Behind The Scenes At Suzuki

Doogie

• April 30 2009
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Behind The Scenes At Suzuki
Rod Lopusnak’s Return To Suzuki Signals A New Era

Even though he is too modest to take credit for it, there is one person that is responsible for the factories returning to ATV racing, and that man is Suzuki’s Rod Lopusnak. In addition, QuadRacer fans may be interested to know that without Rod, the QuadRacer that we all know and love today…well…it probably wouldn’t be anything at all like it is today without his input. It probably would have been called a Quad“Sport” 450 and not a Quad“Racer”.

But at the end of 2007, Rod left his position at Suzuki to take a job with Tucker Rocky as their VP Business Development & International Sales. But as you’ll see, his passion has always been on the manufacturer side of the powersport business and when he received the call from Suzuki asking him to return as the new National Sales Manager for American Suzuki, it was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. We don’t doubt that his return to Suzuki will ultimately have a profound effect on the company. With the news of Factory rider Dustin Wimmer’s recent injury, and with his 60 day anniversary of being back with Suzuki just around the corner, we called Rod to catch up and see how things are going.

Quad: Obviously the big news this week is that your rider Dustin Wimmer is all banged up and looks to be out for a number of weeks. From the sounds of it, his chances of defending his championship are pretty much over. Suzuki has to be pretty gutted about it…
Rod: I can’t even begin to tell you how upset we are over it—and not just because of the championship, but because we all think the world of both Dustin and his mom Sally. I actually just got off the phone with him right before you called and he told me he is seeing another specialist today. Dustin wants to go out there and race—he’s a racer at heart. He wants to protect his championship and he wants to go out and fight for that championship. But we at Suzuki don’t want him to go back out there until he’s 100 percent healthy.

It’s especially hard because from Suzuki’s standpoint we’re either in the lead in every major AMA championship or we’re right in the hunt for the title. Right now Chad Reed is only a few points behind Bubba in Supercross; Ryan Dungey just won the West Coast Lites supercross title; Matt Mladdin has a commanding lead in Pro American Superbike series; Chris Borich is right in the hunt in the GNCC ATV series and we’re also doing really well in the motorcycle class at the GNCCs as well. So Suzuki takes great pride in our performance side of our brand and in racing as a whole. And it’s evident when you look at how many champions both past and present ride our brand. So from that aspect it’s truly a heart-felt loss that Dustin is sidelined like this.

Again, on a personal level, I watched Dustin as he rose through the amateurs as a privateer and I’ve watched him work very hard to achieve his goals. It has been especially fun watching him fine-tune his skills aboard our QuadRacer. And for him to win a championship against what has to have been some of the toughest competition and more factory involvement than we’ve ever seen in ATV racing ever is an amazing accomplishment!

Quad: From our point of view, as the highest-ranking American at Suzuki, that’s a ton of responsibility running the entire sales division for ATVs, motorcycles and scooters.
Rod: This new opportunity at Suzuki has been an amazing one. I’ve always been passionate about the powersports industry. I grew up in a motorcycle dealership and I’ve been involved in some form or other in this industry [editor’s note: Rod started in the business running his family’s motorcycle dealership in the mid ‘80s]. Whether it was running a dealership, working for the AMA, or most recently, being involved with Tucker Rocky, it has always been rewarding learning all the different sides of business in this industry.

And even though those other position where rewarding, I quickly realized that my passion was still with Suzuki. I spent roughly 11 years of my life prior working with them and this time around we have by far the best management and sales team that we’ve ever had. During the short time I was away, certain management and key people within the company retired, which has brought on the change in our team. We have an entirely new senior management team and a new executive Vice President is coming in for the motorcycle division soon. Approximately 35 percent of our sales team is completely new as well. So in a way, this is a brand new Suzuki with a very forward-thinking group of people behind it. In addition I think Suzuki’s service team supplies unequalled dealer support in our industry.

But all these changes take some time—especially for our dealers and customers to see it—but I’ve seen the changes every single day since I came back two months ago. As the economy steadies it’s going to be fun to watch our dealers and customers benefit from these changes internally.

Quad: You mentioned the economy and obviously times are tough right now in the powersports market. With that said, during these times we usually don’t see too much in the way of new product development. Can you tell us what’s coming from Suzuki? Will we see any new product any time soon?
Rod: It’s true across the board when the market slows down like it has that most manufactures take a more “cautious” approach when it comes to new models. The challenge in an economy like this is finding the bottom…where is this going to level off? You can talk to a number of people and get a variety of different answers. With that said, Suzuki plans to move forward—it’s what we do. We make class-leading products and will continue to do so in the future. Along the way you’ll also see product refinements and improvements made to our product. Our customers will also see some exciting all-new products in segments we currently don’t compete in—this will keep fresh customers coming into our dealerships that may now only visit our competitors! This will also give Suzuki the opportunity to focus our efforts on growing our business by keeping our customers happy.

Quad: Not a lot of people know this, but you were the driving force behind the QuadRacer R450. From what we’ve heard over the years, they were initially very hesitant to introduce a 50 inch wide motocross quad to the market.
Rod: It’s true— anytime you develop a model that pushes the current limits, there is always concern. The Suzuki engineering team did an incredible job with this model. I think the foundation of the QuadRacer superior to anything out there! It clearly has the best chassis in the industry and almost 4 years later all the class leading features the QuadRacer brought to the industry are now being used by the competition. As you know I was very close to our race team and Doug Gust when we where working on this so I could see how successful a product like this would be at the track each week. I pushed as hard as I could for this product! And it’s funny…when we first introduced the QuadRacer R450, there was a number manufacturers that said there was absolutely no need for a purpose-built motocross quad, yet there are now three other manufactures that offer a 50-inch wide moto-inspired high-performance ATV. With the success of the QuadRacer, in both sales and at the track, you can see the influence the machine has had on the market. Just like when Suzuki introduced the first 4-wheel ATV. In a very short time we’ve grown our marketshare at the track considerably when you look around in the pits.

Quad: You mentioned Borich earlier. It’s very easy to categorize the QuadRacer as an MX machine only. But in the hands of Chris Borich it has done very well as a woods racer.
Rod: The thing with the QuadRacer is that it was designed as a “racing platform” regardless of the type of racing you planned on using it for. If you plan on racing you’re going to specialize it more specifically around your needs. We knew with Chris’ abilities and him specializing the QuadRacer—as he would with any brand—that he would be at the front of the pack with it. We wanted to prove that the QuadRacer was the most well-rounded sport ATV out there. And I think last year was a good development year for Chris—he had a few wins and he got the machine suited to how he needed it. This year you can see that he’s a strong contender for the championship.

Quad: No matter where you’ve been, you’ve been super involved in ATV racing. What is it about ATV racing that keeps you so involved?
Rod: The best thing about ATV racing is the competition. Going back to Dustin being out again…I feel bad for the fans that they won’t be able to see him out there racing against the other guys, but thankfully we still have a legend and fan-favorite like Doug Gust out there as well. And those guys put on such a great show in the Pro class—there are at least 7 or 8 guys today that can go out and win on any given day. What other race series can you say that about today? And that makes for great racing. I’ve been involved in numerous types of racing and to this day, I can honestly say nothing beats ATV racing for how close and exciting it can be.

Quad: Moving forward, what is the main thing in your new position that you plan on focusing on?
Rod: Right now my goal is to get better communication and better support to our dealers. Growing up in a dealership environment myself, I truly understand their challenges and frustrations they have to face on a daily basis. The dealers are the lifeblood of our entire industry. They make it happen for all of us, there in touch with the customer face to face everyday. I want them to know that with this all-new management team at Suzuki we’ll be able to better support their needs and we are listening and reacting to what they tell us. There is no magic wand, but our goal is make this the best partnership with our dealers as possible!