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Hello everyone, I am Davey Durelle and my company is
Durelle Racing Products. Here is a little story about my racing background and how I ended up creating Durelle Racing Products.
I grew up in Zimmerman, MN and started racing in 1975. My first race was at the beloved Helms speedway where I learned to either go fast or get hit with rocks. My first race would have been at the Cambridge TT. You see, my dad was reading the Sunday paper and saw an ad for the Cambridge race. He said, “Hey do you want to go racing?” I was like, heck yeah, and called my buddy to go with us because I was going to kick some butt and wanted someone else to see. As we get close you can imagine how excited I was getting, and the anticipation really started to build as we drove down the tree lined entrance to the track only to turn the corner and find that no one was there. Turns out dad was reading last weeks paper. I was pretty sad, I may have even shed one or two hundred tears, but only when my buddy wasn’t looking of course.
Back then, I was riding the mighty XR75. It was a step up from the Indian 50 I started on and seemed to be wicked fast. Turns out it wasn’t that fast and neither was I. I managed to finish fifth place on my ole stock bike and honestly I don’t remember how many mini B riders there were but I couldn’t have been last, I did get a trophy and I was happy. We made many friends that night and one of them was the Hill family. Jack, Toni, Brian, Mark, Steve, Joan, & Sue. How would you like to have paid for those entries? Jack was a certified XR guru. He came over and told us everything we had to change on our bike to make it handle and go fast. Joan was riding Jack’s XR80+ creation and yes she was one of the four ahead of me. It was her last year on the bike so we (my dad) bought it at the end of the season. I thought that was a great idea. There is no way Joan could beat me now... she doesn’t have a bike!
I learned a lot about racing, riding the tracks in MN and watching the superstars like Peter Hook. In 1980, I turned pro and progressed through the ranks of novice, junior, expert, then national # expert. I traveled the country with Peter Hook, Randy Triplett, Bucky Lorentz and anyone else we could con into going.
In 1988, Butch Donahue stepped in and wanted to build a race team. His sons Brett & Tony were already pretty involved and Butch was there to give us what we needed to make the next step. With his support I quit my job, hired Kris Armentrout, who just retired from racing, as my mechanic and we hit the road to contest every 600 national series race. We did really well and I picked up a part time ride on a XR750 Harley for the following season.
Butch and I had some great success once we had Jerry Wilhelmy building our motors and helping with chassis set up. When you get to that level, everything counts and I learned a lot about what it takes to be successful.
I owe a big part of this mentality to Neil Winston, Jerry Wilhelmy, & Steve Ferree. They taught me not only to do the job but also to think about what you were doing and why you were doing it. They also instilled in me the idea that not all parts are created equal.
With the help of Neil Winston, I built a shock dyno to measure the damping characteristics of shocks and forks. The knowledge gained by that one piece of equipment was huge. It answered so many questions that we both had about our equipment. With that knowledge, I was able to make a difference in the suspension components we were using at the time. A difference that was noticed by my competitors. Soon I was approached by other teams to solve their problems. The snowball started to run down hill and before you know it, I was in the suspension business.
Neil was gracious enough to give me a spot in his shop to start my business and when it came time to look for a place to expand into my own shop I found myself looking in Colorado.
I had been coming to CO for a number of years for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb event. One year we brought our trail bikes and during that week stay we tested up the mountain, went trail riding in 60-degree weather, and then snowboarded in the mountains. At that point, I thought how cool is that! I was pretty sold on CO from that point on.
In 1998, I packed my bags, mill, welder, drill press, etc and moved west to set up shop.
It wasn’t until 2004 when I met my dream girl Kamsey. We got married in 2005 and now we have three kids, Rhys, Dillon, & Diem.
I feel very lucky to be doing a job I truly enjoy and to be able to make a difference in my customers’ achievements. To see their results improve is very rewarding.
Thanks to Zman for putting the pressure on me to get this written down. As I was writing, I found there are a lot of great memories and stories that would be fun to share. I abbreviated this and someday you will get the whole story.
Sincerely, Davey Durelle #58
www.durelleracing.com
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