Story and photos by Allison Kennedy

OTSFF's Andre Laurin

When OTSFF Motorsports hit the Canadian national circuit last season, they earned some impressive results. Gavin Gracyk was one of the few riders in the MX1 class to give JSR a run for his money while Keith Johnson found the podium a few times as well. OTSFF runs a successful snocross team on the CSRA circuit during the winter months. With their final race at Horseshoe Valley last weekend, we caught up with OTSFF's Andre Laurin to see how the snow season went and learn what the team has planned for the approaching motocross season.

RXC: You just wrapped up the CSRA snocross season last weekend. Tell me a bit about how the season went?
Andre Laurin: We started off pretty strong. We went to Quebec and did some testing. Obviously, one of our key riders that was with us for years, Iain Hayden, had moved on. So we regrouped, we hired Michael Van Dolder, Lee Butler, Peter Raymer and Angela Vacchino. The season went really well. I was really pleased. The only problem-like with anything-you have injuries. Michael Van Dolder, before our season even started, he got a herniated disk in his back. He was probably our strongest contender to push Hayden. Last year we had a hard time beating him, being on the opposite end. So then it was left to Butler to hold the reigns on that. He's not quite at that speed but I think he finished second or third for the season in the pro open class. Then we brought in Viktor Stenman, the kid from Sweden who races for me over there. He came in the pre-season to test with us and I flew him back a few times to fill in the shoes for Van Dolder. He actually put on a heck of a show; he was the only guy to hang with Hayden. He actually beat him in a few motos this year. Hayden sets a good benchmark for us. Peter just dominated the semi-pro class for us. There was not an issue there. He and Joey Sagan fought back and forth but Joey didn't have anything on him at all. We would have won the season if he hadn't thrown it away on the weekend. Angela, again not an issue, she won all her motos and won the CSRA and WSA titles too.

The OTSFF snocross team show off Angela Vacchino's
championship plate at the Horseshoe Valley season finale.

Tell me a bit more about what happened with Peter and his injury?
He tried to do a triple on the downhill section and overshot it by a mile. Basically, once he realized that, he kicked the snowmobile away from him and landed so hard on both of his legs on the ice base, that's what damaged his femur. He's still in the hospital. The rod is in, all his surgeries are done now, so it's just recuperation time now and they are estimating four or five months minimum. So you won't see him on a bike this year. But we are going to get him ready and keep him motivated for next winter. OTSFF's main team is not going to participate in the CSRA anymore. We are going to move over to the WSA and I am going to take Peter there to groom him as a semi-pro star there and hopefully move him right over to the pro class. We'll still keep sponsoring some privateer teams here but the factory team under our name isn't going to happen anymore here.

Pete Raymer demonstrates the wow factor.

The injury is disappointing for the team and for Pete. Did you have plans for him this summer?
Peter was going to be one of our B team riders and I was going to haul him right across the country for the full nationals, just to give him his first year of the complete nationals. With him having that injury and everything else, it was a real downer.

What made you decide to switch to the WSA circuit?
I've just found that we've outgrown the circuit. So that's where we are going to groom Peter. But, OTSFF Motorsports and the program that you've seen here, with our trailer, that was for both summer and winter. We're going to go do the 125 East Supercross next year too.

Wow, that's exciting. Will you wait for the national series to wrap up to choose riders?
Yes, once our season ends, that's when our decision will be made about what we are going to do for the Eastern supercross series. We bought our lot at Georgia Practice Facility, so all of our athletes were down there training and testing this winter. Dave Derosier, our mechanic, has been working on stuff since January, trying to beat our '05 bike and we've just gotten to that point now.

Keith Johnson will be back with OTSFF for 2006.

Who's been down there training?
Gavin [Gracyk], K.J. and we always keep Treadwell around; we don't let him go.  Even though he's not our factory rider anymore, we still kind of help him out. He's still a mentor to our team. He'll ride some of the rounds as our B team rider. But I want to help guys like Lockhart. Lockhart, as you know, rode the whole supercross series and got a heck of a lot of time out there. He was training down at GPF as well.

So who is on the official team roster?
MX1 is Gavin Gracyk, Keith Johnson and Ryan Lockhart. MX2 West, as of yesterday, is Jeff Northrop and MX2 East is Pierce Chamberlain. We're going to support some B team riders too, some Canadian kids out of another small trailer that I am going to carry with us. There's Robbie Malinoski and Brock Shury from Battleford Supercycle. Jolene Van Vugt is our pro women's rider for the four women's nationals, with help from Inglis Cycle. We are excited about that. I think we are really the only team that has catered to having a woman on our team. We started that last year with Jolene and we've always done it in the snow. We will help out another kid from the Ontario provincials, he'll probably come out in the east as a B rider. We'll just wait and see who progresses well on the Suzuki this spring.

Gavin Gracyk leads JSR in Calgary last summer.
 

Do you get a bit of a break now that snowcross is over?
No, not at all. Right now, as we speak, the truck is being retrofitted from snow. All the parts come out and get put away, the truck goes in to get all new graphics for motocross this week. Then I leave with Angela and Robbie Malinoski to go to the Race of the Nations in Dundret, Sweden. It's a big snocross event there and that's where Viktor Stenman races for us. So we are going over to support our European team and also take over two top Canadians that won in their classes. I was going to take Peter but obviously that isn't happening. We're back on April 24th from that and then we will be on the bikes immediately. We're going to be stocking the truck, getting it ready. All the bikes will be built by then and then we'll be at Gopher Dunes for the provincial opener.

Pierce Chamberlain will be the team's MX2 East rider.

Have you heard how Pierce Chamberlain is doing after his knee surgery this winter?
He's back. He's been down south training as well and he's feeling very comfortable on the bike and now he just has to get his cardio up.

And Gavin? He rode the Daytona Supercross right?
Yes. He and Newf both holeshot their qualifiers in Daytona. Gavin was in a heat with Carmichael and came into the first corner and got buckled up and stalled his bike and obviously fell behind from there. But the first five seconds of the race were awesome.

What are your expectations in the MX1 class? You've got three strong riders there.
You know what though? I am not the type of guy who goes out and says, “I am going to win this year.” I don't think that way. I always just set low goals but high values. I am happy when the guys are in the top five. We excelled last year with that method. We've had so many people that want to join our team just because of the fun atmosphere and I don't want to lose that. I am going to try and hold on to that as long as we can. We'll keep our Virgin Music going on in the background on our Kicker system. [Laughs] We have some exciting new sponsors this year, like Bell Helmets. We had some fantastic years with M2R and nothing against their products; this was just a good opportunity with Bell. They needed exposure and they wanted to work with us. We've got Troy Lee Designs for gear; I love their stuff. Dickies is a big new sponsor with us, they started off in the snow season so we are excited about that. Sharpie is involved, they were last year, but they are even stronger this year.

How has Keith Johnson been?
He's great. He's our mentor, probably the best tester we have. That guy is so valuable. He can tell you if something is off by a millimeter.

Jeff Northrop will be the team's MX2 West rider.

And how did the deal come about with Jeff Northrop?
There were actually three guys that I wanted to grab: Shane Bess, Erick Vallejo and Jeff. They all wanted to come. They are all people that know our main mechanic, Dave. Jeff was ecstatic and wanted to come on board so… Obviously we want to find a Canadian out there and hopefully we are able to groom someone for that spot. In the meantime, we just want to set a precedent in that class. We're not trying to win that class; we're just trying to present ourselves well.

Ryan Lockhart will focus on the MX1 class for OTSFF.

What are your thoughts about having Lockhart on the team?
Lockhart? I love that kid. If you go back to the days when I ran the KTM team with Iain Hayden and Lockhart and Treadwell. Remember when he pushed his bike across the finish line in Mission? He gained all my respect, right there, for life.

Well, thanks for your time Andre and sorry to hear about Peter.
Thanks. Peter was awesome this year. He's the one that created the wow factor. You know how you get a rider who's always in the top two but they are just kind of there? But then you get a rider who, it doesn't matter if he's in last place; people are still concentrating on him. He's just like that. He brought so much to the snow circuit this year because of his wow factor and how he rode, coming through the pack. That was worth more than any win to me. Absolutely, we are going to stand behind him and take him to the next level.