"Hard work pays off." How many times have we all heard that? How about, "The world doesn't owe you anything. You have to work for it or earn it." There are a lot of truths in the lessons our parents or even society attempts to teach us with those cliche quotes. Honda HRC's Team Manager, Lars Lindstrom, has lived these messages. He started at Honda over 20 years ago as a shop hand doing the 'low man on the totem pole' type jobs all while paying attention and learning the ropes. He became a mechanic for The King of Supercross and many other riders, went to work for Chad Reed, and eventually became the Crew Chief and then Team Manager at the prestigious Factory HRC Honda. This season all the hard work was rewarded with the Monster Energy Supercross 450 championship as well as both 250 championships. Lars has put his time in and the future looks bright at Honda. I called him recently to hear some of his story from his own mouth. Enjoy.
For the full interview, check out the Vital MX podcast right here. If you're interested in the condensedwritten version, scroll down just a bit further.
Jamie Guida – Vital MX: You have a cool story, so I think this should be fun. Your dad, Gunnar, worked for Husqvarna in Sweden before moving to Southern California, correct?
Lars Lindstrom:Yeah, both my parents came from Sweden. Because of my dad's work, he was an engineer for Husqvarna, and he had a very cool deal where he was developing motorcycles and getting to race at the same time and promoting the brand. At that point in his career, he was being sent to New Zealand, Australia, and the United States to promote Husky, which at the time, motocross wasn't really a thing. So, he came over and was one of those pioneers with Torsten Hallman and all those guys bringing motocross to the United States.
Vital MX: How involved with racing was the rest of your family?
Lars:I have two brothers, ten and eight years older than me. Then my sister and I were two years apart. My sister rode horses and still does. She trains and does that, and my mom and she did that together. It was a different type of racing and horse showing, and she still does that at a high level. My brothers and I grew up racing, and of course, it was Honda because after my dad left Husqvarna in '75/'76, I can't remember the exact year; he did a few things. I guess he did something like what you're doing right now. He worked at Dirt Bike magazine as an editor there and learned the English language better first off, and then also how to be a photographer and write. So, he did that. Then he got a job at Honda, which morphed into the Racing Manager, and then he moved into the auto division. All that time when my brothers were small, they were hanging out with Johnny O'Mara, Chuck Sun, and all the guys in the late 70s, early 80s. They got to be around for some cool stuff there with my dad. So, racing's been in our blood for most of our youth. It was a big part of our life for sure.
Vital MX: Did you always want to do something in the industry?
Lars:Honestly, I don't. There was a lot of confusion for me about what I was going to do. I had some pressure from my mom, who would say, "You have to choose a career path now." This was when I was like 16 or 17, and that's the way it was when they were growing up. It seems like a lot of people in the 40s, 50s, and 60s just picked a career path, and that's what they did from a young age. I was young, and I was the dumb kid that just wanted to have fun. I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up; you know what I'm saying? I rode, but I also got hurt a lot. When I was in my teens, I blew up both my knees early. I did the first one when I was 13 or 14, which is the one that gives me the most problems now and then. I did a lot of other things too. I surfed, and I had a group of friends that skated and did all that kind of stuff. So, I got back into moto and started doing a little more of that. I actually remember in 2000, my best friend Justin and I both went and bought brand new CR125s. It was the new model for that year. We both thought it was awesome, and that elevated my riding quite a bit because I had been riding an older bike that was pretty beat. I didn't have great bikes growing up. I had good enough bikes. I mean, probably better than what I was capable of riding at the time because I wasn't a top amateur racer or going to any nationals or anything like that. It was better when I got that bike, and then I started trying a little more. As I said, I had my injury, and one of the downfalls of my mentality at that time was I never thought that I could be anything as a racer. My brother was racing, and he had made Supercross night shows, and it seemed like that was that. It was like, "Man, you make a night show, that's awesome, but you'll never be any more than that." It was this far-off dream that wasn't possible. I don't know if I ever dreamed big enough. That's one of the things that I regret. That's when I ended up getting a contact at Honda and getting to start working part-time there in exchange for a CR250 so I could ride both classes. I still didn't know if I wanted to be in the industry until I started working with guys like Goose (Mike Gosselaar), Shane Drew, Cliff White, Ron Wood, and all those guys and saw the life they had doing that. I wasn't interested in going to school more than I had just done in high school. That led me down that path.
Vital MX: You went to work for Honda in 2000. What was your first job there?
Lars:Ron Wood was the test guy or test mechanic then. He needed some help because he had a lot on his plate. At the time, he needed somebody to do the dirty work for him. I remember he let me borrow a CR250, a bike I could put together out of parts. There were some Ryan Hughes parts and some other things, and he had a little bit of a skeleton there that he started putting together. In exchange for me getting to borrow that, I would do a lot of the work that he didn't have time to do. It was all the grunt work of like, "Hey, we need to cut apart these wheels. You need to take this bike apart and chuck it, you know, and clean the box van out." Changing tires, which at the time, I sucked at. All those things. I never had any thoughts about being a mechanic or anything like that. Thinking back, it was probably more of an annoying thing. My brother Eric was a great mechanic and loved it. He kept all his stuff pristine, all his stuff was bitchin, and his bikes ran great. Then my brother Carl was more like me. He just wanted to ride, I think. So, it's kind of funny that my career path later led to being a mechanic. I never planned that until I learned how to do it from guys like Ron Wood mainly, and then Goose and Shane Drew.
Vital MX: I was going to ask how much wrenching experience you had and if you were wrenching on your stuff or had to learn as you went.
Lars:I did most of it on my own because my dad was the furthest from a mini dad that you could ever get. He hated minibikes like PWs. He really had no interest in doing any of that mini stuff. I did air filters and oil changes, and my brother would help me with top ends and stuff like that. I was pretty sloppy. For lack of a better word, I was probably a real hack when it came to being a mechanic at the time because I was a teenager, and I just wanted to go do cool stuff with my friends and ride. I knew a lot of basics, but if I needed anything further than that, my dad would help once in a while. My brother Eric was the one that showed me the most, but they're my brothers, so they were pretty hard on me. I probably deserved it.
Vital MX: How does the opportunity to wrench for Jeremy McGrath come about in '05? He was on a two-stroke CR250.
Lars:That was a cool deal that happened. When I started there in the summer of 2000, it was like a crash course in being a mechanic. I'd never had to do that much or been into it. I learned a lot from those guys, and it became something that I thought was cool and fun. When you get to work on factory equipment, it is just freaking badass to be in the building, you know? I grew a passion or a love for it, and then I became the test guy. I drove the test truck, went out to the test track, did all the work on the bikes there, and kept learning a lot. We did a ton of testing with Jeremy in the '04 season. At the end of '04, for the national, he was going to ride because I think he wanted to keep his number two and needed some points, I can't remember. So, he wanted to ride one last national, and we built a bike, and that was the first time I got to do that. He asked me, "Do you want to be my mechanic?" That was a huge honor, and that's how that came about. We were just going out testing, and I think we did a lot of testing with Dunlop at the time because they had a whole new generation of tires to compete with Bridgestone. We built a cool relationship, and I was quite a bit younger than him, but he liked me and taught me a lot about not just riding but life in general.
Vital MX: He may be the coolest human being on the planet. One of the nicest people. What's a McGrath story that stands out?
Lars:The thing that stands out is that he took me around with him to a bunch of cool overseas races. The ones in particular that stick out are Australia a couple of times. The thing was that when he went there, he did it completely for fun, and it was just him and me, and we brought some parts and took a production bike the way we used to always do it back in the day. He would always get two first-class seats, so when we would go, he wanted to hang out too. He wanted us to sit next to each other, and we got to do cool stuff. He always included me in any of the cool things that we did. We did a race one weekend in Brisbane and then the next weekend in Townsville, which was way north. It was a really cool town, and we went to the Great Barrier Reef and snorkeled there. We rented scooters and scootered around and figured out how to wheelie them. We did that all over Townsville, and that town was cool too because we went into this little motorcycle shop to rent scooters, and I don't think they realized right away; it took them a few seconds to realize it was Jeremy McGrath in their little motorcycle shop. They were blown away, and it was super cool because we just hauled ass around town on these little scooters. We had a great time.
Vital MX: That era was the transition from two-stroke to four-stroke. What stands out about that time? I'm sure there was a lot of transition stuff within the industry at that time. Does anything stand out about difficulties or cool things coming out?
Lars:The thing I first thought of when you mentioned that was going into Supercross in 2004. Ricky (Carmichael), we were struggling with the CR250 with the two-stroke for Ricky because in that case reed induction, it just didn't have the torque that he wanted. The Yamaha and Suzuki still did. Our 2000, 2001 engine was so good. Then the engine design completely changed, and it had crazy mid to top and it was great for outdoors, but in Supercross it was hard. It didn't have that much bottom, so we chased that for those two or three years to the point where in '04, right before the season, we were at the supercross track, and he wanted to try Ramsey's 450. K-Dub (Kevin Windham) was also riding, so he asked if he could try it. I remember that being a touchy subject because they'd already ordered parts for our works 450 and you ordered those months in advance. Even then you would get it last second almost every time. So, there was a bit of nervousness because if he liked it, then they were going to have to make it happen, and getting parts in time would have been really tough. They decided, "Yeah, it's worth it" and we went back to the shop and for that whole afternoon and night, we built a practice bike for the next day and did the whole thing. Then he came out and rode and I remember he barely would go through the whoops, like barely on the gas and was still getting traction. He wasn't even trying, and he did the same lap time as on a CR250, and he didn't even really try. He was better in the whoops, and it was like, "Wow." That's when he said, "I want to ride this thing." I remember him specifically saying, "I didn't even try in the whoops and was getting so much traction. It's unreal." So, we went to Castillo Ranch for a real test, and that's when he popped his knee out. He just rode off the track and he was over by his van, like, crying because he knew it was over. That's the two-stroke/four-stroke memory that I have. Then he came out and smoked everybody 24 and zero outdoors.
Vital MX: Let's jump ahead a few years. You leave Honda and go work with Chad Reed when he starts Two Two Motorsports. How did that opportunity come about? Was that a tough decision?
Lars:Yeah, that was a tough decision for sure. We were testing with Josh Grant. I think it was Josh's first day riding our works bike at Paris and I was there. I got a phone call and knew it was Chad because I had helped him. They let him borrow a production bike, and he went out with Pro Circuit and rode, and I was there just helping. He called me at Paris and asked me if I wanted to be his mechanic. It was another situation similar to Jeremy when he asked me; pretty humbling and exciting. At the same time, I was thinking, "What's this going to be like if I take it? Am I even going to have a contract? How secure is this going to be compared to Honda" which was very secure. At the time, he had so many struggles with the teams that he had been on and all that. So, I wasn't 100% sure that it was a smart career choice, but I talked to Jeremy, and then my dad. My dad was like, "Yeah, go for it." He had no bad thoughts about that at all. Jeremy was kind of like, "You might want to be careful, but I think it could still be cool." So, I went and met with Chad. I think we went to a California Pizza Kitchen somewhere in Long Beach on my lunch break. It sounded like a good deal, and he was going to pay me way more than I was making at Honda. That was really enticing, so I decided to take it. It ended up being the best thing I could have done.
Vital MX: Everybody knows that Chad's a picky rider and can be demanding. Did you find that difficult compared to somebody like McGrath, who's probably much more easygoing?
Lars:I needed something like that to give me better discipline when it came to preparation. I grew up the most when I took that job. I was going to be 30. I was in my late 20s, and I was able to get a lot more responsibility and learn many things that I would have never learned doing my other job at Honda. I was able to coordinate things with sponsors and do all of the things that other people were doing around me to help at Honda. That was cool because you spread out the workload and specialized in things. I had to do a lot more of that on my own, and just me and Dave Osterman; we didn't have much help at the time. It was a pretty big learning curve for me. I did work for Kevin Windham in 2007, so I had been around it, but this was different. There were a lot more things that I was in charge of and responsible for. As far as Chad being picky, I guess we made a lot of changes, but I learned to love it because there was no real downtime, and we were on the go at the races. When I worked for Chad and then in '15 I worked for Josh Grant we were at Monster Cup, which was the first race that we did together. Josh didn't want to change anything. His grips needed to be worn out to the point where they had a hole through the thumb where the throttle was. We didn't change a tire or anything. Then Chad's bike was completely apart, and I was bored. So, I was over there helping Goose change all these things on Chad's bike, and it made the time go by quicker. I think it kept me a bit sharper because I never had time to think about it too much. As I said, I learned to enjoy that part of it.
Vital MX: Chad shut the team down in 2015. How do you get back to Honda after that?
Lars:When we shut down the team and we liquidated the whole shop there were some really good memories with the other guys on the team like Oscar Wiederman, Dean Gibson, and those guys. We were selling everything and doing all that and just hanging out, and it was whatever. That's a whole nother story. Then Chad got a deal with Yamaha, and I worked for him at Yamaha for about a month or so. We did Monster Cup together, so I worked for Factory Yamaha, which was cool. It's a little feather in my cap that is fun to have. To see how they did things over there and I enjoyed it for a little bit, but I didn't really have the best feeling with that shop and everything. I was also a new dad, so I wanted to be home more with my son and my family. I had talked to Dan Bentley at Honda, and I think that he was trying to find something for me and wanted to have me back if possible. Then Justin Bogle got a ride through Factory Connection and was going to get a works 450 ride. So, they needed an engine builder for him, and I got hired at Honda to build factory engines for Justin Bogle. That's how I got back in, I built engines for 2016, and I did some other things at the same time.
Vital MX: So, you start out basically as a shop hand and then in 2020, you become the Crew Chief. It really shows what hard work, learning, and being dedicated can do. You've come a long way to now be the Team Manager of what many consider the premier team in the paddock.
Lars:I also think that having a good attitude and being able to get along well with a whole variety of personalities is a big part of it. That ends up being something that can make it or break it when you're trying to hire somebody. Luckily, I do get along with a lot of different types of personalities, whether they be strong ones, shy ones, or whatever. When I started, I did a lot of those different things, working in the shop, I worked in the parts department for a while with Brad Chapman and learned a bunch there. That Two Two experience helped give me confidence that I could do other things. Then coming back to Honda, that Crew Chief job was a pretty big step for me. We hired Kenny (Roczen), and Dan Bentley wanted me to have the fun vibe for Kenny. To make him comfortable on our team and make sure that he knows that we're not so uptight. Everybody said that he was going to get roasted at Honda for all the stuff that he would put on Instagram and stuff like that. Dan was pretty big on changing the mentality or the perspective that everybody had on how our team worked. I was doing the special projects thing and I was happy doing that because I was still home, and I didn't go to all the races. I'm still a big fan at heart, so I was doing fantasy motocross with my buddies and that kind of stuff. Then getting to be home with my kid, who was only 3 or 4 years old, I loved that. The Crew Chief job opened up, and Eric Kehoe gave me that. At that time, Dan had left, and Eric was back, and it was one of those things where it was a crossroads. I remember exactly where I was. I was in the back room working on an electrical project, and he's like, "Hey, this job is available. Do you think you want to do it?" I basically thought, "Okay, if I do this job, it's way more pressure and responsibility and all that stuff." It's human nature for most people to want to be better and improve and grow. I ended up taking it, and it worked out. I had to work hard at that and try to study and learn a lot about computers and electrical and electricity in general because we did a lot with our harnesses and data acquisition and all those things which I had a really strong liking for. That was a big thing that we needed to have more interest in. So yeah, it was a big deal, but it worked out.
Vital MX: You touched on something a minute ago, the perception of Honda when Ken was coming over. Honda's been known as strict, serious, and corporate. Now it seems a much more fun, easygoing, and lighthearted environment. Obviously, you guys are serious about racing, but it's more lighthearted under the tent. Was that something you really focused on?
Lars:Yeah. It came naturally because of my personality or attitude. Also, because we have such a young team right now. Most of our guys, our mechanics, are relatively young. A lot of those guys came from either Factory Connection or Pro Circuit or somewhere like that, and those teams, not being so corporate, were able to have a little bit more freedom or a little looser, you know? That's one thing that I wanted to make sure they still felt they had while at the same time being strong enough or firm enough on some of the things that we were going to do with the bike and the relationship with Japan and corporate Honda. I feel a big part of my time here is just trying to balance all of those. You're never going to make everybody happy, but you can sure try.
Vital MX: In 2022, you get another promotion. You become the team manager and are dealing with Ken Roczen and Chase Sexton. What were a couple of roles you weren't prepared for or that were a big surprise?
Lars:Eric Kehoe hooked me up because before the season started, he took care of a lot of contracts with the sponsors. He stayed with me for a couple of months, and we worked together and gave me all the information on all the different contracts and different vendor information on a lot of things at Honda. The hardest thing for us is figuring out how we're going to pay for things. It sounds dumb, but being such a big corporate company, I guess it must be pretty easy for money to go missing and for things to happen that are illegitimate. So, they have a stranglehold on how you're supposed to set up a vendor and things like that. If I didn't have my right-hand woman, Trish Barbee, in my office with me who's been doing it for a long time, it would be tough. As I said, there are a lot of cool things about this job, but that's not one of them. It is one of the things that I do the most. Figuring out how to do that and going through the whole system and opening up purchase orders, and doing all those things are important. Also, learning more about the professional side of corporate, you know, PowerPoints. I was already decent at Excel and things like that on the computer, but just writing professional emails and reports and things like that and dealing with Japan, which I like doing, especially dealing with HRC. We have meetings with them on the computer, and they're a bunch of great guys over there that love racing. I think our relationship with them is better than it's ever been. Those are the kind of things that I'm trying to learn. Also, speaking in front of everyone, I remember that being pretty gnarly. I hadn't done much trying to have a team meeting and to get everybody's attention and talk clearly and make valid points and nail them. Eric was really good at that. All those things were a little scary, but I took it as a challenge. Almost like when you're a kid, and you're going to ride a roller coaster, and you challenge yourself to do it, and you do it, and you feel good about yourself. Those are the kind of things that I did.
Vital MX: Let's wrap this thing up by discussing these last couple of seasons. 2022 ended in a way that I was somewhat surprised by with Kenny stepping away. I know his career at Honda didn't go as anybody expected. Thankfully, I don't think he left on bad terms, at least with guys like yourself and the guys on the team. It kind of goes from what could be negative with Ken leaving to a mind-blowing season with three championships.
Lars:Yeah, yeah. Obviously, the year so far has been incredible. We didn't expect Kenny to leave either, but it was probably something that needed to happen for both of us. I know that he probably had a lot of pressure on him because he was hired to win championships and after his injury that was going to be a tough thing for him to do with the competition that he had. He was still able to do a lot of incredible things, like just coming back in general. He had some really awesome race wins. I'm thinking about Unadilla, and almost too many to name right now. I was sad when he left because we still have a good relationship with him. I think this Supercross season he was probably in our truck almost as much as he was when he was on the team because he had his motorhome. He was hanging out and all that. It was sad to see him go, but we have a great relationship with him. The rest of our mechanics and riders are still pretty young, and the stars kind of aligned for this year. With Jett being the dominant rider once again, and then Hunter building every year and getting to the point where he is now, is unreal. Then Chase had that battle with Eli last year and got the confidence to be able to race Supercross this year and outlast everybody and then beat Eli when that injury happened to him. It's been unreal. I guess when it's your time, it's your time. Right now, it's ours. We've waited a long time for this. Hopefully, we can keep it going for the rest of the summer.
Vital MX: You really seem to have assembled a powerhouse team. The future is very bright for you and Honda. We've heard rumors of what Chase may be doing next year, but regardless of what happens there, you guys will win many races in these next few years.
Lars:Yeah, that's the goal. I've done my part, but a lot of this was put in place before me. A lot of it was Brandon Wilson, my manager, and what he and Eric did before me. Brandon is a sharp guy whom I've learned a ton from. When it comes to business and strategies and planning and things like that, he's really clued in. It's been cool to learn from him and try to make sure that we have even more success in the future—continued success. I guess my job is to try to make sure we stay on track.
Vital MX: My last question for you, and I know you've answered this before, however, having two guys in the premier 450 class that are legitimate championship contenders could go south with personalities. I feel Chase and Jett are grounded enough that they're going to be fine, but are you prepared? Do you have any game plan if they get into each other and it gets heated?
Lars:I've kind of run some scenarios through my head and prepared as well as I can. We did have some talks before the season started about how we're going to approach it. I'm sure there will be some moments. They were neck and neck in that second moto, and I'm expecting some fireworks or something to happen. In any sport, if there are two top guys going for it, it's impossible for them if they're both trying to win, to be able to be buddy buddy. It's not like they hate each other by any means. They like to mess around and especially Jett. He's so young, and some of the things he says make you go, "Oh man." Like when you were 16 years old. He and Chance (Hymas) together are pretty funny, but when you get a little bit more experience and maturity, and you're not a little kid anymore, it could wear you pretty thin. So, we'll see how that goes. We'll be able to control it hopefully and calm the situation.
