially the bigger guys, I'm like, "Well you got to be sitting clear on top 180 degrees opposite of the street bike. You got to be sitting clear on top of the motorcycle. And if you feel like you're just about to be sitting on that outside foot peg and it's going to get really uncomfortable, you're almost there. You're almost to that spot. Not quite." And then they think they're sitting there and then we get the GoPros out and we videotape them and they're like, "Oh", because I lie to our students all the day long. I told Tony, "God, he looked good on that thing. He was styling, he looked good." But the GoPro doesn't lie. The GoPro, you're like, "Oh crap dude, I look like shit. I'm not even... I'm sitting in the middle of the seat." I'm like, "Yeah, just because we got Saddlemen seats on those things doesn't mean you're riding a cruiser. You got to sit in the middle. It's got to be uncomfortable. You got to put that outside."

Dave Sulecki:
There you go. I was going to ask you that. It's got to be uncomfortable. You know you're there.

Danny Walker:
Yep, that's right. When you get off the bike in the pits and you've got to pull your shorts out of your butt-

Dave Sulecki:
You got a wedgie.

Danny Walker:
Yeah, yep. You're in the right spot. Now you're getting close.

Tony Wenck:
Our guest is Danny Walker and Danny, we talked about this Yoshimura now taking the lead with Suzuki. It's a sign of the times I think, don't you?

Danny Walker:
Yeah, it's... I can't remember. I mean, I've been going to the road races since the late seventies, and '79, '80 was... And I can't remember a time that Yosh wasn't at the track. But Tony, I don't know if it's a bad thing or a good thing or if it's a change that needs to happen. I was one of the guys when we left, and still some of the MotoAmerica guys aren't happy that I say this, but the rules have to change. The absolute rules have to change. The marketing, the funding. There's no way we can afford to be race in full on world Superbikes in the US. Or just, I mean it just, look what he-

Tony Wenck:
And have anyone show up with a program.

Danny Walker:
Well, yeah, exactly. There's just no way. I mean, the electronics package, I tell folks, and I said it before that American Honda had to spend $100,000 with Morelli just for the software, for our motorcycle, for our two bikes. A hundred grand for the software.

Tony Wenck:
And then you have to have an engineer, right? That's just the equipment.

Danny Walker:
Oh, that's just the equipment.

Tony Wenck:
Now you need an engineer who knows how to use it.

Danny Walker:
Well that's not even the equipment. That was the software. The equipment was another 40 grand for two bikes. And that's just wiring, harness, ECU, and a dash. And then you got to have a $100,000 a year guy just to make your bikes go around the track. And I just think the costs were just getting not reasonable. And I've always liked the BSB model. There isn't an official factory team in BSB, but there's 30 teams, there's 30 Superbike teams. They're all a supported, like we were, a supported team. And I still kind of considered Yosh to be the factory team even though they were a separate entity, but they'd been around with the team so long. So I'm not sure if this change won't spark a new, "Okay, we've got guys coming in running super stock bikes and Superbike and they're starting to be competitive", because the level of the Superbikes, it's going to have to go off. And I understand-

Tony Wenck:
Be dumbed down a little.

Danny Walker:
Yeah. It's going to have to be dumbed down. I understand that their goal, and Wayne's goal with MotoAmerica is to produce some American riders that are familiar with the electronics and can deal with it and go over there and be ready to go. But they also got to be racing against more than two guys. And we got to have some competition in the series and we got to have people that come in that have talent, not just come in, bring in money. That's what's going to start happening, is all the guys with talent are going to go away because the folks that are going to have the rides are the guys that come in that have somebody or wherever it comes from, some pockets behind them. And so you, "Oh great. Well we don't have a lot of talent but we've got some guys that can afford to buy the rides", and I hate that aspect of it completely, so.

Dave Sulecki:
It could be the wake up call that road racing needs. Right? The paradigm has to shift somehow so that more people are coming out to see it. More people are coming out wanting to do it. So you could be dead on.

Danny Walker:
The racing is, in those lower level classes, is phenomenal.

PJ Doran:
Super Twins is the is ideal. And there are people that want to race. Super Twins proves that.

Dave Sulecki:
Yeah. So that's what SB650s and then others?

Danny Walker:
Yeah, exactly.

PJ Doran:
FZ07, MT07, newer weight class.

Dave Sulecki:
Oh yeah, parallel twins too. Okay.

Danny Walker:
Yeah. Josh Hayes had us come down and help him with his J4orce training deal that he did in August with Garrett Gerloff, Bobby Fong, Cameron Petersen, Hunter Dunham, and Cory Ventura. They all five of those guys were riding our WR Yamaha WR250s that we have set up for road race. They're super low. You can't super mode them, you can't even stick your foot out and ride them. You got to drag your knee. And they rode for two days, one day at Grange and one day at Apex, and it was some of the gnarliest, scariest... I was like, me and Robbie Peterson were watching and we were there riding and helping and working on bikes and stuff and helping Josh and we were like, "Holy cow, this is gnarly to watch." Those guys were, they were like, "You don't make a little mistake." And I'm like, "This is some great", not... They weren't racing but he was setting them up to go like, "All right, ready, set, go. We're racing. You got to go."

Danny Walker:
And man, this is so crazy to watch. It was so exciting. They don't have to be on... And I mean I know some people want to have the full blown Superbikes and you've got to have all the technology and the coolness, but I think you got to just have some guys out there really going for it and having a bunch of them, you know? And I don't know that it matters what they're riding to me, but I'm old school so I don't know much, so. I remember the old days, we didn't have that kind of stuff.

Tony Wenck:
It's not just in road racing and it's all the way down to the local level of racing. Technology is great, but it's pricing it out of range for so many people. And you're talking about dumbing the technology and that thing. It's a must. We have to do it. It has to happen on a local level all the way up to the premier road racing series in the United States, because if it hasn't happened, the elitists are going to be able to do it and that's it. And the sport will be dead.

Danny Walker:
Tony, I think that's what happened to Supermoto. I mean, I was involved in that. I had a team, I had Steve Drew rep for me, we did the Honda Red Rider Junior Supermoto with [Kos 00:24:56] and Bouvier and even Alessi did it. We had a bunch of great kids come and do that program and I thought the same thing then. They're letting the factories come in, they're running a Super Trick 250s, they're running Unobtanium 450s.

Tony Wenck:
Yeah. And the guys who show up and make the grid or are out of it before they've even dropped the flag.

Danny Walker:
Yeah. It completely... The first couple of years that we did that, that first year I think it was, shoot I don't remember what year it was now, it was a long time ago, like 2003 we did that race in Copper Mountain where everybody kind of showed up on stock bikes. And we had Ward and Metzger and Schwantz.

Tony Wenck:
Yeah, it's so cool.

Danny Walker:
And McGrath and all those guys showed up and were like, "This is so awesome."

Tony Wenck:
Herfoss. Troy Herfoss crushed that thing.

Danny Walker:
Oh yeah, we had so many... It was so cool. And then all of a sudden it got serious and now we're building trick one-off, can't get them, factory Unobtainium bikes and then it just, poof, it dropped off the cliff.

Tony Wenck:
All right. Danny Walker. We are sadly out of time with you.

Danny Walker:
Imagine that.

Tony Wenck:
Yeah. Right? Can you give our listeners your website too, if they want to attend a Supercamp?

Danny Walker:
Www.americansupercamp.com. We've got them all over the country. Our schedules up through spring right now, but we'll be posting our fall schedule here again pretty quick. So we've got Gagne, JD Beach, and a bunch of camp... Peterson, a bunch of great riders coming and helping out.

Tony Wenck:
I saw Chris Carr do a circle, whip the donut.

Danny Walker:
It's called a flying-

Tony Wenck:
Going the same dir-

PJ Doran:
Down the straightaway. I saw the video of it.

Danny Walker:
Yep. It's called the Flying 360.

Tony Wenck:
A Flying 360 with a... He had a shoe on.

Danny Walker:
So crazy.

Tony Wenck:
Please tell me he had a shoe on or else I'm just going to beat him even more.

Danny Walker:
Yeah, yeah. You can't do them without a shoe.

Tony Wenck:
You can't do it without a shoe.

Danny Walker:
Yeah, JD's really good at those now. JD Beach has got those down. Pat, Cameron Peterson has been doing a bunch of... Super bike rider. He's a phenomenal motorcycle rider, let alone motocross. He's like Gagne that can ride anything.

Tony Wenck:
Anything.

Danny Walker:
And he's got those down pat now too. There's a couple other schools that kind of mock, kind of do a little bit of what we do. But those guys come in, they stop, and then do a little donut and go, "No, no, it's got to be an official-

PJ Doran:
It's so insane.

Danny Walker:
... It's got to have forward momentum. If it doesn't have forward momentum, it doesn't count as a Flying 360."

Tony Wenck:
All right man. Cool having you on. Appreciate it.

Danny Walker:
See you guys. Be good, all right?

Dave Sulecki:
Thanks Danny.

Tony Wenck:
All right, big thanks to our guests, Danny Walker. We've got this week's trivia question. PJ?

PJ Doran:
What year? The question was what year did Yamaha introduce the monoshock to production motorcycles? It was out there but not in production. The answer was 1975 on the motocross MX model line. 1975, I was a little off. I thought it was '76.

Tony Wenck:
It was before I was born. I knew that.

PJ Doran:
Oh yeah, there you go.

Tony Wenck:
All right, so we've got... I want to say Happy New Year to everybody.

PJ Doran:
Happy New Year.

Tony Wenck:
Yeah. And, so New Year's is always exciting and it's because-

Dave Sulecki:
Happy New Year, here we go.

Tony Wenck:
... we have the Supercross preview show on CBS or whatever it's on. And then we get right into Anaheim 1. So it's going to be...

PJ Doran:
And then it's every weekend. It's just like it starts happening fast.

Tony Wenck:
17 weekends, with the exception of a couple. It's going to be exciting. So we, we will be covering it throughout the year and like we always do here on Pit Pass. We want to thank, of course, our guest and we want to thank you, the listener, for tuning in each and every week. Big high five.

PJ Doran:
Thanks for 2019. We've gone through some changes here on Pit Pass and we are absolutely stoked about the future, bringing in wonderful additions to the show such as Dave Sulecki, welcome aboard.

Dave Sulecki:
Thank you very much. Really looking forward to it. It's going to be a lot of fun.

Tony Wenck:
All right. If you enjoy this program, make sure you subscribe to us on your favorite podcast app, where you get alerts with new episodes when they're loaded. Uploaded, excuse me. Of course, make sure you're also following us on Twitter and Facebook and Pitpassmoto.com.

PJ Doran:
This has been a production of the Evergreen Podcast. A special thank you to Ed [Koolencamp 00:28:53], our Producer Leah Longbrake, and Audio Engineer, Sean Rule-Hoffman. I'm PJ Doran.

Tony Wenck:
I'm Tony Wenck.

Dave Sulecki:
And I'm Dave Sulecki.

Tony Wenck:
See you next time.