Five Minutes with … Marco Dubé
MAY 15, 2008

Marco Dubé will represent Les Chutes Kawasaki during the Canadian Nationals.

By Danny Brault

Marco Dubé is doing things his way this summer. After parting ways with KTM Canada, Dubé went straight to the Les Chutes Kawasaki dealership and purchased his bike of choice, a KX450F. He’s retained loyal sponsors such as FXR, Amsoil, and Elka, he spent six weeks training in Florida, and still believes he can challenge for the national championship. Despite a smaller budget than years past, Dubé has somehow found enough support to hire an MX2 rider to join his Dube Racing Team. Who is the rider? You’ll have to keep reading….

RXC: Bonjour, Marco! What’s going on?
Marco Dube: I’m getting ready for Ste-Julie, slowly.

Why? Do you have a couple of big races coming up?
Yes, well there is an arenacross in Riviere Du Loup, but I am not going. I tore up my groin last Thursday and I’m taking it easy, trying to let that heal up. I’m working to get my Funmover ready.

[Laughs] I forgot about the arenacross, but I was being sarcastic about big races coming up. You were supposed to respond with, ‘Uh, yeah, Danny, I have nine national races coming up?’
[Laughs]. Oh, I thought you were talking about the arenacross.

That’s too bad you can’t make it out to your hometown arenacross, but obviously the nationals and your health is most important.
Yeah, this will probably be only my second or third time missing the event. There’ll be a lot of riders; I know Andy White is bringing a lot of riders up there. Ryan Lockhart, Johnny Montes, and my Chilean buddy, Cristian Huidobro, are racing. I think [Simon] Homans and [Jean-Sébastien] Roy are going too.

Yes, I had heard from Bruno Menard that you have a kid coming up from Chile to race the nationals. What’s the story?
What’s the story? Well, I met those guys down in Florida. I was looking for a teammate for a while; it would have been nice for a bigger budget from Kawasaki. He was going to go live in California or come to Canada. We trained together at the gym and racetrack and started talking about him coming to Canada. The next Monday, he was buying a Kawi and we shipped his stuff to Pro Circuit and got his suspension to Elka. It’s all gone pretty fast. He’s staying with me and we went testing last weekend.

What impressed you about Cristian?
He’s a hard worker; he’s 19 years old. He’s deaf, actually, and he’s just learning to read lips in English and French [laughs]. He’s a nice kid and hopefully we can get a top-10 every weekend, and, by the end of the season, a top five. He knows the Israel brothers really well, and he heard the competition here was really good.

Dubé lists his overall win at Walton in 2000 (when he lost his seat in the second moto), his top-10 finish at the Bercy SX, and his podium finish in the Four-Stroke class at the U.S. Open of SX in 2003, as his most memorable races.

photo: Dan Stenning

We had talked at Gopher Dunes two weeks ago, and I remember you saying you bought bikes this year.
Yep, I bought all of my bikes but I got a good deal. I guess I should have knocked on everyone’s door right from August. I was too late checking out my options. But like I said, Kawasaki has been my dream bike for two years, for sure. I have it this year, all of my sponsors again and my Funmover. I’m telling you that it isn’t going to be the rig that wins the races; it’s going to be the guy on the bike.

Marco, heading into the series, are there certain tracks or rounds that you look forward to more than others?
Not really. I’m the kind of guy who deals with every track. One place I hate, well, I hate the roost of it, is Nanaimo [laughs]. I can’t stand taking that roost, but I have a big chest protector from RXR so I should be okay this year.

[Laughs] That is some vicious dirt out there, well, rocks, I mean. Good luck next weekend in Ste-Julie, Marco.
Thank you.