Still, Betley is pleased with the two riders aboard Team Honda for 2015. The team pairs veteran rider Trey Canard with former Troy Lee Designs Honda rider Cole Seely, who has delivered strong results in the 450cc class as a fill-in for Team Honda when Canard was injured. Betley is also happy that, despite the fact the team no longer has Muscle Milk as a title sponsor, its budget has not been cut.
“Our budget hasn’t gone up, but it hasn’t gone down either,” Betley says. “Back then, I think Honda’s bikes were so superior to the other brand that it was easier to acquire the top riders. I think that now the playing field is a lot more level. Back in the 1990s, Honda made champions, and I can use Jeff [Stanton] to support that thesis. In the past, Honda played a big part in helping riders succeed in their future, and over the years that changed.”
But that’s the attitude that Betley projects in his role as Team Manager today. And, with Canard finally getting back to clean health after multiple seasons hampered by severe injuries, and Seely showing consistent speed while developing the maturity needed to be a weekly threat for the podium, Betley believes that the perfect ingredients are there for Team Honda to have a successful season.
“I’m as excited and optimistic as I have been in…I can’t tell you when,” Betley says in a very genuine tone. “I have lived in this environment long enough to know and see the changes that are happening within our team structure, and I have made it a goal for myself to turn this team around. If I didn’t feel that I could do that, then I would step back and let someone else take the job. We are racing, and we are supposed to be winning races. We are judged every week on our results. When we come in Monday morning after race and have our team meeting, we know what went wrong, what went right, and how to handle it. Our focus is to win races.”
That said, Betley contends that Honda is also no longer blurring that focal point by placing undue pressure on its riders. The means to Honda’s end, Betley says, is to give its riders whatever it takes to help its riders perform to the best of their ability and let the results come.
“We are being open-minded enough to know that we need to continually improve—our motorcycles and our team—as well as the riders do,” Betley says. “I can tell you that Team Honda is not the pressure cooker that it once was. I lived that, and I know what it was like, and I don’t think it is necessarily like that. There is a sense that this is still one of the major teams in racing, and if you ask most riders, at some point during their career they would like to race red bikes.”
Canard and Seely currently occupy those privileged positions, and Betley is extremely pleased with the way they fit the team’s fresh and positive outlook.
“I’m ecstatic with Trey,” Betley says. “He has truly risen from the ashes. Everybody knows that he broke his back, but nobody knows what he went through to come back from that, and then with the leg injury…It was one thing after another. But he has never swayed in his optimism, and he inspires me to be a better person. I always knew he had the talent to go fast. That is pretty evident.
“Cole is a solid performer, and he did a great job stepping in for us when we needed the help,” Betley continues. “He is also a great test rider. If he has any weak links, it may be his outdoor performances, but I don’t see why he won’t improve. It’s his first year on a 450, so we are not putting any pressure on him, and we don’t have any unrealistic expectations. We are setting goals, and we are trying to achieve those goals and then raising the bar.”
For 2015, Betley says that the bar is set at winning races in both supercross and motocross. He stops short, however, of going out on the limb to suggest that the team will win championships.
“I look at this as a series of steps,” Betley says. “We are going to improve, and as long as we do that and move forward, I will be happy with that. For us, that means winning races. I look at this as something that this turnaround is just starting to develop. In three years, if we haven’t done something I great, I will be very disappointed.”
As an example, Betley points to Canard’s second-moto win at the Unadilla round of the 2014 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship as a defining moment in the team’s turnaround, an example of the greatness toward which he hopes to guide the team on a consistent basis.
“That win was more emotional for me than when he won both motos in Utah,” Betley says. “To me, that was like a giant weight being lifted off my shoulders because it confirmed what I knew all the time, not only that Trey has the ability but also that the changes that we have made internally are coming together. We have so many positive vibes within this team right now. The changes that we have made to our staff have been great. Everyone is working very well together.”
If harmony equates to victory, Team Honda may be the strongest force on the track come January 3.
Your Privacy Choices