Official PR: Brooks and McGrath Name Chaparral Title Sponsor
Chaparral Motorsports, Larry Brooks and Jeremy McGrath have teamed up again. This true powerhouse will field Andrew Short on Factory Honda CRF450. This announcement has been weeks in the making and the three agreed on this partnership before the Seattle Monster Energy Supercross event last Saturday where Andrew Short captured his first Supercross Main Event win.
“Obviously we have had tons of success together in the past” said Larry Brooks. “Let me start by saying Chaparral is not just a sponsor to Jeremy and I, it’s just like returning home. We were looking to bring back the special something, magic if you will that we had together winning three consecutive Supercross Championships in 1998, 1999 & 2000. Yes, 12 years ago was the last Championship we won as a group, but when we started talking it was like we had never been apart,” continued Brooks. “It’s crazy that as soon as we all shook hands and agreed to partner up again, Andrew went out and won his first Supercross main event in the big class, it really is magical!”
15 years ago I decided Chaparral was going to have are own race team. I hired a much younger Larry Brooks to manage the team and we started out on our quest for a Championship” Dave Damron, owner of Chaparral says. “We made a few changes throughout the first two years, when I saw that things weren’t lining up the way I wanted them to and then in 1998 Chaparral hired Jeremy McGrath and this was the missing piece to the puzzle. From there forward we won Supercross Championships, three years straight. There was something special with the group of people that we had and we were having a lot of fun. Winning is always fun. So I thought, lets make lightning strike again and putting Chaparral, McGrath and Brooks back together would give us the best chance at achieving greatness again, so here we go, Chaparral is back”.
Now to hear from the King of Supercross; Jeremy McGrath. “We started L&Mc Racing just before the beginning of the 2012 race season and like all race efforts we have already had our fare share of ups and downs. Larry and I were lucky enough to be able make an agreement with Chaparral and Dave Damron to team up again and when this came up, I knew it was the right move us and for our race team. If you look at what we have done in the sport in the late 90’s, there is no question together we can make is happen”. “Winning is what this group was known for then and we hope this is the beginning of round 2”.
As you can read, Chaparral and L&Mc Racing are more than happy to be back together after a short break and this weekend in Salt Lake City will make their return to action as a group. They are hoping to reignite the flame that burned so bright for so many years and with a rider like Andrew Short carrying the team flag out into the field of battle they feel this is going to be a lot of fun again.
In the next few weeks, Chaparral and L&Mc Racing will announce more of their new plans together, so enjoy the racing for now and get ready for more announcements.