Deegan's Bike Claimed at Loretta Lynns - Jason Weigandt explains what that means

Claiming amateur bikes at Loretta Lynn's Ranch is supposed to keep amateurs, well, amateur. But some of the spiciest stories come from these bike claims. Weege explains the process.

[hambone]

You get both motors if they swap. He was threatened and coerced. He was pressured to say he was not pressured. He's been damaged by Yamaha and Cotter.

[Nash_]

He wasn’t pressured, he was threatened

[dmatt]

They threatened to pull all his sponsors and his dealer would never get another Yamaha bike to sell. It’s obvious that Star bike was worth way more than $18k

[BBDumfuk]

“I wasn’t pressured” is often said by people under pressure.

[johnnywood]

Yahama stopped this from the top.. wanting to pull dealerships over a bike is insane, terrible race decisions

[pedrogonzalesthespanishgyp]

Why are they threatening a kid who followed the rules and tried to get
himself a top team bike.
If.you had nothing to hide you would hand it over.

[Steezy_Mx]

The picture they are using for Weege is fn hilarious 😂

[richystocles]

It seems 100% a ⭐ Racing mistake, and the fact that they get out of it scot-free is a shame.
There job for Loretta is to give the boy the best $17.000 YZF 250, KNOWING IT CAN BE CLAIMED.

[laddcolton]

Yamaha threatened the kids sponsor. That’s why he “changed his mind”. Tyler Livesay interviewed him.

[bm]

There is a video of the kid on another channel going over it. The kids local Yamaha dealership was threatened that they would never be able to sell another Yamaha again. Star and Brian Deegan pressured the kid in a meeting (with just the kid in it and not his parents) as well but he didn't budge off that. Then threats to ruin his towns dealership made him release the bike. Screw Deegans, Star and Yamaha if you bring a full factory 100k+ bike to an amateur event to start you deserve 0 respect. MSRPx2 caps bike builds or risk losing it, it's why the rule is there to create a level playing field. Unless your Yamaha, Star or a spoiled entitled Deegan. Lost all respect for those guys after that. Metal Mulisha used to trash kids that did this type stuff when they raced, now they are those brats.

[dreamrideflorida]

There’s obviously been a falling out between Brennan and his trainer Matt Walker, possibly over this? If rumours are true the kid was seriously pressured to not follow through with this completely legit rule!

[paulblegg]

Hopefully the AMA will get involved, investigate the entire scenario and if it's found the kid was pressured to not pursue the 'claim', Star Racing should be heavily fined and Deegan stripped of his title. If they're not ok with that, they're hiding something.

[scoop]

You can hear the kid's side of the story on the Tyler Livesay channel:

"We hear from the racer who tried to claim Haiden Deegan's Bike at Loretta Lynns"

[ryanknutson]

Stories on other pages also include that Brain Degan and an ama official had the kid in a room by himself, all bad. And that the kids family was harassed by multiple camps. Yamaha also said to have called the kids sponsor (a Yamaha dealership) and threatened his dealership.

[enacku]

MX Sports, Brian Deegan and Yamaha obviously pressured the kid and his sponsors because he had the cash in hand to buy it and claimed it.... how hard is that to figure out.

[jamesgrubbs]

He was absolutely pressured. If anyone(Star, Deagan’s, Yamaha, etc)wants to know how the public(people that buy dirt bikes) accepts this, I will tell you: the pressure that was put on the kid that claimed the bike means one of two things: either they were absolutely cheating(which I don’t believe to be the case, or it had so many expensive, unavailable parts that Star didn’t want that R&d on the street. What was allowed to be done to this kid in forms of peer pressure makes our sport look petty.

[jeromejeffrey]

I'm not saying there was bad behavior on the part of any of these entities involved (AMA, MX Sports, Yamaha, Brian Deegan), but if there was bad behavior it would be very tough for Jason to call them out on it given his need to maintain cozy relations with all of them. One thing seems certain, it should be investigated as there are reports of adults cornering and pressuring a child without parents present, and Yamaha making threats to dealerships. Might very well be rumors and nothing more, but it does seem to merit an investigation. One thing's for certain, Haiden is not a decision maker involved in any of this, and he would have likely done just as well on any reasonable bike.

[macmclemore]

According to some of the absolute genius’ orver at Cooksey Media… Deegan’s bike was special because it had “modified piston timing” and also that it had a “racing powerband” installed. Wow… those guys sound REALLY SMART.

[terryfonz]

That rule is in horse racing too. So you don’t run a horse worth more than 25k!

The purpose of the rule is to have parity at the amateur level. Perhaps the AMA should change the rule to something else, like tear down the motor and ECU for inspection, like NASCAR.