5 Minutes With … Joe Skidd
Something Canadian This Way Comes
By Laurel C. Allen

Joe Skidd is racing director for Blackfoot Motorcycles, which fields not only a highly successful Canadian national motocross team, but also a Superbike team that’s currently in the lead for the Parts Canada Superbike Championship. Joe worked the 500cc Grand Prix circuit from late 1993 to 2000 for Ohlins, and he still gets his hands dirty by taking care of suspension for both Blackfoot teams. We caught up with him in the AMA paddock at Laguna Seca, where the team’s impressive big rig and setup had many spectators asking, “Who is that?”

RRX : You worked the GP circuit for several years, didn’t you?
Joe Skidd: Yes … I started out in late ’93, joined up with Ohlins, and was in charge of Cagiva 500 with Doug Chandler and Doug Kocinski in the last year that Cagiva went around on Grand Prix. It was a much different world then than it is now—as Ohlins technicians, we took care of a lot more riders than the guys do now. I had eight or nine riders that I’d take care of; now the guys are pretty exclusive. They have one guy for Valentino, one guy for Colin, that sort of thing.

Blackfoot has a huge motocross effort in Canada, right?
Yep, it’s a very serious effort; it’s quite successful. All told, this year we have about six riders between the east and the west, and nine full-on works bikes. It’s a big effort.

What is Blackfoot, exactly?
It’s a dealership—I think it’s the biggest dealership in Canada. It’s based in Calgary.

Blackfoot has a huge presence at this race. Your rig and setup compares favorably to every factory team in the paddock, and yet I haven’t seen you at other AMA races. What prompted this level of participation at Laguna?
Well, we use early races in the AMA series to do our warm-up. Last year we did Fontana and Sears; this year we went down and joined a Yamaha test at Fontana and then raced there. But yeah, it’s pretty much always like we slide in under the radar. We have a different group of rules in Canada, so with our equipment, we stick very much to Canadian rules. That means that our bikes are under-horsepowered by a lot, like 30 or 40 horsepower. We have to run stock forks, stock brakes, stock wheels … so with all those differences, when we slip in under top 10 in the States, it’s very satisfying for us.

Tell me about your riders.
Our veteran is Clint McBain—he’s kind of the meat-and-potatoes of it. He’s an incredibly hardworking athlete. He has a very effective training regimen. That’s why it’s great to bring him down here to the States, where the races are longer, so he can actually take advantage of his fitness. Races in Canada are very short, and if you don’t get a good start, sometimes they’re over before you can regroup. So hopefully in the race—I mean, we don’t expect to be very far up on the grid—but hopefully, with the setup of his bike and his fitness level, we hope to pick away into the top 10 late in the race.

We also have young Kevin Lacombe. He’s 21 years old; he’s been around for quite a few years. He raced for Erion down here in the States for a brief period before an injury sidelined him for quite a time. He’s getting used to the bigger team environment and doing well. We also have a 20-year-old development rider named Matt Binns on 600-only who Suzuki wanted us to work with, so we’re doing that.

Where does Blackfoot rank in the Canadian Superbike Series?
We’re leading the Superbike championship for the first time. Since 2003 we’ve been Canada’s largest team, and we were the first ones to go this scale in Canada. We’ve been very serious about it since then, but it’s taken time for the success to come our way. We’ve always been there in the top three, but with Clint coming to the States, he’s learned a lot, and he’s made a step to the next level.

What other differences are there between the American and Canadian Superbike circuits?
The tracks are much better down here. We have very few tracks, and some of them look quite tattered now. Our governing body up there is PMP. A lot of their rules are quite cutting-edge; a lot of times the series down here looks to see how successful our rule changes are. They’re definitely watching what we do up there.

Does Blackfoot have any plans to get more involved in AMA racing?
I wouldn’t say there’s any concrete plans exactly, but the team owner would definitely be interested in having the team do a full season of AMA racing. I think what we’ll have to do is wait until there’s outside sponsorship. Right now we’re financed by Suzuki Canada, and that’s likely to continue for a while, but if the money wasn’t there to race in Canada at some point, we would definitely try to drum up support here in the States to come and do a year or two.

Is AMA racing more attractive to a team owner?
Oh yeah, for sure. AMA is a higher level. Today is a great example, with Mladin and a few of the guys are out there who are very close to the [times of the] MotoGP riders. That’s a very interesting thing.

So in the long term, it’s likely that we’ll see more of Blackfoot at AMA races?
I would think so, for sure. It’s really just a matter of financing and scheduling right now, and perhaps I’m the one holding the team back a little right now, because I also direct the motocross team. The team is so small that any pair of hands is critical. If there was a slightly more realized schedule for Canadian Superbike or Canadian motocross, it would open up more windows for us to go in and participate. At Mid-Ohio, some of the guys will go down and do a small effort. You’ll see Clint there working out of a box van. It’ll be a minimal effort, but we’ve had great results doing that this year.

That’s still pretty amazing for a single dealership.
Exactly. The only people fielding two national-caliber teams are the factories in the U.S. Nobody in Canada is fielding two in-house teams like this, so I’m actually very proud of this effort.