MPTRacing's Danny Eslick was nowhere to be found when we called his Oklahoma house for an interview, which is fitting when you consider that Eslick has been something of a sleeper throughout his AMA road racing career—an easy-going, unassuming guy who rides away with surprisingly good finishes before the competition knows what hit them. No one knew who Danny Eslick was when he finished fourth in the prestigious Daytona 200 last year, and most road race fans probably still aren’t aware that he took third in the 2005 Formula Xtreme Championship, behind Miguel Duhamel and Jake Zemke. But flying under the radar is obviously working for Eslick.... We finally found him in a pasture hitting golf balls, but future competitors may find him grinning down at them from atop a podium.
By Laurel C. Allen

Hey, Danny—how’s your golf game?
Oh man, it’s not too good.

Where are you hitting them?
Everywhere [laughs]! We’ve got 10 acres—I’ve got a pasture and stuff—so I’m just out here messing around, and I’ve got my dogs chasing golf balls so I don’t have to go get them.

Is hitting golf balls training, or do you have some other program?
No, no…. I’m running a whole bunch—waking up early in the morning and running a couple miles, then lifting weights in the middle of the day and running again later in the afternoon, plus riding a bunch of Supermotard stuff. I’m just out here getting ready for Daytona.

Have you competed in any off-road events lately?
I did some Supermoto racing in California on a RMZ450…. Did one race out at Grange last month—had to start in the back because they based the heat races off of your points, and of course I didn’t have any, so starting in the back was pretty exciting. I didn’t finish one of them and then got, like, fourth in the other one. Once I got up past the slower guys, the fast guys had just about checked out, and there are a couple of really fast guys who show up, like Micky Dymond. It was tough, but I was just riding around and having fun. I spent almost a month out there, just traveling around to a bunch of different sponsors, visiting some relatives, stuff like that.

What’s your program like for next year?
It’s pretty much the same as last year except we’re going to be on Dunlops, which is awesome. I can’t get too excited because I don’t want to make stuff look bad from last year, but I’m excited about it. I think it’s definitely what we needed. It was one question mark we had—there’s a reason all the factory guys are on Dunlops—so that just takes away one of the question marks for us doing good. I’m pumped to be on them.

How’s your bike?
Well, it’s the all-new 600 this year, and so far everything I’ve heard about it has been really good, but I haven’t gotten to ride it yet. We’re hoping to get some track time at the end of this month out in California, get a little bit of testing done, and hopefully be ready to go for Daytona.

It must be a little frustrating to know there’s this brand-new bike just waiting for you.
It kind of is, but that’s what [Ben] Spies and those guys are working with right now, and we’re working a little bit with them, so I’m not too worried about it. Hopefully they’ll help us out enough so we’re not too far off at Daytona. And I think we might get one, possibly two tests before Daytona anyway. Plus, like I said, I’ve been riding a ton around here this winter—Supermotard around the house and some local flat track stuff.

It must be kind of a thrill for local fans to see you back at the flat track, where your roots are.
Yeah, it’s just kind of a local deal, you know? For us, it’s just kind of fun—racing against my brother and some of my buddies around here. We spend more money to go out there and do it than we get from the purses, which are like $15 or $20, so it’s mostly just bragging rights—and you can rub that stuff in until the next race [laughs]! My brother and I have a deal where if I win, he’s gotta call me “Champ” until the next race, and if he wins, I have to call him “Champ” ‘til the next race, just around the house. That gets kind of old after a while, if I have to call him champ, but I won the last one, so I’m the champ now.

Is there anything you plan to focus on specifically next season?
Yeah…. A lot of it is just trying to get the bike set up earlier in the weekend, having more time to fine-tune it, which is something I’ve struggled with. It’s something that comes with experience and I have a couple of years in it now, so it’s coming a little more easily. Getting the feedback working early in the weekend is hard; for me, I’m just used to doing a lot of laps and dealing with it…. With the dirt bikes, I’d end up riding a lot of different motorcycles that weren’t mine, so I wouldn’t worry about it. But the last couple of years, I’ve been riding something that’s based around me the whole season, so I have to start to get things going earlier in the weekend. But I’m excited; I don’t worry about things. Once the little light turns green, it’s time to go racing, and I don’t worry about anything.

Are you riding the same classes next year?
Yes, Formula Xtreme and Supersport again. I think Yamaha coming in to FX is definitely good; we lost the factory Honda guys but we got the Yamaha guys, so it’ll be all right for the class. It seems like all the factory guys are spread out real thinly across all the classes; maybe that’s better for the racing, but it would probably be a whole lot better if they were all in one class. But they all gotta win a championship somehow, right?

How have you changed as a rider since entering the AMA road race series?
As a rider I’ve come a long way, because when I first started the AMA as a professional road racer I was riding a 750 and I hadn’t been on four-strokes that long, so that was a big stepping stone and learning curve for me. I’ve always been told just to take it one step at a time by Pridmore…. You can step over a couple of them once in a while, but you can get caught out and it’ll bite you and you’ll fall back down a couple steps, so I’ve just tried to take everything real slow and progress slowly. And there hasn’t been a whole lot of pressure, so I’ve had time to learn the right way instead of crashing a whole bunch. That’s been the biggest thing—just working up to the pace. The big lesson is just to follow some of the more experienced guys around who have been doing it a long time, like Miguel, Jake, and the other guys who have been around a while. I follow them around and pay attention to what they do, because there’s a reason they’re the best out there.

Is your crew the same for next year?
Pretty much, though I think we’re bringing in some guys to help out at Daytona, with the pit stop. Last year we had some people who maybe weren’t all that used to that kind of pressure, but that’s all right; we still had a good Daytona last year!

You must want another taste of the kind of success you had there in 2005—do you think about that a lot?
I definitely want to do better than what I did last year! It’s gonna be tough with all the testing the factory guys get to do at Daytona, but we didn’t get to test there last year, either, and we did pretty good, so we’re kind of hoping for the same thing this year.

Okay, last question: What are your goals for 2006?
To win a championship—that’s always the goal. We finished third last year in the championship and we had a lot of consistent finishes, you know? Some of them weren’t always the best, but they were usually right there in the top five in Formula Xtreme, week-in and week-out, except for that one big crash I had, which was our only DNF and totally my fault. Jake and Miguel rode real good last year and put the whuppin’ on us, but hopefully we can close to the gap to what the factory guys are doing and be up there on the podium.