My name is Scott Kandel. I am the founder and Chief Altruistic Officer of Warthog Racing (www.WarthogRacing.com). Warthog Racing runs a professional Supercross/Motocross race team – the largest team in the world with over 25 riders. The official name for the team for 2009 SX is MDK/Warthog Racing/MotoConcepts.
We are unique in that we support professional racers called privateers that are resource disadvantaged and we work hard operating as a virtual not-for-profit to bring them resources like money and sponsors so our racers can compete to be the best in the world. Please note the name of the organization has been changed from Wonder Warthog Racing to Warthog Racing for 2009.
We only have one paid position on staff – the race team truck driver, Chris Parsons. Chris handles more riders out of our rig than 10 other teams combined. He is certainly a truck driver for the ages. The dozens of others that help make Warthog Racing a reality are all volunteers, including myself and Darrell Saldana, the Race Director, Jon Kandel, the team’s Task Master, Alison Turner, the Business Manager, Jaime Allen, Benefactor Relationship Director, and Jeff Tomlinson, the Chief of Logistics.
Our mission is to help deserving privateer racers live their dreams. We’ve been living this vision since 2003. Our program – The Warthog Racing Academy -- provides the riders motorcycle transportation, pit set-up, mechanics, who work through the unique Motorcycle Mechanics Institute Internship program, gas, food, water, hospitality, and rider marketing and promotion, as well as the opportunity for riders to “graduate” to better resourced teams at any time during the season. The individual riders are responsible for their own motorcycles, race entry fees, and travel expenses.
Although the Warthog Racing Academy has attained enough resources to fund our infrastructure for the season thanks to great sponsors like MDK and MMI, the economic turbulence of 2008 has not been kind to our riders. Many of our riders with great potential have little in the way of resources to make it through the entire season. These are excellent riders like Heath Voss, Tyler Bowers, Sean Collier, Eric Sorby, Manu Rivas, Gavin Gracyk, Tyler Bright, Michael Blose, Vince Friese (East Coast), Jacob Saylor (East Coast), Ryan Mills (West Coast), Tiger Lacey (West Coast), Mike Horban (West Coast), and Kevin Urquhart (West Coast), plus many more to be named during the season. This is where the fans of the sport can help. You can “adopt” a rider in the Warthog Racing Academy to help them make it through the season. Please feel free to contact Scott Kandel at 213 268-2659 or scott@wonderwarthogracing.com if you’d like to help any of these kids out. Any type of contribution WILL make a difference.
Also new the 2009 season is the Warthog Racing Supercross Complex with two SX tracks on it. We have built exact replicas of the 2009 Anaheim 1 and Atlanta tracks to give the privateers the real world experience they need to compete. It is located on the Honolulu Hills Raceway property located near Bakersfield, CA. It is part of an existing 2100 acre riding park. It is open year round to all AMA SX endorsed privateers at no cost – it’s not just our MDK/Warthog Racing riders, it’s to help the sport in an area that is sorely needed.
Finally, we have created an affiliate program that links like-minded teams together in an initiative we call the Warthog Nation. These teams are all working to support the goals of Warthog Racing – to support the privateer through creative programs and to make Supercross/Motocross the standard by which all Motorsports are measured. Our first member team of the Warthog Nation is the new elite MotoConcepts/MDK Speed Honda team featuring our recent graduate from the Warthog Racing Academy Jeff Alessi as well as Frenchman Ben Coisy, Australian Daniel McCoy, and Cole Siebler. Also joining the Warthog Nation for 2009 is the always popular Fire and Police team. And finally, our lifetime charter member of the Warthog Nation is the former Supercross World Champion Heath Voss, who will be representing the U.S. Air Force and MasterCraft Boats whilst spreading the gospel of the Warthog Nation.
A debt of gratitude goes out to our sponsors, partners, and benefactors that make The Warthog Racing Academy possible -- MDK Motorsports, MDK Speed
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