Depending on how old you are, you either know Craig Dack as one of the very best Australian dirt bikes racers ever or you know him as one of the very best Australian team owners ever, via his CDR (Craig Dack Racing) Yamaha team. In addition to being involved in the sport Down Under, Dack’s even worked in the USA as team manager of Yamaha of Troy for a couple of years. Now he’s expanded CDR into the FIM WSX series. I caught up to Craig to talk about all of this and more in a podcast a little while ago. Here’s an excerpt of that.
Racer X Online: I know you're super busy. CDR (Craig Dack Racing) wide open as usual, so I have a lot of questions to get to you. Let's start with this. You have had a legendary team down under. You've won a bunch of championships. You've had some really great riders ride for you, from (Chad) Reedy to (Josh) Coppins to (Luke) Clout and (Aaron) Tanti and all these guys. How's it going? How is team ownership life down under?
Have you always been Yamaha since you started?
Wow, that's, that's pretty cool for sure. So, I imagine the support's been there for a long time. Obviously, I'm Canadian and the Canadian nationals really hurt from COVID and shutting them down. The Canadian government took it pretty seriously. I understand the Australian government was the same way. The series was kind of the same way, and a couple of Australians I talked to are like, “Yeah, man, it's never come back yet all the way to where it was.” Pre-COVID levels, support, rides, money, scheduling, that kind of stuff. Is that accurate, would you say?
And then you guys have of course the supercross series as well that we've seen JB (Justin Brayton) go down to. That looks like it's been a successful thing for you guys as well.
Rinaldi still has a hand in the Yamaha MXGP efforts over there. They're long partners and you have Star Racing here, and before that the Factory Yamaha team with Keith McCarty and those guys. How much do you lean on them, pick their brains? How much information is shared and all of that?
Are you required by Yamaha to run both 250 and 450? Can you do one or the other?
So, you're a little bit like Mitch Payton, you don't make aftermarket pipes and things like that like he does, but you’re a private team owner, racing a series, trying to turn a profit to keep yourself and your family going and all that. How is that going? How is it that are you able to do that? Personally, has that been a successful venture for you?
And like anything, I've got other interests outside of the race team itself with investments in other things. But no one ever gets super rich out of running a race team because your eyes are bigger than your belly! By that I mean, should we buy that extra shock for another 15 grand? Well, we need two of them! Okay, let's get them. Then straightaway you start to lose your profit, right? But the main thing is, mate, it feels like I've never worked a day in my life, and I'm privileged to be still here 30 years later and won over 50 championships in that time as a team. I’m still very happy doing it.
The World Supercross, you field riders in that team. Adam Bailey is Australian, and you've probably known him for a long time. What appealed to you about doing this series and signing up for it? I mean, as if you weren't busy enough! What did you like about it?
Then when we sort of got the contracts or the agreements and looked at it all, the way it's structured, it’s sort of the way contemporary sports should be run now, like a franchise where each team is a license holder. There are only ten teams in the series. There can't be an 11th team. If you want to come in, you have to obtain one of the current licenses. So, it all sort of made sense. However, in saying that, it hasn't been as easy for those guys, I don't think they thought it was going to be easy, but it hasn't gone as smooth as they thought. There's a lot of reasons for that. Some good, some bad. And I think there's a lot of political part to it as well. Maybe the US saw this at the beginning or maybe sees it as a bit of a threat to what they're doing. I'm not sure. I think it just needs a little time. A lot of the partners and people that I'm negotiating with and talking with are interested and like it. Not bagging it or against it, but there's very much we want to wait and see what happens down the track. We need to see how far this can go.
Well, I've said this a few times, thanks to Adam Bailey, the Feld guys and the MX Sports guys over here started talking and got together and threw a bunch of money in the purse and created these races. Thank you, Adam Bailey, for this.
No, absolutely right. I think it was in the works, but I think nothing like some competition to tighten things up. It makes everybody a little better, right?
You've been all over the world racing and as a team owner and I think when Adam says that the rest of the world wants to see this great sport and these riders, he's absolutely correct because I've gone to Paris and Bercy and Geneva and all over the world to watch races and the fans love it and there's a market there. I believe there is an audience.
And we had some other outside industry partners talking to us. Fox clothing, for instance. All our partners are all very much, “Yes, yes. We like it. It looks good. All the facts and stats look great on paper, but we just want to wait and see. We need to see how this is going to go.” So, that's the problem that we've got. The money we're getting off world supercross isn't enough to do it without finding funding outside of that. So, we still have to find quite a bit of money because you're moving four riders, four mechanics, and some other technical people. So, you're moving up to 14 people around the world. I would think all the other teams are very similar to us in that they're struggling to make ends meet at the moment. This year was always going to be our most difficult year, I felt, because we had some funding last year that was enough to sort of get us going like some startup money. But this year there is quite a big gap between what you get from world series and what you need. We have to try and survive this year to prove the product to the industry and outside the industry, and then hopefully 2024 we start to make some leeway.
Yeah, fair enough. On the flip side, how do you feel about fielding some riders but then the WSX guys pay Kenny [Roczen] to do the series and they pay Eli to do the series at the first round? The series will tell you, “Look, this gets eyeballs, this gets attention, this gets people talking about our stuff. Literally two of the best riders in the world here.” So, I see both sides, but how do you feel as an owner?