Pro Circuit boss Mitch Payton:
known for his tough coaching style.

At the top of the pyramid you had AMA Supercross/Motocross multi-class champion Jeff Ward; at the base was Team Green, the amateur rider education program. To follow up on their sweep of the motocross world in the 1980s, the next strategy Kawasaki wanted to implement was a feeder team structure that would fill in the middle ground between the two.
After an extremely brief preparation period, Pro Circuit Kawasaki made its debut at the 1993 supercross season opener. The role of the 2-stroke 125cc specialist team was to polish the skills of rookie racers who showed potential, grooming them for the factory team. This base concept is the same today as it was back then. But to Team Manager Mitch Payton, the idea of being a second-string team did not sit well.
"Factory support team? Semi-factory team? I don't know what they consider us, but as far as I'm concerned we are the best team in the pits, factory teams included. As you know we've dominated the 125 2-stroke/250 4-stroke class with many championships. If we had a 450 team, I can't imagine why we couldn't win that class too. I'm not scared of any of them."
These are more than mere words from the tough coach. Looking at his long record of producing champions, few would dispute his claims. Jimmy Gaddis, Ricky Carmichael, Mickael Pichon, Shae Bentley, Nathan Ramsey, Mike Brown, Ryan Villopoto, Grant Langston, Ivan Tedesco, Ben Townley, Christophe Pourcel… their championship-winning machines are displayed with the Number 1 plates they earned under his watchful eye. Pro Circuit Kawasaki's astonishing win ratio in the AMA Supercross/Motocross's small-displacement class (125 2-stroke/250 4-stroke) is a legend that started in the team's first year and continues today.

A collection of KX125/KX250F motocrossers sporting Number 1 plates lined up in a corner of the Pro Circuit office.

At the heart of the team is Pro Circuit, the engine and suspension tuning company based in the Los Angeles suburb of Corona. At the height of the 2-stroke era, Pro Circuit was highly regarded, especially for their exhaust chambers, earning them a large share of the aftermarket. Serious race involvement started in 1991, initially with Honda, then exclusively with Kawasaki from 1993, but the Pro Circuit shop still supplies tuning services to all the manufacturers.
Owner/President of Pro Circuit, Payton is a craftsman, with intimate knowledge of the entire exhaust chamber building process. The personal know-how he pursued was accumulated through building and testing countless headers, divergent and convergent cones, belly sections and stingers, and piecing them all together until the tuned expansion chamber was perfect. Once he had mastered exhaust tuning, he immersed himself in the art of cylinder porting and polishing. Pro Circuit became renowned for their 2-stroke tuning expertise, but motocross engines were moving in the direction of 4-strokes.
"4-strokes were an unknown area for us, so when we heard we were going to have a 4-stroke, we knew we had a lot of learning to do. But I didn't want it to take us like two years to be as good as I thought we needed to be – I wanted to do it within a month. I wanted to be competitive the first year out. So what I decided to do was invite a 4-stroke tuning specialist. I went and talked to Drino Miller, who used to be in charge of Toyota Racing Development and wasn't doing anything after he left there, about coming to work for us."
In 2004, Pro Circuit Kawasaki's Ivan Tedesco captured the AMA Supercross 125 West Championship. It was the debut year for the KX250F, but the win earned it the reputation of top 4-stroke machine. Then in 2005 and again in 2007, the team dominated East and West Supercross and Outdoor Motocross, taking all three titles. The tight working relationship between Kawasaki and the team helped develop not only the rookie riders' abilities but also the potential of the KX250F.

"I like Kawasaki. They give us everything they have and we exchange knowledge and information. To win races you need a solid relationship like this. Kawasaki is a great company to deal with. Even though it's a really large corporation, they run it as though it's a small company. So everyone, including the guys at the top level in Japan, is more approachable than at some of the other factories. I can't thank them enough for their support all these years."

Ryan Villopoto: from Team Green,
to Pro Circuit Kawasaki, to works rider.

A quick survey of the world of American motocross will reveal that the number of teams that manage to keep connections with the same manufacturer or sponsor year after year are limited. Pro Circuit Kawasaki is one of the rare exceptions. Although they have become much too strong to be labelled a simple farm team, they are fulfilling their mission of training riders. Ryan Villopoto, who joined Pro Circuit Kawasaki from Team Green, then moved on to the factory team this season, is a perfeect example of a successful outcome of the project Kawasaki envisioned.
"We tell our riders that we expect them to win. We have a history of winning. If they want to be here, they have to take on that responsibility. We've got the best bike in the world and all the little bits and pieces it takes to win. We don't coddle our riders – we help them, but we push them really hard. They'll probably tell you that I am strict coach."

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