Tuesday Toolbox: Santo Derisi

When a passion turns into a way of life sometimes a decision must be made. It was a "it's going to be hard, but I am going to step back" moment for a rider that loved racing his ATV that may change the world for a lot of up and coming off-road racers.  Say hello to a "New" Santo Derisi, Derisi Racing's Team Manager.

GNCCRacing.com: Hey Santo what's been going on?

Santo Derisi: Not a whole lot really.  We put a small team together this year and we've got a bunch of support riders, a new trailer and just doing a whole new thing for 2011 actually.

That sounds exciting!  So you are saying you have a support team, can tell us a little about that?

Well we have 3 team riders that we are actually working with close.  We are helping Eric Hoyland in the XC2 Pro-Am Class and we have David and Luke Reeves in the Junior A Class this year.  On top of that we are helping several others including Angel Atwell in the Women Class.  We have other riders signed on along with Aerol Bright, Dallas Goins and just a ton of other support riders this year.  We are trying to spread out and help a lot of people and get a lot of riders in a lot of classes and you know really try to push business hard this year.

(Chuckles) It sure sounds like it.  Another cool thing is that I read recently that you are offering a contingency program for the GNCCs, how is that going to work?

Yeah, you know we wanted to try to give back some to those that are supporting us.  So we decided to try the contingency program in the GNCCs this year.  We do not offer a program for any of the other smaller series yet because we are testing it and we want to see how it works and if things go well we are definitely going to expand it for 2012.

The way it works is that we just have two tiers of support.  It's kind of weird the way we done it but we have it set up to where if you one of our O.E.M. conversions, meaning if you have a Honda for instance and you send them to us, we put our spring kits, valves and our linkage kits on the customers bike and if they have that along with our graphics kit they are eligible for our top tier program.

Our goal is to see our name everywhere.  We want to have a good image at the track.  So we even have a small tier set up to where if a customer just runs our graphics kits they are eligible for a contingency program.

The full details of the program including forms are on our website at www.DerisiRacing.com.

If a person has been around long they may hear about "Derisi Racing", but what exactly is Derisi Racing and what do you specialize in?

Our specialty since 1999 has been suspension products with custom set ups.  You can buy shocks from any of the manufactures and with the way that they have to do business because they are so large it is hard for them to tailor each suspension to each individual rider.  Everybody has their different preferences and opinions so we try to fine tune the products more for each rider to give them a better set up for their money.

Do you have your own components or do you work with what people have already?

Well, a little bit of both.  We have a lot our own rear suspension linkages because there are a lot bikes out there that could use some help to run its best.  So we have done a lot of improvements in the linkages and we are actually coming out with a new "Honda Long Travel Linkage" that we will be releasing in the next few days.  Then we are doing a lot of O.E.M. shock conversions where we re-spring and re-valve to set up for the individual riders.

Can you tell me more about your team?

Like I mentioned, Eric Hoyland is racing XC2 and he has been training hard this off season.  He lived about 7 hours away from us in West Virginia and recently relocated to Virginia where he is now only about 3 hours away and he's been coming down at least every weekend.  I know he coming here on Thursday and is probably going to be here for at least the next two weeks so he can ride every day and we have been doing a lot of testing setting his bikes up and we are doing all the mechanical work and basically he has a full ride from us and all he has to do is get to the races and get on the bike and go.

Then there is David Reeves who actually works here with us and helps us a lot with our testing and tuning.  We work real close with David. And then Luke is another local guy to us and I am building all of his race bikes this years.  It is unfortunate in some ways that they are both running the same class, but that is what they are eligible for according to their age, but it also gives us that much better chance of winning a championship in that class.

How are the Reeves boys related? Are they brothers, cousins, uncles, sisters or what?

(Laughs) No, none of that, they are not related one bit.  They are just good friends we all just help each other out. They are both fast and getting faster.  They have been working really hard riding every weekend and as much during the week as possible.  I expect good things out of them and out of everybody really.

You mentioned you were supporting 2009 GNCC Women champ Angel Atwell also, what is the deal with her?

Yeah, we have been talking to Angel for the last month or two and finally nailed something down with her.  She is going to be running Custom Axis Shocks and she will running our new long travel linkage on her Honda.

We wanted a well-rounded team and whole bunch of riders.  We wanted to get some riders in the Women classes and every other class as well and I think this year we have a good start at it.  I just want it bigger for 2012.  I am already looking forward to that and we haven't even started this season yet. (Laughs)

What about you?

Well, you know I finally think it's time, it's going to be hard, but I am going to step back and I am not going to be racing at all this year.  We have a new trailer and we are trying to give our support out to all of the riders this year at the nationals.  We will be helping set up bikes prior to each race making sure everyone is ready to go.  So basically my new thing is Team Manager and just trying to get the company going.

It's been a good long ride though.  I started racing our local series back in 1993 and then it was 1995 when we hit our first GNCCs.  Ever since 1995 we have run both the entire Mid-East Series and the GNCC. In 1999 I decided to open a company and we have been doing everything since then.

Santo you being a recent former pro racer and just racer in general you probably have a lot of special memories like podiums and such?

There are a lot of great memories and I didn't hit the podium nearly as much as I would have liked, but the ones I did were special. I got on the podium at Rausch Creek and at the Wisp, two of the rockiest races.

The biggest problem I faced was trying to run a company and run the pro class and do all my training.  It was super-hard to juggle and you know its two businesses on their own and to do the two and that's why I finally decided to stop racing.  My company is more important to me and we have to take care of our customers.  I know that if I quit racing and concentrate more on business I can whole it a whole better.

Is GNCC as big of a part of your life as it seems?  I mean it looks like you have basically built your life around it since you started it.

That's where my heart has always been.  Before I used to run the GNCC I ran a decent amount of the ATV National Motocross series and I was even a top 5 A class contender for a while, but again it was hard to be the best at two different things.  I even did the dirt bikes for a while and I have a little two wheeled history not many even know about.  I gave it up back in 1997 or 98.  I was never near as good on the bike as the quad so I dropped the bike and concentrated on the four wheels.

(Laughing) Forget about being like Barry Hawk!

You know it is definitely tough and I got to hand it to Barry.  I have always been good friends with him and he has helped me tremendously through my career of racing and he has always been a good person to me. So definitely hats off to him.

Did I hear you have a little more than just the team going on this year at the GNCC?

We teamed up Twin Air so we are going to be handling all of their trackside stuff at all the GNCC events for oil filters and air filters and all their Power flow kits.  We will stock about everything in the trailer so if anybody needs any of that stuff we will be able to take care of them.  The stuff will definitely be priced for the racers so they should get a little price better going through us at the track.

Thanks Santo for talking with us this evening and I wish you luck.

Thank you and I just want to tell everyone to be looking for our newly wrapped trailer at the races.  Like I said we are there to support all of our riders and we want to help as many people as we can and have a good season this year.