We managed to catch up with legendary mechanic and former JGR team manager, Jeremy Albrecht, at Anaheim and he shared his experiences of working for AMA supercross and motocross champions, Jeff Emig and James Stewart – two very different characters but two legends of the sport!
Jeremy on…
Jeff Emig
I mean the hard thing with McGrath at that time. He was so much better than everybody else. And I felt like he just got the holeshot and would cruise around and just keep a gap enough for you to think you have a shot. And every year, yeah, we joke around, we go to the river and we see McGrath and tell him, don’t party. Let’s try to beat him this year. And we think we got him and then we go and McGrath’s better than he was the year before!
So I mean, really whoops was, I would say, Emig’s weakness a little bit back then. He would always wait for this groove to be in when there wore out. He would do better in the main because he could jump through him. But yeah, he just liked to suspension too soft and too plush. He liked a plush or feeling bike. And it needed to be a little more rigid, which I think he learned later in his career toward the end. If he would have did that earlier on, I think it would have helped him.
But he did great like Daytona. He won Daytona supercross mainly because we used outdoor suspension and he likes it real plush. And the track got rough and it was more kind of technique there. You kind of feel your way around the track. Not really timing like Supercross is.
McGrath just had great timing, great whoops speed. He was on a different level than everybody back then. And it was cool to work on it and try to get him to beat him, which we finally did. So that was cool.
When he got hired at Kawasaki, actually, they didn’t expect him to win. They just knew he got good starts. So he got good starts and he actually got some podiums early on. So he was gaining confidence there.
He really liked the team. Roy Turner was a boss back then and he was really good at just making Emig feel like part of the team. And he knew that Emig party little long as he didn’t overdo it. It was fine. That’s kind of the way we all felt. Just kind of do it.
If you do good, let’s do it Sunday night or Saturday night or whatever the race was. Do it then and then train all week and get better. And that’s what he did for a long time and it worked.
You know, like anything, you end up pushing a little far and doing it too many times and then it doesn’t work. But yeah, Emig was really good at the outdoor stuff and when suspension was soft and he felt comfortable, like even like a seat. He didn’t like new seats. He liked it really soft and plush so I’d have to have people break in the seat foam for him. He hated a new seat. These weird kind of weird things, but yeah, he was a feel guy.
James Stewart
Probably more focused (than Emig). You know, I think his dad was definitely helping him stay focused, because he was so young. And I would say Emig was probably that way when his dad was around.
But then, you know, the tricky part with, hey, your dad’s around, your whole amateur career, they get you there, and then you go to a team and some of the guys can transition and keep it under control and some don’t. And it happens to this day.
Every day, every day with Stewart was unbelievable to watch. Like it actually was scary for me actually because every day I’m like worried that the bike has to be so perfect. He’d jump in quads and doing stuff that no one else does every day. Like it’s, to me, it’s too many chances all the time. I mean, I guess he just, yeah, he just likes doing it!
He liked the challenge all the time. Every day and he rode a lot. Like, you know, he definitely went through more parts and we had to get on a bike rotation with him every couple weeks and a bike to Florida. And yeah, he would tell me, you know, I want a brand new bike every time.
So I’d have to make the bike look brand new every time. So he thought he got a new bike every two weeks, but he didn’t. We just rotated and I redid him. A lot of new parts, obviously, and they’re rebuilt, but yeah. Back then, we actually did quite a bit of the work. Now the four strokes are a little more complicated.
Watch the full interview below: