Haiden Deegan denied he asked for start money in an interview with Lewis Phillips in press day at Ironman and now both Jeff Ward and Ken Roczen weighed in with their perspective on the Star Yamaha situation.
The team themselves are refusing to attend the race, unless they get a rumoured $25,000 per bike. That equates to €100,000 for the USA team if Deegan and Justin Cooper were riding with two bikes each.
The response came on the back of this Instagram clip on VitalMX where Deegan explained Star Yamaha’s situation: “I don’t need start money. The problem is I want to go the race where the team isn’t losing money. We are not going to a race where you lose money. Unfortunately where we are at in racing and where we are at in this generation that’s not where we need to be anymore. The team needs to stand up and it did but I do not need start money.”
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Ward, who never lost a MXoN with team USA, said: “It was in my contract. Well then this generation sucks. When there’s a will, there’s a way, sounds like they need someone better doing their contract. They knew three races in he would be picked to ride MXdN. Easily could have raised the extra money. They are giving away a 250 plus 5k and make money off that, I believe unless they give it to charity? It could have been done.” 
Meanwhile, Ken Roczen replied say he paid his own expenses to race for Germany saying: “I flipped the entire MXoN bill for my whole program the last 4 or 5 years I have raced it.”
So who is right? Star may have a point but as Jeff Ward said, why was this stipulation not made public by Star in January to allow the AMA or somebody the time to raise the money somehow?
