GNCCRacing.com: Hey Allan, hope you’re doing well! Jared Bolton suggested I do a Tuesday Toolbox interview with you after he meet you at the 2020 Yamaha demo. He said you were an interesting guy with a ton of industry experience. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Allan Brown: Yeah, I met Jared there. I was there on behalf of Dirt Rider, maybe you’ve heard of it … (laughs)

(laughs) Oh yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar, sort of rings a bell …

Anyway, that’s where I met Jared. As far as the industry experience goes, I grew up riding and racing, so I’ve always been into it. I became a mechanic on a race team in ’95. I started off doing that, then worked with KTM for a while. After that I went to Moto XXX, first as a mechanic and then ended up running their race team there for four or five years. I have a service shop now that I run in Riverside. So yeah, my whole life has been centered around dirt bike racing – supercross, motocross, off-road, a little bit of everything. Just living the dream!

What was it like working as a manager for a high-profile team like that?

I didn’t have a lot of experience in management, and I didn’t realize how much …. (pauses) babysitting isn’t really the right word exactly, but it’ll work. I didn’t realize how much babysitting there was to do (laughs). But it was fun and challenging. It was cool, and I would have liked to keep doing it. The position I was in was stressful though, since I had to raise the funds to go racing as well. There was a point where Kurt, the owner of Moto XXX, didn’t want to continue with the race team. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Moto XXX was a video series and sold Moto XXX merchandise. The race team was a way to promote the brand, not a profitable entity on its own.  If I wanted to continue the race team, he gave me whatever items, assets, and the sponsorship contracts the team had, but I had to raise the cash to continue.  This meant getting sponsors and collecting on all the contracts in addition to running the team, start to finish.  The team was made up of about 8 staff members and 3-4 riders. I was making the contracts with riders and staff so I felt a lot of pressure to fulfill what was promised to each of them.  My goal was to somehow make it into a profitable business.  It needed some decent cash flow to keep it rolling and unfortunately at the end of the 2008 season it was no longer financially sustainable.  

Can you tell us a little more about your work as a mechanic, since that’s how you seem to have gotten your foot in the door for a management position?

Yeah, deep down I’m really just a mechanic. It turned into more while I was working with KTM. I learned a bit more about how the whole system works. I got an opportunity there to be a team coordinator and then did a little managing when their team manager was sick and on long-term disability for a while.

Within the broad term of mechanic, do you have any specialties? Engine building, suspension, stuff like that?

I can do just about everything, the only thing I don’t have a lot of experience in is suspension valving. I mean I understand how it works and I can service it, but as far as changing it to suit the rider’s needs, I leave that to other people who are way more experienced with it than I am.

Then it looks like all of this kind of segued into you being a bike tester for Dirt Rider. I mean I’ve seen some other things you’ve written for them, but it looks like your main focus is on testing…

I’m really bummed that the whole Dirt Rider thing didn’t start sooner for me. I had my head buried in the sand with this whole racing thing and I feel like I missed an opportunity to start working for them on the media side a lot sooner than when I actually started. I had done a couple projects on the racing side with Pete Peterson and Jimmy Lewis back when he was the editor a while back. Then about ten years later Pete and I reconnected. I mentioned that I was looking for some more projects and he gave me some technical stuff to do. He was pumped with how I did it and pleased with the writing. He asked if I would like to do more, and I did more … at first he didn’t know I could ride, so once he found that out it quickly evolved into doing test rides for them as well. As you probably know, Dirt Rider went to digital only and got contracted. Pete is no longer there, so it ended up being Andrew and I as kind of the last two standing. Now I’m doing a ton of riding and writing for them.

And so far you’ve enjoyed that kind of work?

For sure! I really have and if anything I’m just disappointed that I didn’t look into doing this a lot sooner in my life. I like this way better than what I was doing before!

Really? Is it just less stress, or the work itself is more fun?

Yeah, it’s a lot less stressful and the work is more fun. My last year full-time with a race team was 2013 and I was like, I’m done, I need to go out and enjoy myself more. I just wasn’t enjoying life much at that point.

Speaking of enjoying yourself more, I saw you had a pretty good year as far as racing goes. Super Senior A champ here at the GNCCs, right?

That’s right! I managed to hold it together long enough to win the championship, even though I felt like I tried numerous times to blow it... The issue I have is that I’m a motocross guy at heart, that’s what I started out riding. I love trail riding and I love GNCC, especially because it’s like motocross in the woods. I just have a hard time turning off the motocross part during those times in a GNCC where you need to be, you know, not trying to kill myself out there

So it’s the classic snatching defeat from the jaws of victory out there then

(laughs) Yeah, a number of times!

Looks like you still had a race win at High Voltage though, and quite a few podiums as well!

High Voltage was really good for me! It’s kind of funny how great High Voltage turned out. When we got that awful rainstorm on Saturday, I was like, well, that’s it I’m going to pack up and go home now. But then it turned out to be awesome and I got my only win of the season there. I did well at the New York rounds too for some reason, Snowshoe was really good too. I usually do good at Florida but this year I ended up frying a clutch. Ironman is good too, but I actually ended up frying a clutch there this year too.

One thing that I think a lot of us are wondering – how does a west coast guy end up doing the GNCCs?

I’m friends with Jessica Patterson and her husband Eddie Ray. When she switched over to off-road she kept bugging me to come out and try one. I finally ended up going to Florida in 2015 and trying it, and it was awesome. After that they were kind enough to take a bike around for me and I started doing them here and there. Jessica retired a few years back, but then her friend Mackenzie Tricker was willing to take a bike for me since she’s still racing the GNCC series. It’s really cool to have people willing to do that, it makes my life a lot easier!

I completely understand. I’ve raced the EnduroCross series a few times, and coordinating the travel for that was always a challenge.

It does require some commitment and you pretty much need to have two bikes. I mean, I consider myself pretty fortunate to be able to do this. Like I said, I enjoy what I’m doing right now.

What are your plans for next season?

I’m planning on going to Big Buck and Wild Boar for sure. Not sure about Georgia right now. That’s my short term plan. I don’t really have anything planned yet beyond that. I’m doing some work for a motocross team up in Canada, the MX101 Yamaha team. Traveling to all those races, then to all the GNCCs and still living in Riverside ... it was a lot. So, we will just see how things go.

And what’s your role with that team?

I do their engine builds and help them at the races. It is a pretty small team, so having an extra set of hands there can really make a difference.

Since you’re spending a lot of time at moto tracks, do you still ride or race moto on occasion?

I try and do fun events out here when I can. There’s a series out here called SRA. It combines motocross and some off-road. They are held at Glen Helen Raceway, it links up the National motocross Track, REM motocross track, Trophy Truck track and then has a little off-road loop. It’s a blast! Then I try to hit up moto tracks during the week when I’m home. People complain a lot about land closures out here and it’s true that we’re losing a lot, but there are still some pretty cool places to ride out here! I like both the east coast and the west coast riding, I just wish they were closer together!