MXA INTERVIEW: DOUG DUBACH IS A WORKING-CLASS HERO

BY JIM KIMBALL

DOUG, CAN YOU STILL RECALL YOUR FIRST DIRT BIKE? I was born in 1963, and the very first bike that was introduced into our family was a little 3-horsepower minibike with a Briggs and Stratton engine. We bought it from a store that was the predecessor to Costco.

DID THAT MINIBIKE IGNITE YOUR RIDING PASSION? Oh yes. My uncle lived in the desert where we could ride, but my father was in a wheelchair from before I was born, so it was not like we went every weekend. We went maybe twice a year. My older brother and I would share the bike.

I spent every waking moment dreaming of riding that bike. I would build little jumps, like everyone did back then, with a few blocks of wood stacked up. We would ride it up and down our street when my dad would allow us. We also rode our bicycles a lot, thinking of them as motorcycles. It was not until several years later that I finally got a Honda XR75. My older brother, who raced motocross, would take me to Saddleback Park, where I would spend countless hours riding the TT track.

YOU STARTED RACING MOTOCROSS LATE COMPARED TO OTHERS. Yes, I was a late starter. I did my first race just a couple of weeks before my 15th birthday. I raced a handful of Intermediate races and won most of the time. Then, I moved myself up to 80 Expert. I went from 80 Novice to 80 Expert in four months. 

A year later, I was racing the 80 Experts at the World Mini Grand Prix. My best moto was third, behind Eric Kehoe and George Holland. I had a pipe break and a chain come off in one of the motos. I also crashed by riding over my head on my worn-out Yamaha YZ80. Plus, those guys had been racing five or six years before they had turned 15.  

TO WHAT DO YOU ATTRIBUTE YOUR QUICK RISE IN MOTOCROSS? I have been asked this question many times, and my answer is “determination.” I came from a poor family and raced against kids with lots of money. I was determined to beat those guys. I was an underdog with a chip on my shoulder. As I was approaching 16, I got too big for the Minicycle class. So, my brother and his friend got me a 125. I was going to ride 125 Novice, but the race promoter said, “You were an 80 Expert, so you must race the 125 Intermediate at least.”   I won every moto in the Intermediate class that I entered for the next three months. Then, one Saturday at Saddleback, I said, “I am going to ride the 125 Pro class.”

BUT, YOU WEREN’T RACING THE AMA 125 NATIONALS WERE YOU? No, it was a long gap before I raced A real National. I started racing local Pro events. I was so nervous before my first 125 Pro race that I left all my gear at home, so I rode practice in jeans. I missed the start of the first moto as I was trying to change into borrowed riding gear. There were only four guys in the moto, and I managed to beat one. I got third in the first moto, and then I won the second moto and the overall.

“THEN, IN 1982, I DECIDED TO RACE THE CARLSBAD NATIONAL. I TOOK MY FRIEND, WHO BECAME MY MECHANIC, AND HE DRANK ENOUGH BEER TO KILL A SMALL ARMY BY THE TIME THE FIRST MOTO EVEN BEGAN.”

WHEN DID YOU RACE YOUR FIRST NATIONAL?  For several years I was just a guy mowing lawns, doing brake jobs and trying to make money. I would race locally, but I never had the travel money to get to any big races. Then, in 1982, I decided to race the Carlsbad National. I took my friend, who became my mechanic, and he drank enough beer to kill a small army by the time the first moto even began.

TELL US MORE ABOUT THE CARLSBAD NATIONAL. As I was racing, I recognized some of the guys around me. I was thinking, “There’s so-and-so. I will try to catch him.”  With one lap to go, I heard a bike behind me. I looked back and it was Jeff Ward. I felt that I better get out of his way, but after the race I looked at the score sheet, and Jeff Ward got ninth and I got 10th. He must have crashed, because he was the guy winning all. the motos. That was a little race-craft lesson right there.  

WHAT HAPPENED AT YOUR NEXT 125 NATIONAL? Nothing! I could not afford to go to the next National, so I just raced locally and earned $200 here and $75 there. I pored over Cycle News and chased local money races. I never imagined myself racing motorcycles for a living. Motocross is very expensive, and I barely had two nickels to rub together. My brother helped me for a while, but then that stopped. I had a little Datsun pickup and went to the races by myself.

“I DIDN’T REALIZE THAT I HAD BEATEN HALF OF THE BOX-VAN GUYS ON MY BORROWED SUZUKI RM125. IT WAS A MOTOCROSS ACTION TEST BIKE, AND THEY LENT IT TO ME.”

WHEN DID YOU FINALLY HIT THE AMA NATIONAL CIRCUIT? By 1984 I had a full-time job, 40 hours a week, punching a time clock. I decided this job was my destiny. I finally had a good paycheck. I had been there for a year when there was a big company layoff and I was unemployed. At the last Golden State Motocross in Santa Maria, I was with my buddy Mike Beier. He was always better than I was, but I could beat him here or there. I beat him in the very last moto to get one of my best finishes in the Golden State Series. He asked me, “Do you want to go to Gainesville with me and race the first 125 National in Florida?” 

Even though I had been laid off from my job two weeks earlier and had no money, I decided to go. In the first moto, I did not get a good start, but I came through the pack to challenge Mike Beier on the very last lap for 4th place. Here I am on a used Suzuki, a three-digit guy, and I was inches away from passing him for fourth. The joke between us to this day is that if I hadn’t needed a ride home from Florida, I would have passed him in that moto.  

FOURTH  PLACE WAS IMPRESSIVE! I didn’t realize that I had beaten half of the box-van guys on my borrowed Suzuki RM125. It was a Motocross Action test bike, and they lent it to me. I passed a lot of very credible guys to get that fifth in the first moto. It was a good beginning.  

HOW WAS THE SECOND MOTO? I don’t know if I got water in the carb by washing my bike, but it died on the first lap. I was stopped, sitting on the trackside, kicking and kicking, and a half lap behind last place. Finally, it came to life but ran erratically for another lap until it cleared out. The only person paying attention to me was Beier’s mechanic, because he was working the pit board. He said, “I can’t believe you came from half a lap behind last to 12th in that moto.”

THAT MUST HAVE BEEN AWESOME FOR YOU.  I was happy, because my 5-12 moto scores made me 10th overall. That meant that I did not have to ride the qualifier in two weeks at Saddleback. Unfortunately, I got the flu a day before the Saddleback National. I had a 102-degree fever and could barely see straight. At the place I knew like the back of my hand, I did horrible. I struggled to even ride. 

HOW DID THE REST OF THE 1984 SEASON GO? I was battling with Guy Cooper for the Rookie of the Year award. We were going back and forth, but I passed out in Millville due to heat stroke. I woke up 30 minutes later in an ambulance packed in ice. I cooked myself. I rode until I literally passed out. I lost 20 points, because Guy ended up getting third. They say when you cook like that, it takes months to recover. I rode poorly in the last two Nationals, and I ended up getting 10th in the Championship. Guy Cooper was seventh and got the Rookie of the Year award. He got a full Honda ride, and I got nothing. 

WHAT HAPPENED THE FOLLOWING YEAR IN 1985? I started out the year as a full privateer, again on a borrowed MXA test bike, and went to Gainesville. I struggled, but about the third race in, Jim Castillo of Innovation Sports knee-brace fame began helping me with a Kawasaki. Then, suddenly, Mike Guerra of Yamaha called me. I picked up two YZ125s in crates and raced Millville and Washougal for Yamaha. I have been blue ever since.

HOW DID YOUR PRO CAREER AT YAMAHA BEGIN? Yamaha signed me to a sweet deal because I was still eligible for the 125 Supercross for 1986. I got bikes and got to test and train on the Yamaha Supercross track. But, about two weeks before the first race at Anaheim, I received a letter from the AMA stating I was ineligible for the 125 Supercross class. I couldn’t believe it. I had only ridden one Supercross at the Rose Bowl, where I broke my back and was credited with 17th place.  

HOW DID YOU REBOUND IN 1987? Yamaha had a big “B team.” We had Broc Glover and Mickey Dymond on the “A team,” but right below them was a laundry list of fast guys, including Mike Larocco, Larry Ward, Mike Craig and me. I was the only guy who worked on both sides of the hallway, racing and testing.    

In 1987, I went to almost every Supercross and was consistently taking single-digit finishes. Finally, towards the end of the year, I rode the Mickey Thompson event at the L.A. Coliseum on a factory bike. I could not believe how nice it was. The following year in 1988, I started getting some factory parts. I still had to pay for everything and was not in the Yamaha press kit. I was just a testing guy who earned some racing parts.  

“I ROLLED INTO 1990 WITH NATIONAL #7 ON MY BACK AND BIKE, BUT I GOT HURT IN JAPAN AT A PRE-SEASON SUPERCROSS IN NOVEMBER, SO 1990 WAS TOUGH. I TRIED TO RACE TO FULFILL MY COMMITMENT, BUT I GOT RE-INJURED AND SUFFERED ALL YEAR. I HAD A FEW GOOD RACES, BUT THAT WAS IT.” 

WAS IT 1989 WHEN YOU JOINED THE FACTORY YAMAHA TEAM? Yes, but everything was on a small scale. I had a box van and was in the Team Yamaha press kit, but it wasn’t until 1990, after Glover and Dymond left, that I was truly on the “factory team.” The 1990 team was only two guys—Damon Bradshaw and me.  

HOW WAS YOUR FIRST YEAR AS A FULL-FACTORY GUY? I rolled into 1990 with National #7 on my back and bike, but I got hurt in Japan at a pre-season Supercross in November, so 1990 was tough. I tried to race to fulfill my commitment, but I got re-injured and suffered all year. I had a few good races, but that was it. There is a lot of pressure when there are only two factory guys and one of them is missing. It does not look good for the team.  

TALK ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH DAMON BRADSHAW. He still insists that I was the only teammate he ever liked. When Damon came in 1990, he was firing on all cylinders. He beat Rick Johnson in Tokyo! The pressure on him, I did not want on me. I was the team’s elder statesman, so part of my task was pointing Damon in the right direction. Whether it was training or whatever, I tried to keep it light and keep him insulated from that boiling pot of pressure that he was right in the middle of. Damon was in a tough spot, as Yamaha threw him right into the Big Boy class. It was an honor to be friends with arguably the best guy on the track as a teammate! I learned from him, and we developed a great relationship.

TALK ABOUT WINNING YOUR FIRST AND ONLY SUPERCROSS IN 1991. I got handed a gift. But, as they say, “You have to be in it to win it.” If I hadn’t battled my way through the pack to get myself into third place, I would not have won the San Jose Supercross. I was 2 seconds behind Guy Cooper and Jeff Matiasevich, but I fully expected to beat one of them because one of them was going to take the other one out. They had history with each other. I expected one of them to go down, but I did not expect both of them to crash

WINNING A SUPERCROSS IS AN AWESOME ACHIEVEMENT. Thank you; it is a small group. Here is another little detail that a lot of people don’t know: I was technically a privateer in 1991. Jeff Emig came aboard at Yamaha, and he was Damon’s official teammate. I was given a nice chunk of money, a box van and got to fly on the same flights and stay in the same hotels, but I was not in the press kit, so I was technically back on the “B squad,” which consisted of me only.  

I NEVER KNEW THAT. Everyone always says that Rick Ryan was the only privateer to ever win a Supercross when he won Daytona in 1987. Four years later, I won as a privateer, but I had a good race bike, and I had everything my teammates had.

YOU LASTED LONGER AT YAMAHA THAN MOST OF YOUR TEAMMATES. HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT? Yamaha’s doors remained open because of my testing abilities. My last year as a Yamaha racer was 1993. After that, I became the main guy in the testing department. I was at every test and every meeting. That engulfed my whole life, but also allowed me to stay somewhat current. I was always fit, because testing requires a lot of riding. I could pop in and race a National in 1994 or 1995 as a privateer and get seventh or eighth and beat a couple of factory guys. Plus, I knew how to set up bikes. I certainly had some advantages over other guys. I was funded by the testing department, but the racing guys would help me occasionally.  

WHEN DID YOU DO YOUR FIRST VET RACE? My first World Vet Championship was in 1993. I had to be talked into racing it by Jody Weisel. No one in my position wants to admit they are over 30 years old. Jody was persistent. I didn’t want to do it, but he was relentless. Finally I said, “I will do it.” So, in November 1993, I won my first World Vet Championship. I admit that I was reluctant to do it and did not want to admit that I was “a washed-up dirt bike racer,” but Jody loves to remind me as often as he can that this was the beginning of my second racing career. 

I became the dominant guy. I won pretty much every year, regardless of who came to challenge me. I was probably more fit than the rest of these guys who were not quite as active as I was. I started in 1993, and just this past year I won my 28th Vet World Championship title in November. 

WHILE STILL RACING THE OCCASIONAL NATIONAL, RIGHT? Yes, my last year riding a National was Washougal in 2001 when the Yamaha YZ250F had just come out. The first moto, I got seventh and beat both Yamaha of Troy factory riders, Ernesto Fonseca and Nathan Ramsey. I rode a borrowed bike that Spud Walters got from someone. I took 7-12 moto scores for 10th overall at 38 years old. Later, I went to Millville, borrowing a YZ426F from Donahue Power Sports in Wisconsin. I brought suspension and handlebars, and raced a stock bike to 11th overall.

HOW DID YOU START YOUR DR.D AFTERMARKET COMPANY? In 2000 I was racing for White Brothers and helping Pro Circuit. I had helped Pro Circuit for years since I was a good test rider—according to others. Pro Circuit was arguably giving it a poor effort because Mitch told me, “That four-stroke will never be a race bike. It’s just a glorified trail bike.” He had that mindset at the time.

I was trying to help these companies, and they were paying me, yet they wouldn’t listen to me. I understood all the little early nuances of four-stroke exhausts, what worked and what didn’t, because I was involved with all that from the beginning of the Yamaha YZ400. One day I came home and told my wife how frustrated I was. My wife asked, “Why don’t you start your own company?” I just laughed and said, “Right, I am going to start a business and compete with FMF and Pro Circuit.” About a month later, I was filing for a DBA (Doing Business As). I was in business and off we went. I certainly had a lot of success for many years.  

YOU WERE THE GO-TO GUY FOR FOUR-STROKES. I was the only truly qualified guy developing four-stroke exhausts at that time. I had my own direction, with seat-of-the-pants testing, and those guys would do everything on a dyno. They did not have a good program for developing four-stroke products. It showed early on. I won every pipe shootout I entered for many years because the way they did it was not working well.

HOW WERE THE SALES NUMBERS? Of course, the big guys were outselling me 20:1, but there were some years I was putting big dents in those numbers. Also, I was not buying full-page ads and not paying nine race teams. I just priced it at what it cost me, put in my margins, and ran it as you would. I could have charged more, but I was always trying to be a good consumer brand that people would turn to.  

HOW IS YOUR EXHAUST BUSINESS NOW? It is smaller. When COVID started, I lost several of my key employees, including my best guy who had been with me since day one left. Once it turned and went the other way, we struggled to meet demand because of supply-line issues, and we lost market share. We are now back doing similar numbers to before COVID, and that is good. But, we were not able to take advantage of that big boom that followed COVID because I did not have the employees.

DR.D is structured differently now. I have other guys running the day-to-day for me. I am semi-retired, but I still do 100 percent of the testing because that is just who I am. I am still the one who gives the sign-off that it is good for production.  

ARE YOU STILL DOING A LOT OF TESTING FOR YAMAHA? It comes and goes. Some years ago, everything changed at Yamaha. A bunch of people went to the East Coast, and they wanted everyone to be an employee rather than a contractor. They wanted me to become an employee, but it just was not going to work because I was running my own company. During that transition, I did not test that much, but later I was one of the main guys testing the new 2023 YZ450F. All through 2021 and 2022, I helped a lot with that project.

IT APPEARS THAT THINGS AT YAMAHA HAVE CHANGED FOR THE BETTER. I agree 100 percent. I don’t want to pick on any individual person down at the Cypress racing department, but maybe some people stayed too long. The competition was changing and reinventing themselves, and Yamaha got left behind. But, you could see improvement as soon as Star Racing took over the 450 program. Dylan Ferrandis won that first year. Eli Tomac won indoors and outdoors. Suddenly, Yamaha was winning everything and became the team that everyone wanted to ride for. Just a couple of years prior, no one wanted to race a factory Yamaha YZ450. 

DIDN’T YOUR  SON CARTER DO THE FIRST THREE 250 NATIONALS IN 2023? That was something he wanted to do, but he became a pilot and is well on the road to a full-time flying career. He knew that the 2023 Nationals could be the last summer that he would have enough flexibility to race the AMA Nationals. He has never been that hardcore racer kid, but he loved racing motorcycles. He said, “Hey, Dad, I would like to ride a few Nationals before I have to become a very committed pilot.” That is where it began. We ended up doing the first three and enjoyed every minute of it.  

DO YOU STILL SEE YOURSELF RACING THE VET EVENTS? I had not really raced any of the age classes since 2018 when Tom White passed away. I don’t know, it’s just different. I still go and race the Pasha Over-50 125 Pro class, but Jody does not consider that to be an official World Vet Championship title. So, when I turned 60 years old last year, everyone said I had to race. So, I won the Over-60 World Championship, and now I’m a 28-time World Vet winner. I hope I am still healthy enough to race when I turn 70 in 10 years, and maybe I can have another championship to go with my Over-30, Over-40, Over-50 and Over-60 wins.  

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IS THE OVERRIDING THREAD OF YOUR RACING CAREER? I put myself in the category of a John Dowd or Guy Cooper, because those are the guys who were like me. Guy Cooper drove a station wagon with a trailer to the races in his rookie year, while I was begging for rides to the races. John Dowd did not have a lot of family money, and he worked odd jobs. I don’t know if you could do what I did in today’s era, because nobody really does it. 

Everyone is better financed today. My dad being in a wheelchair made it hard for him to get around, so my brother got me started. Later, after he went away, it was often just me. My dad saw me race twice: once when I first raced locally, and then once at Anaheim when I was a full-factory rider.  

My mom could only come to the races after I was a full-fledged Pro. She would support me emotionally, but my parents never had any money. I was always working and paying for everything. Even when I was doing well in the Nationals and getting single-digit finishes, I was still down at Jim Castillo’s Innovation Sports every night earning $6 an hour until 10:00 p.m. I was the working-class guy, but it helped me appreciate everything much more throughout my entire career.