Between the Races: Richie Morris

If they didn’t get everyone’s attention at Daytona, Danny Eslick and Richie Morris Racing certainly have it now. The young Buell racer scored convincing wins in both legs of this past weekend’s Auto Club Speedway Daytona SportBike doubleheader, making team boss Richie Morris a very happy man. We talked to him in team motor home about the team’s early success and the attention—both positive and negative—it’s drawing.

RRX: What’s your background?
Richie Morris: I’ve raced all my life. I started flat tracking as a kid, and Bruce Rossmeyer started sponsoring me back in the U.S. TwinSport stuff when he bought the dealership [Daytona Harley-Davidson] in ’94. We’ve just kind of had a relationship with Harley, Buell, and Rossmeyer. I’m from Daytona Beach, but I moved up to Elkhart in 2000. I was just kind of semi-retired and was running Formula USA at that time, because that was really the only place the Buell was competitive, which was all I was running. I got hurt and retired from racing—I had to have my knee replaced—and I have a horse ranch up in Elkhart Lake. I was just going to hang around the horse ranch, but I was going crazy—I missed the motorcycles. Long story short, when I heard that Jimmy France and Roger Edmondson were starting the Moto-ST series, being from Daytona, I wanted to be with those guys from the beginning. I went down, and me and Rossmeyer helped out Paul James’ group in the first 8 Hours back in ’06. In ’07, we started a GST team and did that and kind of got the bug a little bit. Then we caught wind that Edmondson and France would be buying the AMA rights. So Rossmeyer has a big deal with GEICO, as everybody pretty well knows if you drive down 95 into Daytona [laughs]. We put together an SST team with the new Buell 1125R in ’08 and were fairly successful with the new bike in the Moto-ST series. GEICO was involved in that with Rossmeyer, and we were meeting with GEICO all of that year. They liked the idea of being involved with an American motorcycle company, since they started with government employees’ insurance—that’s what the acronym stands for—so it was a pretty good fit. With the new SportBike class, it all worked out.

So Moto-ST was sort of a preparation for this year’s effort.
Yes. The 1125R was a new bike, and we knew that we needed to get some bugs out of it, like any new bike. We were fairly successful with it [in Moto-ST]—had two wins and three other podiums. We didn’t have any idea that we were going to be this successful this soon. We would’ve been happy with a top ten going into the first half of the season. I was lucky and the whole team was lucky to get a rider like Danny.

Not everyone seems happy to have the bike in the class.
You hear a lot of talk about the bike. I just talked to the AMA, and they’re sending out a bulletin now where they timed each bike in different segments, and it proves it’s not the bike—it’s Danny. There’s I think six other Buells in the race, and Shawn Higbee and Michael Barnes are good riders. It’s just Danny has fit with this bike so well, and he’s just riding the wheels off it.

Do you feel like there’s a prejudice against Buell?
Yes, it does, and it’s unfortunate. I don’t think it’s the whole overall; I think there’s a select few that are making a lot of noise. Obviously, they didn’t watch the same race that I watched at Daytona, because the race that I watched, there was four or five brands that were up there going. I think DMG has hit it. It’s not two Suzukis or two X Brands running away with it—it’s every brand.

Danny had a pretty good gap on Saturday.
I think [the other riders] helped us. If you look at all the splits, [Martin] Cardenas had the fastest split. It’s just Danny got a jump there, and then they started racing behind us. Danny got through some traffic. It was good, don’t get me wrong, but it’s sad that Danny’s not getting the credit; everybody’s all going to the cc thing. The numbers that I’m seeing on some websites, everybody knows those aren’t the right numbers, regardless of what it is, how much it weighs, all those kinds of things. Look at Superpole, for instance: every bike was separated by hundredths of a second. To me, that’s good racing; that’s what people want to come and see and watch. I think they’re just so structured into seeing what has been, and it’s not just about cc. It’s about parity, and there’s no doubt in my mind that if we had a bike that was so much better than everyone else’s, DMG would slow us down. I think if Yamaha had a bike, or if Honda, or whoever had one that was superior, they would slow it down, just like they do in NASCAR.

What’s Barney’s role in the team?
I originally hired Barney for the GEICO bike, and then I wanted a young gun to appeal to a different clientele and fan base for GEICO, so we can reach all the different age groups. But it’s good for a kid, and in turn, it’s been good for Barney, the enthusiasm of Danny. I think it’s been a good mix. Barney, unfortunately, has been hurt. He rode Daytona with a broken hand, and his hand’s bothering him here this weekend. He’s not complaining. I think you’ll see him slowly start creeping up more and more towards the front. I’m not sure that he’s going to be up there with Danny just yet, because like I said, Danny just seems to fit with this bike. Right now, I’m not sure anybody can take this bike and put it up there where Danny is.