But I wonder how true that holds for today's works machines compared to stockers...
not sure if you remember when Andy Short got let go by Jeremy McGraths team a few years ago...
but when he got let go, he had no sponsors and absolutely no ride....so he bought a brand new CRF450 with his own money and raced supercross with it, completely bone stock, other than the suspension being set up for him.
And I remember Jamie Little interviewing Andy at one of the 1st races onboard the stock bike, and she asked him what his thoughts were from going from a factory assisted bike, to a stock bike was like...
His reply was..."oh man, I just went from an F1 race car, to a tug boat!"...he made it pretty clear that it was a huge difference.