Suzuki VP Mel Harris: he's been the top man at Suzuki since their Superbike success began. image by brian jay flywheel

American Suzuki's Vice President Mel Harris has seen all sides of the Suzuki Superbike program in America. From the primitive (and almost prehistoric), yet successful days of Wes Cooley and Pops Yoshimura working out of a box truck in the early 1980s, to the glory days of the original GSX-R with Kevin Schwantz in (and sometimes out of) the saddle, to the current situation where he heads up the most successful and, arguably, best-run team in all of US Superbike and beyond—where Suzuki has won a total of nine Superbike championships with riders Mat Mladin and Ben Spies. We sat down with Mel to get his thoughts on everything from the AMA to Gixxer streetbike sales.

Q The AMA has made an interesting announcement about selling the commercial and marketing rights to the series. Your thoughts?

A I'm very much for getting everything under one house. The Supercross has Live Nation. They've done a great job promoting it. There are a lot of people, mostly sell-outs, and it really has done a lot for that sport. For us as manufacturers, it would sure as hell help us get more sponsorship in these pits. There's very little sponsorship for roadracing, and roadracing's getting to be an expensive adventure. And I think one promoter, hopefully, will get a title sponsor, and that will trickle down to the teams, and everything will be together. Because we go to these venues, we can tell who promotes them a whole lot, who promotes them half, and who promotes them almost zero. So it's time that we have everything on the same playing field. And this is a heck of a property. This is a jewel in the AMA system. So I think a good promoter, getting them behind it, with good sponsors, as I said, we'll be in great shape.

Q Mostly unrelated, there's a growing sentiment that the domination by the Suzukis is damaging the series. Your thoughts?

A I don't think it's damaging the series. I think you have two outstanding riders that have really taken it to another level. I see, I think one thing that's really great for the sport is you see one of our support teams getting a guy on the podium. What happened to the other factories? We produce bikes that are made for the street that also can be raced, and we work very hard at what we do. Yoshimura Suzuki has a very professional group of guys that work on this team, and really work extremely hard. Today, the season ended. Week after next, we're going to be back out there testing, getting ready for 2008. So there's no let-up. We've got to be ready all the time. Because when you're up there at No. 1, everybody shoots at you. How many people complain because the Yankees have the biggest payroll? They buy their talent. Unfortunately, we don't buy our talent, but we have some good bikes, and it's a combination of good rider, good bikes and a good team.

"When I went to the races back in the late 80s and 90s, we were damn lucky to be in the top five ..."

Q In my mind, Suzuki has the most to lose if the AMA sells out because a sports marketing company's probable first move will be to slow down the GSX-Rs. What would be your reaction if a sport's marketing company came in and looked at the series and said that to improve the parity in the series, they would throw weight on the Suzukis, to try and improve the show?

A I don't think that's the answer, to throw weight on the bikes. I mean, the bikes, all the manufacturers, have the same ability to produce the same things, and there's a weight limit, I think, of how much everybody must weigh, 370 I believe is what it is, so if you start putting more weight on one bike and not the other bike, that's not really a fair characteristic. I think that we went through this with the Ducatis, the V-twin Ducatis and the four- cylinder bikes once before, and it becomes a little bit of a fiasco. So as long as we're all running all four-cylinder motorcycles, then I don't think the weight is the way to go.

Q You're on top of a volcano with all the different personalities in the Suzuki team. You've got Mat Mladin, the most dominant Superbike racer of the modern era, a very strong personality. You've got Ben Spies, the young up-and-comer, and into the chemical mixture, his mom, Mary. Can you talk about that a little bit?

A Well, I know for a fact that there's so much respect for the riders in this pits, with Mat to Ben, and Ben to Mat, and they want to help Tommy and get Tommy up to their level. So I know that the riders have a lot of respect for one another, or else they wouldn't be able to race as close as they do, as fast as they're going on a racetrack.

As for the element of Mary, I'll never say anything bad about Mary. She's a mother. She wants the best for her son, and that's what she works at on a daily basis. That's her life, is her son. So I may have other feelings from time to time about it, but I understand it. She's a mother. Would it be any different in any other sport? I think I can go into motocross and show you the same examples that we've had over the years. We can do the same thing, I'm sure, in every racing discipline. But we try to appease everybody. But the number one job here is to go racing and do a good job. You see that happens on the track, and the guys really have a lot of fun doing things, and as long as we keep our little tomfoolery and our things like that in our camp and don't take it outside of our camp, and have the respect that we have for one another, I think we'll have a success for many more years to come.

Q Final question. Many of the critics of the Suzuki domination of the series maybe don't have the memories that people who have been in the sport a long time have, of the Suzuki program really struggling for a decade—longer—to get where they are now. It was a long road to get where you are.

A That's a good question. That really gives me a lead-in to answer it this way. When I came to Suzuki it was 1983. I didn't know the difference between Supersport, Superstock, Superbike, or anything. I had to learn a lot. When I went to the races back in the late 80s and 90s, we were damn lucky to be in the top five, and we worked at it, and we changed things, and tried to have improvements. The bikes were improved. The factory support became much more. And we really built a team and really started after it. But you know, they talk about Suzuki domination? Do you realize that today, after our eight straight championships, I believe, we finally tied Honda for the most Superbike wins? So whatever happened to the people complaining when Honda won all the time? We now have equaled it. So if we go out next year and win the opening race at Daytona, we will finally lead the series with the most wins in the AMA Superbike. So I think we've paid our dues, and I think we've worked very hard. So I feel bad that people think we're the dominant force. I think we just have a good team and great riders. This is a cyclical business. I'm sure racing's going to be cyclical, too. Maybe some time we'll be talking here, and you'll be saying, "How does it feel not to be where you're at?" I hope that doesn't come while I'm still in charge of the company, but you never know.

Q Really the final question. Suzuki GSX-R sales have exploded in the last five years—it's almost in direct proportion to your racing success.

A That's very true. We're the number one selling sportbike manufacturer. We sell a lot more than many other companies. People don't realize, I don't think, the success Suzuki has had. A little gem that we told our dealers this year at the dealer meeting, that I'll tell you, that we're very proud of. Suzuki is the number one selling Japanese motorcycle company for motorcycles 451cc and above. And the number one selling licensable street bike company for 250cc and above, which includes some of those big scooters. So those are little gems that people don't realize. We're kind of that little, quiet company that snuck up on some people. So, yeah. You win, what we win with here on Sunday, we sell on Monday, and that really comes out in the numbers. We are a very strong sportbike company.