Things have not gone to plan for Warnert Racing Can-Am's first-year GNCC effort in the XC1 ATV Class. With the much-hyped Can-Am DS450 to race and proven winners in Chris Jenks and Chris Bithell on board, the team should have been firing off wins and podiums all season. Instead, they're just trying to finish the races. What went wrong? What are they doing to fix it? We called Warnert Team Manager Carey Daku to find out, and he was busy testing with Bithell in hopes of a rebound late this season.

Interview by Weigandt
Photos by Hooper

So right now you’re back in Minnesota working hard.
Yes. Chris Bithell just flew in today, and we’re going to be doing a lot of chassis and motor testing. We want to come out swinging in the last four races.

We know reliability has been an issue, but speed-wise, are the guys happy with the machine?
Yes, they’re happy with the performance and the overall package. They like the power, they like the chassis, but the little bad luck issues have been haunting us. But it’s coming around. The last few races, the results have been getting better. These little problems, they caught us by surprise.

Can-Am riders are hoping for better things in the last four rounds this season.

I know when the year began, you thought you were there. And the motocross team, they were strong right from the start. But GNCC isn’t going that way.
Definitely. There were a few little issues that weren’t going our way. And then the confidence takes a hit, and things start to go that way. So now we have to bring the confidence back up, and I think the riders see the great backing we have from Can-Am, and how hard we work. The team is determined to solve these issues and come out swinging.

There have been other brands and teams that have had these issues, and then they just go away.
We can not fail at this. We’re here to win, get podiums and get championships. That’s our structure, and the support crew we have, that’s what they’re focused on. That’s the biggest thing: nobody by any means has given up on this. In fact, the problems we have had has only inspired us to work harder.

In motocross, your riders were strong from the start, with John Natalie and Jeremy Lawson and the rest.
It did surprise us, the motocross package has been excellent from the get go. We just had to do some fine tuning we are getting progressively better every weekend, but overall everything was good. In the GNCCs, though, it was just weird little things that would pop up. Things you don’t even think about. So it’s tough to fix that, to get into a think tank and run through scenarious, and think about every little thing that can happen. Two hours in the woods, it’s a lot different than 20 minutes on the motocross track. With the GNCC races, you get mud in the radiators and all kinds of environmental problems like that. You know, a lot of it has to do with rocks, an odd little rock in the radiator or something. So we’re taking the precautions to prevent that, from making reinforced bumpers and guards and things like that. We’re not talking blown engines or anything major.

When the season began, Bithell was right up front.

You mentioned the confidence factor for your riders. At the first two rounds, Bithell was right up front like he usually is, but that’s not happening any more.
It’s tough on the riders and the whole team, it takes the wind out of their sails. Confidence is a huge thing in racing, and once you lose it it’s hard to get it back. The only way to get it back is with results. From our last race, the riders are getting more confident. We have them here testing right now. We’re doing everything we can to prove that the quad is great, both to them and the public.

Your team has won all of these Utility Championships. What’s the difference there?
Definitely on the utility side we’re dominant there, and we have a great platform there. On the 450 side, we knew coming into this it would be the top of the performance orientated market, and we thought we had it covered. Maybe we were caught by surprise, but I feel like, again, we have it covered, and we can do well at these last four races. But there have been times where we all look at each other and say, “Man, what are we going to do about this?”Â

How do you test to prevent little things from happening?
We have a really good test track down here that has a lot of hidden stuff. You know when you add bumpers and guards, you have to make sure the quad doesn’t overheat when you’re running them, for example. We’re not going to purposely run into trees just to make sure the bumpers work! So mostly, it’s just putting a lot of time on the quad in the right environment.

You know what makes it tougher is that KTM came out of the box this year and did well right from the start.
For sure it does. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t look at that. And great for them, they did a great job. Same thing for us on the motocross side, we had a great first year. So it’s a little tough to see that, but at the same time I look at it and say “Hey, that’s fine. That can be us.”Â

The rugged GNCCs have proven the toughest test yet for Warnert Racing.

And you’re not waiting until 2009.
Not at all. We’re not waiting until 2009 to solve these issues. No one is resting until we get wins, and even then, we probably won’t rest because we want to dominate. We need to prove to Can-Am and the public that this is a phenomenal product. It’s going to take a lot of effort from our team, but that’s good because that kind of effort is easy to come by with the people on our team.

What about next year?
Definitely we’re going to be back, 100 percent. Warnert Racing Can-Am will be an effort in both the 450 and utility classes, and we’d like to keep the same guys. We’re happy. Chris Bithell has been awesome with us with trying to work through this, and Chris Jenks, too. They stuck with us through the tough times.

Do those guys have practice quads at home?
They have units at home. And the funny part about it is that their practice bikes have been great! So I don’t get it. The only thing I’ll see is maybe a throttle cable that maybe needs to be lubed or something. As a matter of fact we have Jenks practice quad here now, and we’ve been going through it to see if we can figure out any wear issues or anything. Same on the motocross side, they have practice quads that hold up extremely well.

So do you just shake your heads sometimes?
Definitely. It’s tough on the mechanics and the team to come back from a race and look at the results and say “what the heck?” We’ve got such a great group of guys, so we keep progressing. It’s very easy to give up, but that’s not the case with us.

What’s Warnert’s history?
We started with snowcross racing in 1999. The team has been dominant on the sno-cross side for almost 10 years now. And that’s the roots of our team.

So Warnert has seen success in everything they’ve done-snow-cross, motocross, Utility classes in GNCC. But GNCC in the XC1 class, that’s a tough one to crack.
It’s unbelievable. The Utility side, we saw some stuff there that made it tough, but the athletes on the 450 side, they ride so hard, it’s unbelievably impressive. It’s a very impressive form of racing. And I come from motocross, and I thought that was impressive. But these guys will hit things that the average guy would slow down for and just hit it wide open.

So then you can’t test with anyone but the top pros?
We do have some test riders here that we use locally. But at the end of the day we have to have one of our top guys come in, because what works for a local guy, even a decent local guy, would not work at all for a pro level guy. We can’t assume something is going to work for everybody. So we’re just going to keep working hard.

Will Chris Jenks be smiling after the next GNCC?