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/1190846
VOL- UME 56 ISSUE 49 DECEMBER 10, 2019 P39 with communication and all of us being on the same page. I'll definitely be at a lot more races than I was the last few years. Post and pre-season, some test- ing and watching the guys and just kind of being around. I like that, just to be there for the rid- ers and whatnot, and any other ways that I can help. There're a lot of pieces to this, but also the learning side of the business of running a race team will be new for me. You're still pretty young (Dungey turned 30 on Decem- ber 4). Is being a team owner something that you ever thought about before? I did. But most of the teams are factory-run, so I was like, the factories kind of own the race teams. So there wasn't really a team out there that I thought was a good fit. It was something I was interested in, but I didn't know if something would really come about that was the right fit, and then this discussion started and I did my due diligence and think it is the right thing for ev- erybody involved. Did you have much of a connection with Ziggy or Jeff before this? I met Ziggy back in the amateur days. We would always cross paths. "Hi here, hi there." Jeff lives in Minnesota. That's where I am from. So, I met Jeff when I was probably 15. Just kind of casual conversations and we would see each other on the plane back to Minnesota and whatnot. I've known them for a good bit. Did that help make this hap- pen? Yeah, I would have to say I re- ally respect those two as individ- uals as well. They're very knowl- edgeable people, very smart, [and] they're very family oriented, and also just really smart on the business side. Are you living in Minnesota now? I am. Do you have a house in Cal- ifornia or Florida anymore? No. Home base is Minne- sota. That's it. As of now, we're just enjoying that. We just had our little girl six months ago, so that's been keeping us busy as well. Long term, is there some- place you hope this goes or something you hope to bring to the team that maybe they didn't have before? I only hope to keep adding to what's already been successful for the team. Absolutely. To be able to grow, to become an even stronger. I just hope to keep building on that. As a goal of mine, aside from now becoming a part of the team as an owner but now where do I want to see it go? Where do we want to see it go? It already is a successful team, but just to kind of keep be- ing that and be one of the teams everybody wants to ride for. On a personal level, you mentioned you and your wife have a six-month-old daugh- ter. After being a professional athlete for so many years where you trained and rode your motorcycle nearly every day. What's your daily routine now? Are you still training? Are you still riding at all? I got out of the meathead level of training. After racing, I kind of didn't know where to put my ef- fort so I just put it into doing runs and bike rides. Then one day I'm thinking, what am I doing? This isn't really doing me any good, it's just making me tired every day. So I think I had to stop that daily grind that I did every day. I would say my efforts are more so with Lindsay and Harper, the family side, and now this new opportunity with the team. I've had a lot more time on my hands than normal the last couple of years. After racing so many week- ends every year and all that stuff, it's a big change in your life, I'm sure. Yeah. You go from a hundred to like, "Wow, I've got more time. I didn't know I'd have that much time." I think it was good for me to see one extreme. A lot of my time was consumed, but now I have all this time. But then you realize that's also not good, either. So there's a happy bal- ance. I think all of us as people or humans or whatever, what are we going to contribute? That's also a piece to this decision to become a part of the Geico Honda team. Sean Finley