WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY
BY MARK KARIYA
VOLUME ISSUE DECEMBER , P97
G
rowing up, Dante
Oliveira soon came
to the realization
that he wasn't going to be
an athlete in the tradition-
al sense. Though he tried
his hand at baseball and
basketball in elementary
school, reality forced him
to confront the obvious
early on. "I don't think I
was very good," he says.
Nowadays, he doesn't
even remember what po
-
sition he played. "I have
no clue! My mom [Gina
Anotti] was the coach,"
he laughs.
But his dad, George,
had a backup plan and
got Dante and his siblings
into riding motorcycles.
Though George's parents
were against motorcycles
and never allowed him
to have one, he'd sneak
rides on friends' bikes,
and by the time Dante
and the kids were ready
for bikes of their own, so
was he. George was 38
when he finally bought
his first motorcycle.
George, Gina, and their
five kids—Bianca, Sophia,
Dante, Mateo and Domi
-
nique—lived in Hollister,
California, so they had
several places to choose
from to learn to ride and,
soon, race. Being in the
very active AMA District
36 provided many oppor
-
tunities for competition,
with Dante starting out in
hare scrambles at the E
Street track in Marysville,
California, aboard the KTM
50 he'd received as his 6th
birthday present. The race
was on his 6th birthday.
"I recall going to my
first race, sitting in the
back of the van, putting
my boots on and gear
-
ing up as we're pulling
through the gate, but after
that I don't remember that
first race," he says. "But I
remember getting a new
Switching to the AMA H&H series at
the last minute raised eyebrows from
many, but Dante Oliveira was confident
he could adapt quickly to this new style
of racing, as you can see.
