Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1063250
AFT TWINS CHAMPION JARED MEES P108 Interview definitely persistent and a little bit relentless there, as well," he says. "Then the older and older I got, I got my first rental house and started doing some things with some rentals. Then we had the opportunity to buy Lima [Half- Mile]. I always kind of look at things to do and to make money and how to maybe buy a house and flip it. One of these days I feel like I want to open up a cof- fee shop or something." Let's face it. Racers can't race forever. Mees is well aware of "Of course, they [Indian] want to go and race against other manufacturers and beat other manufacturers besides themselves." Whether it's Jared Mees Racing, Mees Promotions or Mees Rentals, he is 100% committed to making it all a success. the one to run it." Mees started at it at a young age, too. He was riding for Johnny Goad. He was splitting his purse 50/50 with the team and wanted to know what it would take to keep all of it. Goad and his wife said, "pay us and pay the bills." They may not have expected him to be able to do it, but he did. "I don't really think at the time that they thought that this was go- ing to work," he said. "They were like, did this kid break off more than he could chew? We went on and on and on for a few years just like that, until basically we left him and I put it together. I think I was like 19 years old, maybe 20 years old or something like that." Also, it wasn't like there was a lot of money lying around the sport back then. So if Mees wanted to carry on what he was doing with his own team, he had to go out there and get the fund- ing for it. "I've always kind of took the reins and ran my own race team and made the decisions on spon- sors and tried to put things togeth- er," he says. "Basically, I just went out there and found the money to pay all the bills to go racing. Then what I was making at the racetrack was basically what I made. I think that's what started my involvement with the whole business side of things, it was just taking the bull by the horns myself and going and making it happen. Then from there it just kind of escalated." If you ask anyone in the pad- dock, they will all say Mees is as fierce and relentless in business as he is on the track. "I think the biggest thing on the business side of things is to be that and is looking ahead. Get- ting into the race promotion busi- ness is a part of that. "That's the biggest thing, why I started getting into the rentals and the promotional side of things, because I can't race forever," he said. "When I started, Mees Promotions with running Lima, it was kind of like a trial and error to see what it was all about. I took a race that was already pretty successful. I feel like I definitely face-lifted it a lot. Honestly, since we've been promoting the race, it's been valuable and we've made a little bit of money. So it's good that we started off making a little bit right away and got our feet