Carey Hart is an icon when it comes to the dirt bike racing scene having competed in Supercross/motocross, freestyle and supermoto competition.
Carey Hart is one of the few people in the motocross industry who has been able to successfully transition from a rider, to business man, and now to a
Supercross team owner.
Over the year’s he’s competed in a number of different disciplines of motorcycle competition including Supercross, motocross, freestyle, and supermoto. After hanging up his helmet, he along with business partner, John Huntington opened a chain of successful tattoo shops with the premier location inside the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas.
Most recently he’s entered the Supercross racing foray as a team owner and has continued to keep his hand on the pulse of the motocross world through a new line of signature dirt bike riding apparel with the assistance of One Industries. If that wasn’t enough he also has a line of hard parts in cooperation with Tag Metals. Both of these hot new products are available for purchase at
Motorcycle-Superstore.com.
We recently met up with Hart at Southern California’s fabulous
Piru Motocross Park where he filled us in on what he’s been up to and his plans for the future.
WHAT'S NEW:
Silly season with Supercross is all I’m doing right now day in and day out.
WHY HE DIDN’T FIELD AN AMA MOTOCROSS TEAM:
Outdoor it’s just tough. I’m sure eventually we will but the money you have to spend to do outdoor. And unless you’re in the top-3 no one even knows you’re there. Especially on the big bike program they just follow Dungey and a handful of guys. It’s tough. But we’ll see what happens. I think what we might do next year is do two or three of the nationals—just the high profile ones like Hangtown and Southern California and we’ll probably do the GP [FIM World Motocross round] and maybe like a Mammoth or something. Maybe five high profile events outside of Supercross. It’s really been silly season with Supercross. At least get all the sponsors locked down and hopefully starting riders in the upcoming weeks.
DO YOU HAVE ANY SPONSORS YET:
Carey Hart is one of the few people to transition from a motocross racer, to freestyle rider, to business owner, and now Supercross team owner.
Well we have… [hesitates] I can’t rock the boat yet [laughs]. We have our main title locked in which is good. Now we’re just getting our manufacturer stuff figured out.
WHAT RIDERS:
Literally we’re talking to everybody. There isn’t a person we haven’t talked to. We just have our feelers out and just seeing how everything shakes down. This year is really crazy because there are very few 450 teams and there are a lot of riders available. Unfortunately for the rider I think it’s going to be a humbling season just to get a good ride. It’s going to be a crazy year.
IS THE TEAM’S BUDGET INCREASING:
Definitely. We’re going for a lot more high profile rider. It’s hard to say… yeah we’re going for the top-5 and top-10 guys. But with everyone moving up we don’t know where that person is going to fit in. Whoever was top-5 last year might be barely squeezing top-10 this year. But we’re going to go for that top tier rider.
WILL YOU BE RACING HONDAS AGAIN:
We don’t know. Probably not. But everything is crazy with what’s happening at Suzuki with DeCoster and all this crazy stuff. No one has really locked in riders yet so a lot of the factories are trying to figure out who they’re going to have before they can allocate to my kind of program. We’ve got our title locked in and just waiting on our associates and manufacturer right now.
WHY ARE YOU RUNNING A TEAM:
Number 1 for me, it’s where my roots are. I started off riding in Supercross and outdoor nationals. It’s kind of ironic now because the politics that forced me out of Supercross—back then they were really going for a clean cut image… and I wasn’t even this tattooed [laughs]. I only had half sleeves and I rode for Shift so I was frowned upon because I wasn’t clean cut. Basically, they were trying to go with a NASCAR image back then. That’s what forced me out of racing and made me start doing freestyle.
Carey Hart says part of his plan for ’11 is to make more time for dirt bike riding. We couldn’t agree more.
It’s cool to see how the sport has changed. To never have really been able to crack the top pro level and then to come back and own a team, it’s pretty rad. And to be able to offer a bigger, badder show and expand the fan base a bit more—it’s great and we try and keep it really interactive.
You watch the trend—guys will come through motocross and make a great living—make their money and just go on to something else and not really give back. It’s understandable they want to have a life after motocross but it’s cool to leave a footprint beyond that.
Especially how brutal the times are now. You have a lot of teams going away. For an ex-pro to try and keep his name in something and provide a couple of jobs, why not? You have to kind of give back. That’s where you started at. I love going to the races and I love being involved. It’s great for my brand. I want to build Hart and Huntington into a bigger brand and that’s what we’re doing with One Industries and DVS. There’s a bunch of reasons but in the end I love going to the races and I want to be able to give some guys some jobs.
HOW IS THE HART & HUNTINGTON TATTOO BUSINESS:
We got five shops and the tattoo shops are going great. But right now my main focus is the clothing business and the motocross gear. We’re doing a lot of stuff with TAG, One Industries, DVS and some other sponsors out there. We’re just trying to build the motocross stuff. When I started the business we went more for tattoo and clothing and now I’m trying to circle back and just get more involved in motocross.
THE NEW SIGNATURE ONE INDUSTRIES APPAREL AND TAG METAL HARD PARTS (AVALIABLE THROUGH MOTORCYCLE-SUPERSTORE.COM):
We have full gear from head-to-toe. From boots, pants, jerseys, helmets, and gloves… and we have Hart and Huntington goggles through Smith. We have a full line of shoes through DVS. And we’re doing a full line of products through TAG: bars, grips, sprockets. We’re just trying to get a footprint in motocross.
HAVE PEOPLE BEEN DIGGING THE NEW PRODUCT:
Waheed chats with Hart at Piru Motocross Park just north of Los Angeles.
It’s been doing really good. It was kind of a crazy transition leaving Fox. But it’s been a breath of fresh air because it’s new and exciting working with Neil and Danny and all the boys at One. It’s been a fun situation when I can get involved on the design side and just do something outside the box.
WHAT’S BEEN GOING ON OUTSIDE OF WORK:
I spend as much time with the wife as I can and try to ride as much as possible. I would like to put in another good solid year. This last year to year-and-a-half, work has kind of consumed me a lot so now I would like to get back to riding. So I’m going to work on a new video project this year and just have fun and ride a lot.
ON HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ROCKSTAR, PINK:
We’re married. We split for a little bit but we’re married. We’re solid. She’s rad. It’s cool she comes to the races with me. She’s a big supporter of the race team, the brand, and everything I do. She’s got a Honda CRF230L dirt bike that she rides quite a bit. I got her a Triumph about five years ago and she rides the wheels off it. She probably does maybe 300 miles a week.
OTHER PROJECTS HE’S INVOLVED WITH:
We do have an off-road truck team that competes in the Lucas series. I did the whole series last year in Pro 2 Unlimited. This year, I did about half the season before my truck literally burned to the ground. I’m probably done for the season because I did a lot of damage. The transmission went and leaked fluid all over the motor and the truck started on fire. The team’s still out racing. We have Josh Merrell running in Pro 4 Unlimited and Chris Brandt in Pro Light Unlimited. I just think I’m done for the season because I did about $100,000 worth of damage to my truck and it’s kind of hard to write that check right now [laughs].
ON MOTORCYCLE ROAD RACING:
I’m into it. I try and watch MotoGP when I can. I’ve never been to the races. Before the supermoto stuff went tits up they were doing some of the races around the Superbike series. It was killer to watch. I’d love to go do it if I just had more time to do stuff like that. Between cycling, mountain biking, riding dirt bikes, and my business it doesn’t leave much time in the day. It’s hard to wear so many hats.
When he has time, Hart enjoys riding at Piru Motocross Park as it is close to his Malibu house.
Nah. I was always just super into it. I opened up my first shop in Vegas as a fun thing and it kind of steam rolled from there.
ON WASTED SPACE (BAR INSIDE HARD ROCK RESORT AND CASINO IN LAS VEGAS):
It’s cool, it’s just like a little side project. I just do the design side of it. I just kind of came up with the concept and Hard Rock’s run with it. It’s more their project. I just kind of came up with the idea and thought it would be something fun for them.
