I know he was riding and sponsored by Husky at the beginning of 2013. But then... this summer he stopped posting pics of him and his Huskys on Facebook and next thing you know he's riding a privateer Honda in the Baja Rally. I know he's co-driving for Billy Baldwin in the Dakar this year. But does anyone know the inside or any skinny on what happened to his contract and supposed ride with Speed Brain Husky?
I think Husky (BMW) pulled back on the support & contingency programs as they were finalizing the sale of Husqvarna to KTM. At least that's what I've pieced together from speaking with other Husky riders.
He got a sweet deal riding with BJ in The Dakar as a Co-Dawg. And yeah, Husky did a left turn and a total re-org, so as they say in Mexico: "Por que no?"
A side note: his ride was never an official Husky one. Speedbrain is their own brand and only used a Husky engine. After Husky's disbandment from BMW and sale to KTM, the team only ran half of the rallye season under the Speedbrain brand name. Then came the joint venture with HRC Honda. There didn't seem to be enough will to include him in that new structure, unfortunately.
Quinn had a two year deal and Tony is right, his contract was with Speedbrain, not Husky. In fact, none of the riders had Husky contracts, they were all Sppedbrain. Once KTM picked up Husky, HRC swooped in to pick up Barreda. Barreda's demands back to HRC also included Wolfgang Fischer, Paulo Goncalves, and a handful of support staff and HRC accepted effectively disbanding the Speedbrain effort as a stand alone team so the decision was made to create a customer program running the BMW/Husky derived bike and then the official works program under the HRC banner running the CRF450Rally. Once HRC was in the picture, Quinn got left in the lurch. I spoke with him just after the sale to KTM was announced and as far as he was concerned, his deal with Speedbrain still stood although they basically told him to stand by while the details were worked out. I was never privvy to the particulars of his contract so I am not sure if there was ever any payout from either direction to dissolve the contract and Quinn never answered my questions I sent his way back then.
It's a rough deal when a rider never gets the chance to show their promise in a team, obviously he was hurt for Dakar last year after a crash in Baja, and then he never got to race the bike again. Sucks for Quinn, sucks for all of us too, since we didn't get to see him do what he is capable of!
In fact, I was invited to Qatar by the team to see him ride the WC Round amongst Barreda and Goncalves. Maybe his result back on the bike wasn't that promising? Really sucks, though, a really nice guy
Brand loyalty really pays off. I wish he would have done everything to stay with Honda. And if not...then stuck it out with KTM rather than trying to go with a semi-factory connected shot like Speed Brain. What a bummer. He has skills and outside of Kurt is our best hope.
I'm with you, with the extremely heavy loss of KC, all we have from the US is Quinn Cody at this point. I really have hopes that KTM will steer Taylor Robert towards rally. He is a skilled rider in my book. RIP KC66, you are missed.
