ProCycleNews catches up with Toyota-United Sporting Directors Harm Jansen and Kirk Willett

By Brian C. Grenier

Today Toyota-United has announced their final roster for the 2007 season on the US Domestic Pro cycling scene! All signs point to another stellar year for the “New Kids on the Block.” Finally after 3 arduous days, the hoopla and dog and pony shows are now over and the team is getting into the serious days of team training! 

Team training and directing is a delicate balance between leadership and an ability to analyze and retain miniscule details. Toyota-United has assembled one of the best teams for this that one can imagine with Harm Jansen and Kirk Willett. 

Harm and Kirk are the front line guys that take care of the day to day managing and running of the team. Their combined knowledge base is astounding as well as their wealth of cycling experience. When you talk to these guys you immediately get the impression that they are top tier assets. From their 'Geek Squad' spread sheets with their propriety secret cell formulas, to their selection criteria for riders and their training philosophy these guys are the professional conductors that drive the train of Toyota-United!

Harm Jansen: The seasoned manager fresh off of last year’s highly successful season Harm, the consummate professional, is returning for his second season with Toyota-United.  Born in the Holland Harm brings with him 17 years of successful cycle racing. A natural leader he has served as team captain for most of his highly successful career and has coached top professional athletes for the past 10 years. Harm was shall we say hand picked for this job, a kudos to the management!

Kirk Willett: Prior to joining Toyota-United, Willett’s experience included a three-year stint, from 2000 to 2003, as Team Director for the Prime Alliance Cycling Team.  There he managed high profile athletes, leading the team to over 100 wins and the number one position on the NRC calendar. In 1999, as a leader of the Mercury Professional Cycling Team, Kirk also served as Development Cycling Team Director/Manager.

Yesterday I got to grab a few moments of these guys time as they were running the guys out of the stables and got to talk to them both:

Harm: Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you end up at Toyota United last year?

Well I am originally from the Netherlands , I have been in the US for about 14 years now. I got married here and now I have a neat kid Neiko. Hey I have been racing since I was 12 and full time since I was 19 years old. About 3 years ago I left pro racing to go back to school and focused on getting a masters degree in civil engineering and right around that time I got a call from Sean Tucker asking me to be part of this organization and I really liked what he had in mind then and what he is executing right now. This organization is different from any team out there and for me that was the driving force that attracted me to the team to join, so yeah here I am!!

Kirk what about you?

OK, I raced professionally for a long time too! Actually I raced with Harm a few years back. I had helped manage and direct the Prime Alliance and the Mercury cycling team before stepping out of the sport for a few years. Then last year I got a call from Sean as well as Harm asking me if I would be interested in coming to the team as a director. It happens to be that I had a year where I could do the job and having been out of the sport I was chomping at the bit to get back into cycling. This opportunity, with this size of an organization, the feel of this team and having the year they had their first year, this is the opportunity I wanted. I don’t know if another team would have motivated me enough to come out of retirement so to speak!

Harm what are some of the challenges you faced last year and how do you plan on applying the lessons learned from those challenges?

Last year we were a new organization and we knew there would be some growing pains.  Like both of us have said there is a very good atmosphere here and we were successful. Well if you take away a US season you find out you have some areas that need improvement. We have beefed up our lead out train with the addition of Mark Scanlon and Henk Vogels. We also needed a little more climbing power to help out our climbers Wherry, England and Baldwin, so we got Swindlehurst and those are two of the areas we needed improvement in, but most importantly we wanted to maintain the atmosphere we had here and we did it - I can tell by these first few days at camp we have a great team!

What I would like to add is that a lot of these things are new to me in one sense and we went and got an expert in the form of Kirk Willett! 

With that said Kirk how do you feel yourself fitting in so far?

Harm and I had worked together before so that has been easy - we get along pretty well and see things pretty much the same on the technical side. We are like a check and balance of each other and we interface well making the final product look good. I also have worked with some of the riders we have over the years so there are some existing relationships there, so the transition has been great!

You guys have an awesome team on paper and every power name I can think of, but how do you see things shaking out up there right now.

Harm: I think that everybody slipped right into the groove. Nobody is sick so that is a good thing. You know a large part of our team comes from Denver where they have been blasted with all this snow and also riders from Europe where the weather has not been that good so they may be a little bit of work to do for those guys, but overall they are a very talented group. I don’t see anyone of them pointing in the wrong direction. They are for sure a talented bunch that goes without saying, but also they are good guys you know!

Kirk? Today is really the first big training day for the guys and I know some of them are chomping at the bit to see just where they are but yeah, they are not only talented but just a great bunch of guys!

I am looking at he team you have right now and it looks good, but right now what do you see as a challenge facing you ant the team.

Like I said right now things look good - I would say the only real challenge I see is with the guys coming off winter is for us to pick up some speed. That’s is what I see as our biggest challenge.

Kirk: I see that too but also the integration in our lead out train for lining up for Ivan Dominguez and until we get that in place there is always going to be that uncertainty as how it is going to work - like who is going to stand up and be that anchor, but that is going to be a call Henk Vogels who will be the on-the-road Captain. But that is a new challenge that every new team that goes through when the try to integrate new people - it has to be instinct and you never know how it is all going to work until you get out and do it!

How many of the events in the US Pro Tour are you guys going to do? Harm/Kirk?  

ALL OF THEM <big Laugh all around!>