As one of the more storied racing organisations, the Monster Energy CDR Yamaha team embarks on its 33rd year of professional competition in 2025, headed by multi-time national champion, Craig Dack. With over 50 national titles and counting, CDR is preparing to add more silverware to the cabinet this year, with Dack giving MotoOnline a candid industry interview before the ProMX season opener in just over a month’s time in Wonthaggi.

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Hello Craig, firstly, thanks for taking the time to chat!

No worries, buddy – anytime. What have you got for me?

We’re getting ready to begin the new season and you’ve done this for a very long time. Is there anything unique to 2025 or is it kind of business as usual?

Well, in a lot of ways, it’s business as usual, but I still get the same feeling this time of year. I enjoy putting everything together. We’ve got a lot of our major commercial partners sorted on multi-year deals with Yamaha, Monster Energy and Fox – all the big ones are done. I had a pretty big off-season, which started late last year, pulling all that together. When you’re in a transition year of contracts, you know, it requires a lot more work, but they’re all together. And then we’re getting ready for this year, of course. The boys are out testing and just going through the process of getting ready for a new season. I still get excited at this time of year, even after all these years. By the end of last year, I was pretty tired after our schedules for not only Australia but the World Supercross Championship (WSX), too. So I desperately needed a rest, so I took a couple of weeks off. Now, after I’ve rested up, I’m ready to go racing again.

Yeah nice, mate. Reflecting on the 2024 outdoor season, it came down to the wire. Were you proud of how all that happened, even though you came up just a little bit short in the end with Jed?

The reality is that racing or sport in general is a funny thing. We went through a period up until about two years ago, three years ago, where we were in a purple patch, and we couldn’t do anything wrong, pretty much like what Yarrive [Konsky] has been through in the last couple of years. However, in the last few years, we seem to be having a lot of our riders get injured and having to replace them, and that just makes it messy, really makes it hard work. But, you know, [Dean] Ferris got injured sort of a few rounds in last year, so that put a damper on that, but Jed was a great pick-up, a great signing – he’s been fantastic, a good guy, a really hard worker. He puts in the work that he needs to do, he is a fantastic rider and he’s good with his bike set-up. He is so easy to get along with. So from that point of view, it was good to come so close in the championship, after eight rounds and 16 motos, and they ended up with over 300-odd points or something, and ended up tied, which was a great, great, championship. It was a battle between him and [Kyle] Webster the whole way. There was nothing between them, however, and this is nothing against Jed, it was a bit disappointing because when you look back over the series, there were a few opportunities that were missed. He was in the lead a couple of times at some races and fell. His starts weren’t great, which held him back a bit, but his riding and his fitness were just amazing. It was just disappointing to get that close and not get the title, but you know, the good thing is that we lost it to a really good rider with Webster. He was riding really well throughout the championship, so it was a good battle. I enjoyed it.

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For sure. And what do you make of the situation that they’re in where they ride together during the week and train under the same program? Is this something you would have considered doing with your closest rival back in the day?

For me, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t like to do it because I always felt I had a good work ethic, good working ethics, and I had my programs, and I was a bit more of an individual guy. But the program that Jed is on with his brother Ross [Beaton] and Webster there, it’s a pretty good program, and it’s a popular thing in sports now. On one hand, are they pushing each other every day of the week to lift their level? Yes, and the level with Webster and Jed over everybody else, no one else was anywhere near them in motocross, so from that point of view, it’s good. For me, it’d be nice if Webster wasn’t a part of that program to be selfish because I know how good the program is that Ross does, so he is getting benefits from that, but overall, I’m okay with it.

And you talk about Jed, I feel like Jed is a real kind of ‘Craig Dack’ type rider, everything that you want to see in a rider. Is that something that you agree with?

Yes, for the most part. I just think, as I said, there are things he needs to work on, capitalising on particular situations that were there to take, and I’m not criticising him for that. Overall, he’s great, I wouldn’t change him for the world. He’s fantastic. But I think he still has a bit of learning to do, just to capitalise on opportunities that were sitting there for him, which weren’t probably taken when they should have. But anyway, after a year of working together and considering things he and I spoke about, hopefully, this year, he will make another step forward, which I’m sure he will.

You’ve brought Aaron Tanti back into the roster, what was the thought process there?

We needed a rider for this year. Obviously, Webster was under contract, [Luke] Clout was under contract, and we considered all the options, and Tanti was the best option. He’s won a ProMX championship for us, so we felt he was a perfect rider to complement Jed in our program. He knows how to win a championship, he has done it before, and then with supercross, he’s a good, solid, supercross guy, so it made sense. We know him. He knows us. He likes the Yamaha. You see, some riders have their preferred brands, and Aaron certainly prefers the Yamaha, so, in the end, it was a pretty easy decision. It’s nice to have him back.

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I don’t know if this is a sore spot or not, but there was a bit of a shake-up at CDR last year with Brad [McAlpine] departing the team. How did that all shakedown? Was there a bit of a restructuring? Were you disappointed to see that or was it just kind of time?

Yeah, I was disappointed to see him go because he and I were really close, and we worked together for 15 years. He knew the ethos of CDR, and he had a lot of important positions, so that was, you know, disappointing to lose all that investment in Brad. But the reason why he went to a Kawasaki team was that it was a growing team. They needed someone to help guide them or help them technically, so, personally, I have no problem at all. I get all that. It’s fine. Fortunately, the guys here had been here for a few years, and we still have Gary Benn, who’s been with me for 100 years. So, although Brad left us, we didn’t really go too of course, it just created a fair bit more work for everybody for the first several months.

That makes sense. And you’ve got the World Supercross stuff going on, the Aussie stuff going on, so when you consider all of these moving parts, what is a day in the life of Craig Dack at the moment, with all of these responsibilities?

Oh, yeah, look. Every day, something is going on because you’re running a business, and you’re running a sporting team, and you just need to get things done. And there are always issues. There’s always problem-solving and issues to solve. Raising the money to go racing each year is increasingly harder. Your costs are getting higher, so managing all that and then the WSX thing is always there. We’ve got a new contract with them. We’ve been on a three-year contract so far that ended at the end of last year, so we’re trying to put together a new contract for another two years. We’re in the middle of understanding what that looks like. It’s got its complexities because more than likely, I don’t have direct schedules yet, but more than likely, it’ll clash with our supercross series here. So how does that all pan out? It’s too early to say yet. We’re still probably weeks and months away from sort of working that out. But apart from problem-solving all that, I’m just running a business and trying to give myself time off when I have time, and that’s just what I did.

Lastly, what was it like working with Eli Tomac last year?

Working with Tomac was a bit of a Mickey Mouse-type thing for us because Tomac came with his own bike and his own mechanics, so technically, we didn’t have anything to do with that, but to have him on our team and ride for us was good, just to get to know him. He’s a really nice guy, but he’s a very intense guy. Driven and really professional. So just to have someone under your tent of that calibre was good. It took a fair bit of work to bring it all together and make sure all parties in Yamaha US and Star were happy, but all in all, it was a great experience for us.

Awesome, I can imagine, mate. Well again, thank you for the chat, and all the best for 2025.

Anytime, buddy, thank you.