Exhaust #248: Randy Hawkins on Off-Road's Resurgence

Randy Hawkins is a member of the AMA Hall of Fame partially for his success as a racer, with seven AMA National Enduro Championships, and also for helping carry the load for American off-road racing in general. This is Randy's 28th season running the Am-Pro Yamaha off-road squad, which is Yamaha's factory program in the Progressive Grand National Cross Country Series and basically anywhere Yamaha races in the woods.

Randy has seen the ups and downs for factory off-road racing, from "getting fired" by Team Suzuki as a racer, to setting up a fledgling Yamaha program in the early days, to developing four-strokes for off-road, and riding out the economic storm of the Great Recession. These days off-road is back in a huge way, from bike sales, to race entries, to factory budgets, and even the types of machines the manufacturers are now producing.

Randy, one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet, had a chat with Jason Weigandt to explain how things started, and how it's going.

The Racer X Exhaust podcast is presented by Yoshimura and Racer X Brand.