Loren Duncan 4-21-97
- Updated: April 21, 1997
ATV Scene: Pace Mortorsports is having an indoor 6 race series, is Duncan Racing going to involved with that?
Loren Duncan: We are working on that right now. We might be putting either a one to three rider team into it. I’ll have Mark Eihardt, Steve Owens, and potentially Doug Eichner race that. That’s our tentative thought. We’re just arranging transportation now.
ATV Scene: What is the GNC race team for 98’?
Loren Duncan: It’s going to be Keith Little and Travis Spader in the 250 class and Doug Eichner in the Open class.
ATV Scene: What is Mark Eihardt going to race?
Loren Duncan: Mark will race the Pace series, Pike’s Peak, and some selected European events.
ATV Scene: Duncan Racing seems to be getting involved with 4-strokes lately. Is that where you see the future in ATV racing?
Loren Duncan: No, actually we were a 4-stroke company before we were a 2-stroke company. It’s just impossible to make a living doing them. We like doing 4-strokes, we have a lot of background and knowledge on them. I get a tremendous amount of pressure to make 4-stroke products. We are currently working on a complete line of 4-stroke exhausts for Warriors, Wolverines, 300EX”s which we hope to have out at the beginning of the year. All for the series recreational and sport rider. We feel when it comes to ATV’s we can compete with anyone on any level anywhere they want to go. So fine if that’s where the future is going.
ATV Scene: Are you guys going to go to Glamis for Thanksgiving?
Loren Duncan: Potentially. We may do a display for a few days. I’ve got three kids and my brothers got a couple, That’s not a place you take your family when you have small children. It’s not safe, there will be 50,000 people, its one huge party. My oldest is 8 and I have a 3 year old and a new born, there not going to have any fun there.
ATV Scene: Shane Hitt is going to transport a bunch of ATV’s there. I guess Tim Farr, Todd Vescovi, Jeremy Schell and some others are going , is any of your riders going to join them?
Loren Duncan: Not in that. That’s going to just turn out into a drunken party. I don’t want my racers involved in that, they wont be. I don’t want them to go out in public and make a spectacle out of themselves like that. It’s just bad for the sport. Alcohol has got us in the shape we’re in now. I’m not an anti-alcohol person, I like a drink just as much as the next guy, but I don’t ride my ATV when I’m drinking.
ATV Scene: Yep . I remember Barbara Walters in the 60 minutes show that showed how “horribly unsafe” ATV’s are by showing senseless drunken morons crashing there brains out, then suing the manufactures because they are “uncontrollable” I think we are just lately recovering from all of that. Don’t you agree?
Loren Duncan: Yea I do. You have to have responsible adults involved, and if you don’t ,you have problems.
ATV Scene: Obviously you see a future in ATV racing. You’re putting mega bucks into it. What, in your eyes , do you see that could be changed to make it bigger and better?
Loren Duncan: Well. The AMA is never going to change. There is some things you just have to deal with, the government, you got to deal with the AMA, you have to deal with magazine editors, there’s just things you have to deal with in business.
ATV Scene: Linda Livingston of Quad Promo, Inc. Is trying to land outside sponcerships for ATV racing. Do you think that would help the sport?
Loren Duncan: Oh definitely that would be great. Right now the sport is funded by people like me. What’s hurting is you have guys like Laeger, whose not putting any money back into it. You got guys like Curtis Sparks he’s not either. What there doing is reaping short term benefits, but their bleeding it off. All they are doing is helping suck more life out of it. Then you have guys like me and Darren Naccarato, we’re putting money back into it for long term longevity, but I don’t know if we can out fight these people that are sucking it dry. In this sport there are a lot of fly by night people coming into it. What they do is open up shop sell a bunch of parts at discount make a couple bucks and then bang there gone. Every time somebody leaves they just take another life expectancy year off the industry. There needs to be ten or fifteen people like me to keep it going. We’re solid we don’t owe anyone. I could walk away today and I’ve had a great experience in this industry. Lot’s of people are trying real hard, don’t get me wrong, Roll Design is a good company, he’s really trying hard to make something out of it. Axis is another, they are putting a ton of effort and money into it the sport, there needs to be more of them.
ATV Scene: Are you going to the big awards banquet that Byron Goggin is hosting? I think that will help the sport big time.
Loren Duncan: My brother and I wont be able to go, so Lenny is going to go and except Doug Eichner’s Open class championship. Doug Roll is going to represent all of us at the GNCC awards banquet. I’ll have to stay here and work to pay for everything.
