Visordown.
com and Jon Urry give us this great interview with Jeremy Burgess, who speaks of his history in motorcycling, including championships won with Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi.
Burgess is a man who always sits in the background, but like many of this type, his important role is not to be underestimated, both for the team and the riders.
Below we give you some extracts from the interview, but I’ll come out and say that for me the most fascinating part in his comparison of Rossi and Doohan.
So how did you get to being a crew chief?I used to race.
I worked on all of my own race bikes and I enjoyed that side of it very much.
I spent many hours tinkering in the shed at night dreaming about going faster.
I think it helped me a lot to get a job at Suzuki in 1980.
Suzuki knew me from when I raced in Australia and I had an RG500, and mine was always fast and ran all weekend at race meetings.
How satisfying was the Yamaha title in 2004?Really, really satisfying.
To be able to do that and to back it up the following year was certainly something I don’t think any of us will ever forget.
After days with lack of sleep, hard work, passion, working with some of the biggest names in MotoGP, and some of the best mechanics as well, Burgess knows all about how to build and keep a team together.
What’s the key to the Rossi/Burgess success?Experience, understanding what each other wants and the quality to work through problems methodically.
How long did it take for you to get to that point?From the first test we had at Spain at the end of ‘99 I could see the only limiting factor would be us as a team.
Valentino had come from a winning team on an Italian bike with Italian mechanics, and had left that to go a Japanese team with Australian mechanics.
So he was making a big step and stepping out of his comfort zone.
I told everybody that if it didn’t work, it was because we buggered it up.
And we’re still here together eight years later, so I guess somewhere in there we hit on the right note.
Do you and Valentino ever disagree?Our disagreements aren’t as black and white as they were with Mick Doohan.
Valentino is very receptive to my suggestions, whereas with Mick you’d have to do it his way first and then you could try your way if his didn’t work.
For example, Valentino’s understanding of a particular tyre may be a little bit different from mine.
If we had a tyre we knew would go the distance but was uncomfortable for him to ride with and he had something that he felt was better, we’d have to talk about managing the risk.
What are the similarities and differences between Doohan and Rossi?Mick was a very intense person.
Valentino is in many ways as well, but on the outside Rossi has a sort of a calmness in his presence which Mick seemed not to have.
Mick was very tough on his rivals, and that’s where Valentino seems to be more relaxed.
But times have changed.
You look at Doohan today and you wouldn’t know him as the same person.
For more on the differences between Honda and Yamaha “country people”, and an idea of who Burgess would invite to a dinner party check out the full interview on Visordown.
Once again we thank the insatiable Cheyenne for the note.