Photo: BrownDogWilson

The other day I heard the news that two time 125 National Champion turned Team Manager, Steve Lamson, has been let go at MDK KTM effective Jan 15th.That bummed me out me as the man known as Lammy in the pits is one of the good guys. Steve has invaluable experience in working with the riders as not too many managers can tell a rider how to win. Lamson knows winning and he knows what it takes for a program to win as he was a member of the powerful Factory Honda team as well as the Peak/Pro Circuit team. Simply put, Lamson knows winning.

I know times are tough out there for everyone and often times, the first things to look at in regards to saving money is the "fat" of a program. Lamson wasn't the only manager at MDK and therefore was expendable.That's too bad, most people in the sport look at the particular riders that a team has and make a judgment on the team off of the results. Sometimes a team seems to have riders that are talented but are not producing on the track. Sometimes the opposite happens where you question a teams signing and the guy ends up doing way better then expected and you just attribute it to the rider coming of age or having better equipment. You know what though? There's something else that really effects a team. It's the people behind the scenes.

Lamson was one of those people, I know in talking to Justin Brayton recently he really credited Lammy with helping him out and making things easier for him. Brayton is an up and coming rider who just lost his security blanket. Will it bother him? Nobody knows right now, but you cannot dismiss Lammy getting dismissed as a non-factor. Steve is what we call "good people" and it's too bad for him and I hope he lands on his feet and I hope that MDK, in cutting costs, didn't cut into it's team backbone.

You guys have any memories of Lammy?

--Steve Matthes