You could say that when it comes to racing snowmobiles Steve Scheuring’s been around the block a few times. He started racing back in the 1970s and later was one of the few people brave enough to race a twin-tracker. Later, he was part of the Yamaha factory crew, then in 1998 started his own team after landing a sponsorship deal with AMSOIL. The Original Independent, Scheuring’s been at the snocross game as long as anyone. His operation has evolved into one that is totally self-contained with its own race shop, dyno room, test track and snowmaking operation. Read on as we find out about Steve’s hobbies, what he thinks of the state of snocross racing and coming home to Ski-Doo.
sR: So you’re back on Ski-Doo?
Steve Scheuring: Yeah, I’m pretty dang excited about that.
sR: How did that come about?
Scheuring: I really like Ski-Doo and I kind of feel like that’s my home. The opportunity just kind of materialized. Also, Jeff Goodwin (Ski-Doo racing manager) and I have been friends for close to 30 years and that just made the opportunity more attractive.
Getting ready to shoot photos for the team's PR. (photo: Action Graphics)
sR: Are you factory or customer?
Scheuring: I guess I don’t know what a factory team and customer team is. We are one of the three Ski-Doo super teams, us, Warnert Racing and Boss Racing. I’m excited about the deal because Ski-Doo has such a rich racing history and some of the products they’ve come out with and are coming out with are cutting edge technology. At the same time, everyone at Polaris was super to us, they treated us very nice and were always fair to us. We had a great relationship with them for eight years, but like I said I feel like Ski-Doo is my home.
sR: Why did you leave Ski-Doo originally?
Scheuring: At the time there were some different marketing philosophies going on and at that point it didn’t really align with what our mission was. I believe our purpose is not only to win races but to increase the sales of our sponsors’ products. Now people are seeing the model we’ve created and seeing the value of getting the piggyback effect of all our sponsors to get their products in front of some pretty elusive spots.
sR:So you’re switching brands for the third time, how does that affect your team logistically?
Scheuring: It makes for a lot more work, but I have all the resources in place to make it happen so it’s not like we’re starting over from scratch. Just to show you how fast some of these things happen, a week and a half ago I went down to Action Graphics in Brainerd and we did a photo shoot out at Mike Schultz’s farm. It was basically Robbie jumping off a dirt pile with one of Mike’s old sleds. Two weeks later we’re on the back cover of Minnesota Snowmobiler magazine on a Ski-Doo. We can make stuff happen fast but it is a lot of work.
Scheuring nursed Robbie Malinoski through a tough season last year. He has close relationships with his riders. (photo: Action Graphics)
sR: You’ve always told me you hate to lose, but you haven’t done much winning in the past two seasons, does that frustrate you?
Scheuring: We won a couple races the year before and this year we were on track. I knew Andrew was still about a year out from reaching his peak, but I knew Robbie was right there. The first two races he ended up fourth place three times racing a sled that was new to him. Then the day after Christmas he separated his shoulder practicing up here. My heart just sunk at that point because I knew we were in a position to win a bunch of races this year the way we had evolved in that past month. Robbie ended up racing the next seven races with a separated shoulder and we got on the podium a couple times and won some races at Eagle River. We ended up top five in both classes and Andrew got on the podium and was named Most Improved Pro. It sucked having Robbie get hurt but that’s part of the deal.
The first nine years we had our team we were always on the podium. In the meantime the other teams worked harder, riders got better, equipment started coming more race ready right from the factory. So when you’ve been on top for so long and all of a sudden you’re not getting as good a results everyone wants to know what’s going on, but most teams would love to have the season we had last year.
sR: Eight, ten years back a guy like Blair Morgan or your old rider, D.J. Eckstrom, could race hurt and still run at the front. Now everyone is so close there’s no room for error.
Scheuring: There are 10 guys out there every weekend who could legitimately win a race, but good things have to happen. This year with only eight races you can’t have any mistakes because it’s going to be really hard to get it back. The sport has evolved so we have a lot of great riders. We don’t see the separation we had before. And most of the things we used to do to give the machine an advantage are already being done at the factory.
sR: How was it having two new riders last year?
Scheuring: Robbie and Andrew brought such bubbling excitement to the team, they want to learn, they’re in the shop all day when they’re not working out and they ask questions – it was fun having that excitement and I think it spurred the rest of the team to work harder. A couple times last year Andrew got laps two seconds a lap faster than Tucker but he couldn’t put it together for the whole race. If we can cultivate him with that mentally and physically he’s going to be tough.
Living in the limelight - Scheuring wears a lot of hats but one he never takes off is his PR lid. (photo: Action Graphics)
sR: You’ve been at this for what, 12, 13 years? What does it take to run a team at such a high level for so long?
Scheuring: This is our 12th year. We have a three year extension with AMSOIL, we have a multi-year deal with Ski-Doo and Rockstar, Makita upped their sponsorship a little, Air Force is on board again. There’s no time off. I only work eight hours in the summer vs. 12-hour days all winter. I also look at it like, now that I’m creating a living out of my hobby am I supposed to go home at night and learn how to make kitchen cabinets so I have a hobby? I’d rather stay here in the shop and do what I love and build this enterprise rather than walk away at the end of the day. This is my hobby and my job. It’s about relationships and the stuff you learn in Kindergarten about being nice to people so they’ll be nice to you and doing what you say you’re going to do. The only time I say no is when someone asks if I’ve had enough.
sR: There are so many facets to what you do, what part of your job is the most rewarding?
Scheuring: I think we’ve created one of the most respected teams out there. I don’t hear anything bad about our team and at the same time I hear a lot of good things about our team. We work hard on basing the team on integrity and honesty and to create the image in any form of racing is something to be proud of. And then to create a living off your hobby and to grow it into a phenomenal base of sponsors – it’s like, “Holy cow, here I am this turnip farmer from Aurora, Minn., and I have AMSOIL, Rockstar and Makita and I’m having a daily conversation with every one of them.”
Also, we spend a lot of time doing things outside of racing. This summer we did a TORC series truck race for a week, we went to Loretta Lynn’s and we did a thing in Texas for the Air Force. We’re always trying to increase awareness of our sponsors and let people know they’re into racing.
sR: The press release announcing you signed with Ski-Doo says you’ll be racing some USCC cross-country?
Scheuring: We’re working on that. We’d like to do some races and team up with a really good rider. I think that’s a good arena to learn about what we can do with a snowmobile. We’re here to race. We only have four and half months of winter, let’s race.
As soon as the temps are right Scheuring is out babysitting the snow guns. (photo: scheuring-speedsports.com)
sR: What are your goals for the season?
Scheuring: Win every race and rule the world! The formula is there for us to do very well. I want to be on the podium at Winter X. I want in the worst way to be taking a championship at Lake Geneva, I want multiple wins and podiums and I want to continue to be the most respected team out there. I don’t really set goals, I just know what’s achievable. There’s no magic one rider has over another, I know the areas that need improvement and I know what it takes to beat the number one guy out there.
sR: Times are tough and budgets are shrinking, can snocross survive at the level its at?
Scheuring: I’ve been hearing that question for 20 years. I think our sport is one of the healthiest ones out there. In the last year I’ve been to a truck race, a dirt bike race, a car race – pretty much every race genre out there and percentage-wise we have the most top-level teams, the most big crowds, we have great support from the manufacturers. Any time we bring an outside sponsor in to watch our team they can’t believe the atmosphere at a snocross race. I think it can go for a lot longer. I’ve been racing since 1978 and every year someone says, “The sky is falling!” but every year we’re back to do it again.
sR: But sled sales numbers keep getting lower.
Scheuring: With the popularity of the ATV and the side-by-side, I don’t see sled sales ever getting back to what they were in the 1970s or early 80s before those kind of vehicles were available. But the cool thing is snowmobiling is such a fun sport and such a unique sport. Once you get someone to experience a ride they really like it and snowmobilers are very loyal. It seems like the sport has a huge fan draw as well. Where ATVs are more for utility or working, snowmobiles are pure fun.
sR: It doesn’t seem like there’s the same passion for ATVs as there is for snowmobiles.
Scheuring: Exactly. It’s weird because for as many of them that are out there there’s never been a really strong ATV race circuit. For some reason it just doesn’t develop. Our goal of being the strongest independent team in the sport is to expose our sport to people outside the industry and make the sport bigger.
The Scheuring Speed Sports compound in Aurora, Minn. Test track, race shop, big rig parking - they have it all. (photo: scheuring-speedsports.com)
sR: Who is on your crew this year?
Scheuring: We’ll have Tony Clement and Steve Thorson back and this year we’ll have Scott Mondus. Scott’s another guy I used to race with and he’s been involved in ASA car racing among other things. We’ll have factory-built mod motors this year and a crew of old-school guys I believe in. These guys still have a burning desire to go racing and to win.
For more info on Scheuring Speed Sports visit www.scheuring-speedsports.com
