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I think you're overestimating the salaries of DH riders and support staff by quite a bit. The top 5 or 10 in the world might average $100k salary with a capped bonus structure but after that, the top 10-25 probably make $25k with good bonus structure or $40k with a small bonus structure. Outside the top 25 and juniors is probably $15k salary or less. Mechanics are probably paid at most what you're suggesting, but realistically a little lower. All that said, Neko's budget sounds lean, but very doable when you have smart minds like his and Martin's running things.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Gwin’s in a bit of a tight spot when you consider that he’s effectively a team owner without a title sponsor and now without his right hand man. Pretty much all of the brands that could afford Gwin are spoken for and I don’t see him slotting into someone else’s program at this point in his career. It would be amazing to see him take over as the yeti factory team for dh but if that doesn’t come together he’s probably going to be riding the frame he got paid to develop, but for free.

To add to some of the Gwin discussion here... -In his "Goodbye Post" to Intense/IFR it doesn't sound like he wanted the party to end. "We definitely had our challenges at times but I’m proud of where we ended up and I feel we were getting really close to our goal of being a consistent, winning, program again." To me that says, 'we didn't reach our goal, but were about to, with one more contract re-up'. -They likely pulled funding for his Intense Factory Racing team. Which IF they officially signed Dak and renewed Gwin & Joe, you'd be looking...

I'm speculating a new team for Gwin on Intense frames. I can't believe he spent all that time riding VPP that he didn't like, only to develop a trek session clone (but uglier), then to develop what appears to be a refined, race-ready, good looking frame, only to never race it once at world cups and then move on.