EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: alpine racing manager for Atomic, Rudi Huber

By Published On: October 22nd, 2004Comments Off on EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: alpine racing manager for Atomic, Rudi Huber

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: alpine racing manager for Atomic, Rudi HuberAs the alpine racing manager for Atomic, Rudi Huber oversees the sport’s leading factory race room, supplying equipment to World Cup racers and helping direct the scientific snow tests and engineering that goes into making Atomic the most successful brand on the World Cup. In last year’s manufacturer’s standings, Atomic won a staggering 7,945 points on the men’s tour (over Salomon, in second place with 1,880).

This dominance, along with last spring’s acquisition of top athletes like Bode Miller, has caused some nervousness within the top echelons of the sport, where people see a monopolistic trend; some worry Atomic will find itself in a position to manipulate the results, choosing which athletes in it’s stable will ski fast week-to-week, while others fear that smaller companies, unable to steal the spotlight, will pull out of racing. Within the race arena at World Cups, the sport’s insiders are known to grumble about ‘the evil empire.’

To let Huber answer these charges, and to get a peek inside the Atomic machine, Ski Racing sent its European editor Nate Vinton to the Atomic factory in Altenmarkt, Austria, south of Salzburg. There he spoke with engineers and technicians in the race room. Just that week, Atomic had added Great Britain’s Alain Baxter and Italy’s Giorgio Rocca to it’s star-studded stable. The transcript of that interview part of which appears in the current issue of Ski Racing Magazine is posted below.

SKI RACING: Why is Atomic so dominant on the men’s alpine World Cup?
RUDI HUBER: I would say there are a few reasons. First of all, you need a strong team. You need good racers, and you need a very good service staff in the background so there is a close communication between racing management and the R and D team and test team. And then I think it’s very important that a company is directly located in a ski area, so you can react very quick and test. So if we have a problem on a weekend, for example, on a GS or a slalom or whatever, and we know there is a problem on the equipment side, then we are able to have a meeting on Monday, and we have completely new skis on Friday. And we are able to test them on Friday somewhere here in this area. Also, the communication. Everything is so small here. There is not a huge management staff, not too many people involved. Always a very short, flat structure. And of course the main thing is you need top racers.

SR: When you have so many of the top athletes on Atomic, doesn’t the worry become for the FIS or for the fans that soon Atomic will be deciding who wins the World Cup.
RH: No, because it is not a factory team like Ferrari in motorsport: It’s different racers from different nations. I think it’s better for the sport if the sport is more international than if it’s all on one country. If Atomic supports the best racers in each country, it’s much more equal, I believe.

SR: But are you worried about the perception? People within the sport are making that complaint very often.
RH: No, I think the whole sport is more competitive and more interesting if there are racers from different countries who are able to win the World Cup overall and to win World Cup races. It’s good for the U.S. to have Daron and Bode, and it’s good for them to know that they’re on a product which they are able to win races or win the overall World Cup. And even for Switzerland or France it’s good if they have the top racer on the top product.

SR: Having signed so many athletes this year, is Atomic ready financially to pay them all?
RH: We have our budget. We are a shareholder company. We always have to make the budget a year before. The budget for 2005 we have to make this summertime, and the budget for 2004 we made last year. The budget is always a percentage of the turnaround. So it’s fixed. We have clear limits and very straight guidelines. On one hand it is our fixed costs, which means the service rep, employees, travel costs, and more, and also the fixed money for the racers (the retainer). And also the premium (the victory bonus). So all our contracts are based on premium and bonus. So therefore, I would say our team is big, but the fixed costs are not that big. With the fixed cost we are similar to the year before.

The past season was a very, very successful season, one of the most successful. We won nearly all of the big disciplines. This created a situation where we spent more money on bonuses than we expected. But this is not a fixed block, so it’s always based on the victories. Of course we have a big team, but I would say that other companies must spend double or three times more money to get this team. The big players, they all decide to ski on Atomic. The main reason is the equipment, not the money. This was not a money issue, to bring Bode to Atomic. It was 100 percent a question of top equipment, top service and top performance of the whole racing team.

SR: Was getting Bode Miller onto Atomic more difficult than to get another top athlete signed?
RH: To negotiate with a top athlete is always a building process, so it’s not from today to tomorrow. The beginning of the whole process was Bode asking in December in Alta Badia – it was December of ’03 if he could test our boots and skis. From that time, we were always in contact. The real testing began right after the finals in Sestriere. In the weeks and the days before, there was always a contact with Bode and his agent Ken Sowles.

I think Bode’s a racer who has potential to win in three disciplines and to make good points also in the downhill. So he is a high potential overall winner. So therefore he needs to be in a company where he has a guarantee of products developed in four disciplines. So I think this was the main reason why he was trying Atomic. As a racer in four disciplines it’s very tough, and there’s less time for testing in the competition season. So he needs beside him a team which is able to test and develop between races and competitions. For example, Kalle Palander is training slalom, and GS and testing slalom and GS products, while Bode is on a downhill in Kitzbühel or Wengen.

SR: But do World Cup racers need new ski models all through the year?
RH: All the time. Kalle won six races [last year], and I think he used four different skis for these six victories. So the product is always developing. The conditions are changing. In summertime you have very different conditions than in winter. And sometimes it’s very cold winters, very icy, then the next day is very extreme, aggressive snow. So the formula is always changing.

Atomic won the overall the last nine years, and we hope to win it again next year. And I think Bode wanted to clear his head of the equipment. He wants to know that he is on a product which is competitive on all four disciplines. Rossignol is a big company, and they offered him everything, with testing and more, but also you need racers in all disciplines for developing and performing their products.

SR: Does each athlete have a different payment structure of premiums and bonuses?
RH: It’s very, very similar. Our contracts are based on three systems: One is the bonuses for single World Cup races, and then for Olympics and World Championship. And then there is a bonus at the end of the season for winning World Cup overall or winning t
he speed World Cup. So it depends on a racer how many disciplines he’s racing, and how many disciplines he’s able to make bonuses, and therefore his income is regulated.

SR: Do you ‘match’ the prize purses for the individual races, like Kitzbühel, which pays 100,000 Swiss francs to the winner of each race?
RH: No, we are lower. Our system is that we are not a sponsor. Our main reason is that we are a supplier. It’s not only the prize money that we have to pay. There are a lot of costs in the background: service reps, development and the test team. We have costs. For one service rep for a year, we have to pay around 100,000 Euros – with travel, all the tools, the car, the telephone, and more. There is the cost on the service side, and there is the cost on the equipment side. We have very high costs just for wax and for developing the product, and more. 150,000 Euros just for wax!

So our main reason is to support racers with the best products, and this is the main reason that Bode joined Atomic. Not the money. Of course, the money is coming if they win races, if they perform, but this is just an extra bonus. A lot of World Cup racers are coming to our company just for a bonus contract, because they know if they have the best equipment, they are able to win races, and then the money is coming. If you are a winner, then you get prize money, you get a head sponsor and then your price is going up.

So the ski companies are too small companies. We are not Mercedes, Ferrari or Marlboro. The big money is never coming from the ski companies. It’s not possible. We are too small for that. If Bode is able to make Olympic gold, or a world championship or World Cup overall, then he has the chance to get maybe Nike as a sponsor, or whatever. Coca Cola or McDonald’s. These are big worldwide companies. So his marketing price is moving up extremely. Then the big money. Then he can get specialty contracts on television, and, and, and. All the top racers know this. So they are not searching the money in a small ski company. It’s the wrong way.

SR: Of all the alpine athletes that you work with, who has the most complicated needs? Who asks for things that are the most difficult to provide?
RH: I would say all top racers who are able to win races are I would not say complicated. But I would say ‘extremely careful’ in selecting out, and extremely precise in testing. They really go 100 percent in all details. Those racers are the ‘Mr. 100 Percent.’ There are a few. Bode, Hermann and Benni. Benni Raich is always extremely precise in testing and searching out. They are just focusing 100 percent on ski racing and nothing else. No girlfriend, no family life. Just ski racing and developing the products.

SR: Can you give me an example of anything this summer that an athlete was looking for this summer?
RH: Yeah, for example, Bode has come twice to the factory to visit the company and see how everything runs here with ski producing, which equipment we are using, and which material we are using inside for inside construction. Or Benni Raich, he is bringing some special wood because the inside construction is made from wood mainly, so he is bringing some special wood from his forest. So we are able to make everything very individual. His father, from his own forest. A special tree. They cut them down and they are a hundred percent sure that there is more flex than bended wood, and so we made a ski especially. We try everything. Everything is possible in our house.

SR: I noticed a picture of Bill Johnson is up on the wall in your office. When you were racing World Cup, Bill Johnson was winning on the Atomic red sleds. Were you friends?
RH: We were friends. Everyone in the World Cup circuit knows each other. I know him very well because he stayed many, many days in Wagrain, where I grew up and where the Atomic company was located before the bankruptcy. He lived in the house of the owner of the old Atomic company, Alois Rohrmoser. And this was my neighbor, so we knew each other. They spent a lot of time.

SR: Do you stay in contact with him?
RH: Not really, because he doesn’t remember too much of that time before. He was here on the 50th birthday of Franz Klammer last December. He joined the company and he picked up some race equipment. He wants to have the original race equipment from his racing career. That means a 225 downhill ski and a Tyrolia binding and a Raichle boot, but we have to give him the information, sorry we don’t have this stuff. But he was a little disappointed, yeah.

SR: Are there any ski builders or other employees that have been here since then?
RH: Yeah. There is our boss Rupert Huber, ‘Killy’. He is vice president of research and development, and production and racing. He has worked more than 35 years in the company. And he made the education in Wagrain. The base was built up in Wagrain, which is about ten kilometers from here. But it was in the middle of the village, so there was no space to extend it and to make the plan bigger. I think somewhere in ’73 they built it.

SR: It’s unusual to have a factory where all the servicemen come back to the factory on Monday with the skis, isn’t it?
RH: It’s very important, because the service reps bring the information into the company, from the racers to us here at the factory. And all our service reps learn from a mistake. Which could happen. Why not? If there is a mistake, all the information is going internally in the team. So they’re all quite well informed.

SR: Do you ever think that’s dangerous? If one of your servicemen decided to go to another company, like Dynastar, couldn’t he take all the secrets?
RH: Yeah, of course. You never can be sure it wouldn’t happen. This year Hans Knauss is leaving to Fischer with his brother, who worked over ten years in the company. He knows a lot of good things from the company, but not everything. He knows everything until yesterday. But the challenge, and the goal, is to move forward. To develop the product and all the system. Therefore now it’s our turn. Now we have to work faster and better and try to be a step ahead. So this is the big challenge.

If you lay back in the chair, and sit here and say ‘okay, everything was quite good last year, we go with the same system’ then it’s dangerous. It’s more dangerous than one or two reps leaving for another company, which always happens. It’s not good, but you cannot avoid this problem, I think. And it’s very important that a team is not hanging on one person. If everything was created on one person, and this person leaves, I would say it’s a problem. We have a circle, and everyone nearly can replace everyone. I think that’s very important.

SR: Do you have a common language? If a whole bunch of servicemen were here talking, would they talk about number T-62, and 49 B?
RH: Mm-hmm. Yeah. They all have a construction number. Those reps which are directly employed here are always working very closely with us. For the top ten racers, they are all involved here, and they know the construction number, as example, 1050, and sidecut number 74. They know which ski that is. We have so much equipment in house. In GS, for example, we have molds for over 60 types of GS skis. That’s for over the last four years. Any time we have to change the mold, we’re good at this.

SR: And another number for grinds?
RH: Yeah, we have another number for different grinds and different bases. So therefore we have nearly every month a meeting where we share information, where we plan, where we set up new targets for testing.

SR: And everybody shares?
RH: Yeah, sometimes it’s not so easy to get out the information. But the prob
lem is, if you don’t tell any stories, you don’t get any stories. So one time you have information which is ahead of other information, but next time you are a little back, and you are happy to get a little information from a partner or another team. If they don’t give us information, they don’t get new skis. It’s easy.

SR: There was a story at World Cup Finals that someone flew special skis for Hermann the day of the super G. Was this just a myth?
RH: No. Hermann, since the day of his motorcycle crash, had not that much time to test and train downhill and develop the product for his style. On different conditions, sometimes he had problems regarding less racing experience. He had problems selecting the right set-up (by set-up I mean skis, plates, edge tuning). And Hermann is a very sensitive racer, and for him everything has to be very exact in the set-up. At the World Cup Final, there was very aggressive snow, and Hermann likes to have a ski that was not that aggressive. That means different edge tuning, different sidecut. And this ski was not in Sestriere. This ski was here in Altenmarkt. The service rep who was going to Sestriere anyway, brought these skis during the night, and they prepared the ski and used the ski. But it was a mistake. Because there was no chance to test the ski before. They thought- both of them, Edi and Hermann it would be a good selection, and would be a good idea to use these skis. Everyone makes mistakes. It was an experience. It won’t happen next year.

Anyway, Hermann has a chance to test more and to be on every downhill what he missed a little bit in the past seasons. The testing and the developing the product in the speed disciplines. There was not this. On different conditions, it was no problem. But on really difficult conditions, it was not so easy to find out the best set-up for him. But I’m sure this season it is not a problem. Because now he has more time for testing and training. Last year, most of the training was concentrating on GS.

SR: So what do you do to boots, to make them more aggressive?
RH: There is so much: canting, stiffness of the boots – I cannot tell you everything. It’s not right if you compare with Formula One; that’s much more complicated and difficult. But it’s going that direction. The racers are using different set-ups for different disciplines, they’re using one or two different skis for GS. We use four or five different skis for downhill sidecut and base tuning and so on. To find the correct set-up is one part experience. Also the self-confidence of the racers, because Stephan Eberharter, he nearly raced all victories on one or two skis. He knows his skis, and then he goes. But some racers are more sensitive. They need more testing and more working on the set-up. And some racers are not that sensitive.

SR: A question that I’m very curious about: the U.S. Ski Team’s service is different from many other teams. Most servicemen are paid by the team, not by the companies. Has that created difficulty for Atomic? Is Tom Bürgler Bode and Daron’s serviceman going to come back to the factory after every World Cup?
RH: We have two reps for the U.S. team for Bode and Daron. Thomas Bürgler he was before with Stephan Eberharter and we have Robi Kristan, who was with Bode. Robi was a Rossignol service rep, but paid by the U.S. team, and Rossignol paid the U.S. team. I mean, how the money is going doesn’t matter to me. For me, it’s very important the people are close to the company, that they’re working very close with us. That the communication is good.

Especially with the team of Bode and Daron, it was very important for me personally to have one rep, directly here from Altenmarkt, who can come here every weekend, and who is able to work in summer to prepare – person that knows all the ways and details here in the company. If the other person is two and a half hours away from Altenmarkt it’s not a problem, because he’s at the company in summer very often. And even when he goes back to Slovenia, he can pass by the company here. It’s very important that these two guys are always working together. One is the man from the house; he knows all the details, he is taking care of the equipment, and he has all of the information. They work together; one is the specialist in downhill and super G, and one is giant slalom and slalom.

SR: But there is a concern that the U.S. Ski Team likes to have their servicemen on the road?
RH: No. Absolutely not a problem for us. We are not a separate factory team. We work also with the team from the U.S. I would say we’re a big team. The ski federation is organizing training. I would say we need each other. The team is organizing the training, all the planning and the traveling. We are the supplier. That works well. That should work.

SR: But if there’s a young serviceman on the team, and he’s just starting out on the World Cup, and he works on Völkl skis, and he wants to learn as much as he can about skis, shouldn’t he come to Tom and say, ‘Tell me the secrets.’
RH: No, this does not work. Therefore we create a separate plan, and I already talked to Phil McNichol. I want to keep on our system of an Atomic team which means rep, racers and even the coaches have to be a team. Separate. And then there is the U.S., maybe Salomon, Völkl, Rossignol team. But I want to have our team, not separate, but have their own team. Otherwise there is information and know-how transferred.

SR: And what did Phil say?
RH: Oh, he said no problem. Because he knows that this is necessary to develop the product and keep on pushing forward. We like to have our own ski rooms for our reps. It’s not bad like Formula One, because in ski racing the World Cup products are very, very similar to the commercial products. There is, for example, one production where we use with the same inside material. There’s only a difference on bases and structure and edge tuning. But everything is very, very similar to commercial product. But on preparing skis, on making structures, and on using wax, there is always something different and we want to have our own team there.

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About the Author: Pete Rugh