Paul Perebijnos has been, like a lot of us, wondering what’s been wrong with Team USA at the FIM Motocross of Nations the past few years. Paul now works for Renthal USA, but he’s seen this sport from a lot of eyes, from his own pro career to a 250 National Championship winning mechanic with Dean Wilson and Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki. There are few in this industry who have the knowledge base, experience, and perspective that Paul does, and that’s why the fortunes of Team USA, winless since 2011, does not sit well with him.
Paul wants to figure out a way to change this race from a burden to an opportunity. You can go to https://www.raiseit4usa.com/ to learn more, and either donate or get involved.
I sat down with him on the Fly Racing Racer X Podcast to try and figure out what he’s doing and why.
Matthes: Let’s talk #RaiseItForUSA, as you’re trying to help Team USA. Is it seven or eight years in a row that they lost?
Paul Perebijnos: We haven’t won since 2011.
So, eight years of losing. Ten years of not winning anything at all. This is unheard of since 1981 when USA first won this damn thing. They won it for thirteen straight years. Lost it in ’94. It’s back at RedBud this year. I would say that USA are the favorites again, but they didn’t even make the podium the last time this race was at RedBud. That might be the biggest shocker I’ve ever seen in motocross. I left that day being like, how does Team USA with Aaron Plessinger, Eli Tomac, Justin Barcia not get on the podium? They didn’t even come close! It was bad. You want to get this going again. You want to help the Team USA out, and funds is a big thing over the years. I shouted this over the airwaves. Morale is maybe at the lowest we’ve ever had it. But that’s not acceptable for you, Paul. You’re bringing it back.
Yeah. You touched on a bunch of different points there. I was at RedBud with you in 2018 when we lost, and I remember that feeling. The last time we won is 2011, and there was barely social media around back then. There’s nobody on the starting line racing anymore that has been to Team USA and won. Our riders don’t know that feeling. I forgot, Dunge is back, but in general, the guys riding today don’t know that feeling.
They might not even know the pride in winning that thing, how cool it was.
The pride and the honor to represent your country. I do feel like it’s become, for lack of a better word, this bastard child thing for the industry and race teams to do. It’s become this burden, and I hate that. So, I guess the idea started, I was at the Snowshoe GNCC. I was lined up to race an e-mountain bike race and I was chatting next to one of the directors at KTM off-road, Antti [Kallonen]. He’s the guy that I deal with when we do contracts and whatnot. He’s been running a golf tournament to support getting the ISDE Team USA to the International Six Days Enduro. He was telling me how the golf tournament went, and I supported it as Renthal. I want that group of customers, the off-road community, to know that we at Renthal care about their biggest race of the year, their Super Bowl. He was telling me the golf tournament to raise money for the ISDE, and then I couldn’t go to bed that night because I’m thinking about all the Team USA things and how we haven’t won in so long. I’m like, why can’t we do something like that? I just couldn’t put the idea down, honestly. I started asking friends. I asked you. I asked our group text.
Then I started calling team managers. I started just kind of taking the temperature of where we are at in this industry with Team USA. So, now I embarked on a journey to try to inject some change. Honestly, I look at it as reenergizing Team USA. It’s the same thing I was hired to do at Renthal, was reenergize the brand. We’ve got a website. We’ve got a hashtag. The golf tournament takes place Sunday after Pala, September 4th, 9:00 a.m. at Red Hawk Golf Club, I have a bunch of brands already on board. This thing is really starting to take flight. The goal is to raise money for these race teams to go to this race again. I would love to be able to give a check to each team that sends a rider, to help lessen the burden, the cost, of going. Maybe in the future we can get an insurance policy for the riders, so they have some incentive [bonus] to win. I just want to reverse the trend in the industry and in the paddock. Right now [it feels like] it’s not that important, it’s a burden to go. Like with pretty much anything, you throw some money at things, and you can usually make it better. So, I was just thinking, who is going to do this? How are we going to do this? I was just like, if it’s not me, then who else? I basically signed up for a volunteer job, for the most part. I ran this past the owners at Renthal. I said, this is the idea of what I want to do. Would you allow me the bandwidth to do this? They were so supportive. They’re even going to help with some of the invoicing of the different businesses, so businesses don’t have to send money to Paul Perebijnos. They can send money to Renthal.
Really nice of them considering they have Team UK!
Yeah. They’re a UK-based business, but I think that shows you the power of the North American market and how important the North American market is to many, many businesses. Not just Renthal, but a lot of these businesses and brands that will be supporting the golf tournament. It kind of transformed into something. Lars Lindstrom [Honda HRC Team Manager] and Jeremy Coker [Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing 450 Team Manager] kind of recommended to the AMA’s Mike Pelletier what I’ve been talking about to them. I got on the phone with Mike, and I said, “Hey, here’s the idea. This is what I think we can do. I really think we can start to change this thing and make it better.” He was accepting to the idea. We both kind of agreed this thing needs to be officialized somehow. I can’t have it just look like this Renthal guy raised money, it needs to be clear that the money goes to the AMA for the team. It needs to come with some sort of change. I need to be a part of this thing somehow, to officialize it. This took about a three-week process. AMA is more corporate than I even realized. Mike kept explaining that. Eventually we got it done.
So, officially, I am Team USA’s Development Consultant. I’m going to run this golf tournament and I’ve been contributing in all the meetings that we have as far as team selection and infrastructures and our plan is to announce the team, and how we can maybe make more of an event out of that. So, basically, I signed up for a bunch of work. It’s a passion project. To me, I feel like I already have a neutral view of the racing side of the sport, in that I sponsor guys that ride blue bikes, red bikes, green bikes, all different color bikes. So, I have to be more neutral anyway, normally, and that really works for an event like this where you have riders from different teams. I get to be another set of eyes on race weekend, to help the team any way I can. I really just think that we can start to reverse this thing. I want the American race fans to feel prideful again about our sport and our guys and our athletes, because we do have amazing athletes here. We’ve been getting our ass kicked at this race for a long time, but I truly feel that we have a very good chance to win this year at RedBud. I have a good feeling we can continue to win. But we need to make it more professional. We need to have these teams get some assistance to go, and riders have some kind of gold at the end of the rainbow, too.
Listen to the full podcast below:
