So You Want to Own a Supercross Team…

So You Want to Own a Supercross Team…

CREO KTM Supercross team owner Jeff Crutcher gives us another race summary and some insight to what it’s like to own a race team.

By Billy Rainford

I’ve really enjoyed these post-race summaries from CREO KTM Supercross team owner Jeff Crutcher ever week this season. You’ll remember, that’s the team that #551 Guillaume St Cyr from Quebec rode for in 2023 and a bit in 2024 and #221 Tyler Gibbs from BC rode for this season.

Jeff has even threatened to come north of the border and show his stuff at Gopher Dunes, but we haven’t seen that happen yet. He’s on record as saying he could top 10 if/when he does, so I’m not letting that go!

Anyway, his weekly wrap-up emails are something I always look forward to on a Monday or Tuesday. morning. He’s very articulate and never holds back telling it “like it is” in each.

He makes sure to mention his sponsors, summarizes the actual racing, and doesn’t pull any punches when he talks about his riders’ performances. They’re always a good read.

This week after Round 15 of the 2024 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, he touched on a couple things he’s had to deal with as a team owner at this level. He doesn’t sugar coat anything or give any false picture of glamour and walking paycheques to the bank. No, quite the opposite.

Give it a read:

Our 250 East contest has come to a close, with an improved Y.O.Y. measure of every imaginable metric, except one.

It’s really, really easy to get caught up in the single measurement of not making a 250 main event. Every single other way to contrast versus last season saw massive uptick in quality and quantity. Starts were up this year, qualifying times massively improved, more than ever duration spent in qualifying position, huge television coverage on both RDL and NBC. Our promo distribution and fan interaction was refined and on the up. Content strategy and delivered assets upgraded.

It cost me just a hair shy of $100,000 to complete the season, and I cut every imaginable expense possible when it came to luxuries like hotels and food by sleeping in my truck cab and consuming a lot of potato salad all while taking no salary. Add in the mental expense of being away from my fiance, missing my sister’s wedding, and having poor (nonexistent) customer service with Rippinruts – I’m feeling non compos mentis [Insane; not of sound mind; not in control of one’s self] for the short term.

Dawson (Kaub) rode great against a competitive field in timed qualifying, and scored P48. He was happy with his riding and his season with the team, as am I. We developed him in a lot of ways both on the bike and off, and I’m proud he was part of the team.

Jorgen (Talviku) struggled in qualifying from some type of fork issue – not entirely sure on the diagnoses as I haven’t spoken with Marek, something with the rebound failing. In his heat race he started in 4th I believe, was passed by Anstie and another rider and held onto 6th for half of the heat before crashing. In the LCQ he went down in the first corner pile up. He put the bike in a lot of good situations for us this season, and I’m proud of everything we accomplished together this season.

We’re going to Denver this weekend, Jorgen will ride the 450 class and #824 Carter Stephenson will spend the day with the team in 250 W. I’m looking forward to a fun few days in the mountains to close out the season.

See you in Colorado.

– Jeff Crutcher

Good luck this week, Jeff. Thanks for “keeping it real” and for giving a couple of our Canadian riders a place to call home from time to time. We’ve got more up here! That is, if you’re coming back in 2025…