Hey Bryan, since most of us don’t know you well, why don’t you start off by telling us a little about yourself…

Bryan Kraham: I’ve lived in Texas for twenty-five years and spent all of my working life in sports and sports marketing. Most recently, I was working at the Circuit of the Americas, the Formula 1 and MotoGP track. That’s where I ran into the man who is now the majority owner and investor in Sherco USA as well as the owner of the FactoryONE race team.

So how did you get involved? Did he just say something along the lines of, “hey, I’ve got this new venture, would you like to get on board?”

It was interesting, because he’s an investor in several different verticals. His main one is private aviation. He manages a fleet of private aircraft, and when I say manages, that means everything from booking pilots to maintenance to catering to flight operations. He was the importer for an energy drink and was considering sponsorship at the Circuit of the Americas, which was how we initially met. Even though we were talking about an energy drink, he was dressed in all this Sherco gear. I was curious about it, so I asked him about Sherco. He offered me the role of Chief Marketing Officer for the OEM importing side. Of course, Sherco is still a really small company and we all wear many hats. So, I’m involved in coordinating sponsorships and doing the marketing for the team as well.

Since you’re involved in the marketing side, can you tell us why Sherco decided to make such a big push into off-road racing this year?

Well, if you said the name “Sherco” to your average motorcycle rider, you’d probably get a response rate of maybe two out of ten who are familiar with the brand. The bikes are tremendous motorcycles, right out of the crate – some brands say they’re “ready to race” but we actually are. You don’t have to buy a bunch of aftermarket parts or make suspension upgrades to be competitive. But no matter how good the bikes are, if the consumers have never heard of them, they’re not going to buy one. So, our challenge is making the people aware of us and getting them to test-ride the bikes. Corporate Sherco, in France, has done a great job of raising awareness through Matthew Phillips in the past and currently with Mario Roman and Wade Young. But they haven’t done anything like that in the GNCCs or NEPGs here in the United States. When we decided to import these bikes, we knew we would need to follow a similar plan. And I knew we would have to be in the GNCCs – it’s the ultimate proving ground, the big dog here in the US, even globally in my opinion. Sherco France and all the other importers have been super proud of the results here so far, you would not believe the amount of social media that’s been generated by our program so far. Long story short, having a race team is the biggest and best marketing tool we could have. The more events we are at, the more people see the bikes and the results, the better off we are. Our owner knows that this is a major investment, far beyond what the typical marketing budget would be, but at the end of the day he believes it will pay off.

Besides the Baylors in the GNCCs, you’ve signed some other big names this year, right?

Yes, we were able to sign Cody Webb, which was a huge coup to get him from KTM.  He’s the face of the American Extreme Off-Road series and will contend the EnduroCross series which has seen a resurgence lately. We would love to win a domestic championship with Cody.  He’s got international aspirations as well – becoming the first American to win Erzberg, things like that. We’ve signed some big names on the trials side as well – Louise Forsley is not only competing in trials for us, she will also be racing EnduroCross and Extreme off-road as well.

With names like that on board, I assume the short-term goals for FactoryONE Sherco involve bringing home some championships this season?

As a company, we’ve only been around since June of last year – ten months. So, looking at the team as a marketing tool to quickly get us to the point of being a serious contender in the US off-road market, our goals were as follows: Line up for a GNCC. Get on the podium. Compete for a championship. The same follows for NEPG, Extreme Off-Road, EnduroCross, etc. We’re definitely gunning for championships. I think a lot of people were making fun of us or viewed us as a joke early on, but we’re being taken much more seriously. Putting together a strong team and lining up to race at the top level – we checked off our first box. We’re confident in our machinery and believe that if it wasn’t for the complete fluke of the mechanicals in Florida, I think they both could have been on the podium there and been in contention for race. Then with Stu getting second in Georgia, we ticked off that second box as well. So, those are the short-term goals, and over the long term we hope to be competing for titles year-after-year.

Over the longer term, where do you and the owners hope to see FactoryONE and Sherco USA?

We hope to put a thorn in the side of some of the incumbent brands, we’ll call them. We want to provide another choice of competitive bike – disrupt the market, in a way. The more brands there are, the healthier the industry and the sport is. We want to be a part of that market and grow our dealer network, so Sherco is less of a niche brand and is easier to find. As far as the team is concerned, over the next five years we aim to have championships at the top level in multiple disciplines. We also intend to grow our race team to include several disciplines we’re not already competing in. Supercross, for example, is something that our ownership across the pond has expressed interest in contending. Really, the long-term goals are just a natural continuation of our short-term goals. By having a competitive team, we can sell more bikes, and by selling more bikes we can support the team even more.

Tell us about the youth development program. I saw a recent announcement about it on the GNCC website…

It’s a bit of misnomer to call it a youth development program at this point, since we currently don’t have any small displacement bikes – nothing smaller than a 125. Amateur development program probably would be a more accurate name. We’ve identified Jackson Davis on the Extreme Off-Road side and Alex Lugar for GNCC, riders we believe could work into a factory team position in the future. These riders get the advantage of our technology and assistance the way the factory riders do. As far as not having youth bikes, that is a problem across all of Sherco as a whole, even on the trials side. It’s hard to have kids growing up on other brands then convincing them to switch as soon as they move up to big bikes. Sherco France is currently developing youth bikes to resolve that issue, they plan to release small-displacement models within the next five years. At that point we will be able to have a true youth development program.

Thanks Bryan! Moving on to Eric now, tell us how you ended up with this job as the Sherco team manager.

Eric Siraton: I was laid off by the Phoenix Honda Racing team. After that, I was looking for a new job and a career change. I got my CDL license to do some truck driving. I needed money while looking for a trucking job though, and Steward Baylor contacted me about doing some temporary work with Grant for the Sherco team. They were in need of an experienced manager/mechanic to help get things moving in the right direction. I worked for them on a week-to-week basis and then they decided to keep me on full-time.

So far, have you enjoyed working for the team?

Yes, I have -there’s a lot to be done when you’re getting a new team off the ground, and I like the challenge. We are doing pretty much all the R&D on these bikes, which is fun for me. Right now, we’re focusing on chassis, linkages and triple clamp offset. Once we get those things dialed it will be on to the next set of projects, whatever that may be.

What are some of the hurdles you’ve faced so far as a result of being such a new team?

There aren’t a lot of aftermarket parts available for the bikes yet, which limits us and slows down the development. One of the other major hurdles is time. The season has started, and we are still trying to perfect the bike, while racing against established teams that have been on the same bike for years.