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/1542014
P98 INTERVIEW I 2025 AMA H&H AND AMA NGPC CHAMPION DANTE OLIVEIRA ery other weekend or whatever it was." With six bikes to keep race- prepped, all five kids had to learn how to do at least some bike work though, Dante recalls: "We were responsible for a good majority of it, but when it came to anything motor- wise, that was my dad's responsibility. It was a bit of a free- for-all for quite a few years—a lot of zip- ties and duct tape! "In high school, I was racing a lot, but there were times where I wasn't mak - ing that next step, so I worked a little bit with my dad, my sisters and Mateo installing play- grounds. I wasn't into that, so I was like, 'I've got to ride some dirt bikes!' By 2018, 2019, it was full-on dirt bikes, although it's always been full-on dirt bikes. There were periods when I was a young, dumb high school kid. "When I first graduated high school, I worked with him for, like, three weeks, and I finally went, 'When am I getting paid?' "Him and my sister laughed! "I said, 'I'm not coming back!' "Then I got a job being tortilla bike, driving out there, gearing up in the van. I think I wanted to sleep in my gear overnight. "Once I started racing—my first race was in 2006—I had to make a decision on what I was going to do, so I started racing dirt bikes more because base - ball practice and games would often land on race weekends, so we did a couple weekends where there would be baseball Satur - day and dirt bikes Sunday or vice versa. It came down to where I had to pick one to concentrate on, so it was two wheels for me. By middle school, I was always racing. You know how it is for a kid racing dirt bikes." Though he and his siblings raced some local motocross events, they mostly rode D-36 hare scrambles, and it was a family affair. "We'd bring the whole family to the races in our van; my sisters were racing, my brother and I were racing, so we'd just throw the camper out there and run wild over the week - end. It was easier for my parents to keep track of us since we all had one race to do. I raced with one of my sisters in the same race all the time, sometimes with my older sister, too. "I'm pretty sure I started rac - ing first, then shortly after we were all racing. We all grew up riding; we started riding at a young age, starting with bicy- cles. When my dad got his first bike, we all ended up getting bikes. We have a good buddy who has some property up past Hollister Hills [Off-Highway Ve - hicle] park, so we'd go up there a lot and we'd all ride. We all got into racing, the five of us kids ev - Where it all started. A photo from the Oliveira family collection shows four of the five children. From left: Mateo wearing the Batman beanie, Sophia on the CRF50, Dante on the blue PW50, and Bianca on the white PW in back. Dante Oliveira has amassed quite the collection of championships. Last year, he and mechanic Bobby Dawson celebrated five consecutive AMA NGPC titles. AMA WHS Race Director Erek Kudla interviews Oliveira at round five of the series in 2016, the year he claimed the Pro 250 title.