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March '11 Interview with Louisiana's Kevin Hutchinson
By Lucas Comeaux
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Kevin Hutchinson from Pineville, LA has
been a front-runner in the LA Cross-Country Series since day
one, was a top AA SERA rider, qualified for two ISDE's, and much
more. We enjoyed catching up with him recently...read on!   Above: Hutchinson making memories at ISDE events in Chile and Greece! |
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1st off congrats on finishing 5th Overall in the '09 & '10 LACC Series – how does it feel to beat riders half your age?
You know, when I started racing in 1984, I had no idea I would end up being as successful as I have been doing this hobby. I never, ever foresaw traveling all over the USA and the world competing, and making as many friends as I have, doing something that started when my parents got me a z 50 when I was a kid. Of course it wasn’t new, so I quickly had to learn to work on it, if I wanted to ride it. That led me into the world of motorcycles, and I owe everything I have to motorcycles and my parents.
To still be “competitive” in my 40’s is really pretty neat I think, but truthfully I still don’t feel “old”. I mean I’m getting gray hair, but I can still go ride, have a good time, and am still blessed with seemingly endless energy. A lot of my classmates ask me about it, and I claim (and believe) it is due to motorcycle riding all my life. You can’t pay for better exercise, with adventure and camaraderie to boot!!!!
 Hutchinson at The Jim Bowie LACC Rnd in '10 |
To answer the question
directly, it is kinda neat I think to know that some of my
competitors parents hadn’t even met, and I was winning trophies
racing my bike!!! LOL… So have you ever thought about how many states you’ve competed in over the years? Well, let me think… Louisiana of course, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, New Jersey, Colorado, and Ohio. I’ve also been riding in Moab, Utah, and highly recommend it to everyone!! I think that covers the states looking at a map. I have raced motorcycles obviously, but have also raced three wheelers, four wheelers, and stock cars. |
Tell us about the ISDE qualifying and traveling to the other countries for the events….what’s some of your best memories doing that?
Well, obviously both my biggest accomplishment, and biggest disappointment ever in my racing “career”. Me and Lucas [Comeaux] first tried to qualify in 2006, but were woefully unprepared to do it. The qualifiers were unlike any other form of racing, except for the fact that they were “offroad”. Well in 07 we took what we learned in 2006, and got smart and moved up the e3 class, when god delivered to me a brand new 1999 kx 500 for 200 bucks!! Lucas put a 300 cylinder on his 250, and we both easily qualified, and were off to Chile. I had major problems with my bike overheating in the desert mountain section on day one and would have DNF’D the first day if it weren’t for another US team member giving me his 60oz camelback to get some water back in my radiator!! Ever need water in the desert mountains?? I have. That cost me 30 minutes, but more importantly, I didn’t drink anything for several hours, and little did I know I was dehydrated. I figured it out about 50 miles out on day two though!!
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To add to the misery of laying in bed for two days after that, I found out they CUT OUT the 40 mile billy goat section on day two that caused me so much grief on day one(same loop for day one and two), and just let the riders ride the four-lane highway back… sigh… Note to self: use that Evans super cool in your bike if you “think” it might run hot, and when in the desert, carry as much water as you can!!! Oh yeah, drink it also!!! LOL.. The highlight of that trip was Lucas got a silver medal, Caselli almost won the whole thing, and the USA women’s team won!! So after suffering that disappointing dnf, was hell bent on going back to the ISDE, cause it is an awesome experience for riders and helpers alike. If you have ever watched the Olympics, and wanted to be in the opening ceremonies, then ISDE is for you!!! |
The rules for 2008 were since there were only two qualifiers, you only had to ride one. Me and Brain “Big Brian” Soileau went to the qualifier in New Jersey, and when we got there, I thought I was back in north Louisiana. SAND and pine trees for 140 miles a day, and I was on a KX 500!!! It was awesome, should have won the E3 class after the two top riders went out with a hospital trip and a bike disaster, but one major crash of my one regulated me back to third, but still QUALIFIED!!!
Well, then I was out play riding 10 weeks exactly before the start of the Greece ISDE and broke my collarbone really bad. Couldn’t ride before the event, but just like before Chile, did other forms of “safe” exercise before the event.
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Got to Greece full of confidence and went out on day one about 55 miles, hit something in the grass, flipped over and paralyzed my left arm!!! Miraculously didn’t re-break my collar bone(was wearing some homemade football shoulderpads) but apparently pinched a nerve in my left shoulder. It was absolutely terrible trying to ride like that, but you obviously don’t just “quit” at an event like this. Someone finished day one (140 miles) without houring out, and pushed the bike into impound with doing anything to it. Went to doctor at track, and nothing was broken, but there was nothing they could do for it…. Hydrocodone and advil are wonderful together for pain though!!! Day two it got to feeling a little better and after finishing day two, I knew I could tough out the event no problem. Day three started off as two did, unable to do much with my arm, but hydrocone to the rescue again!!! Hahah Day three started the same as one and two, but used parts of day one and two. I somehow got “lost” and ended up on day one/two course. Once I realized this I turned around and was hurring back down the mountain backwards on the course and somehow ran off about a 20 ft dropoff in a cow pasture that had been cut out of the mountain. When I work up I had a few “cow dogs” sniffing me(they must have been hungry?) I turned my head back and saw what I did, and was afraid to move, just knew I was crippled. I couldn’t breath very well, cause my mouth was full of dust and rocks, and I was bleeding profusely out of my mouth, thought I had knocked my teeth out, but I had actually separate my lower gum… finally determined that by gods will I didn’t have any broken bones, but now both of my shoulders felt the same way, and of course I was sore and aching all over!! |
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Got up,
thank you electric start, and made it back down the mountain
somehow, found some course workers, and they got me to the
next checkpoint. When I got there the medic came over, and they loaded me up and took me to the hospital for x-rays and stitches to put my mouth back together. Needless to say I was devastated once again. But I do have a cool x-ray from a Greek Hospital!! The best memories have from the ISDE are the opening ceremonies, the camaraderie among the team members, and the extremely patriotic feeling you feel walking behind our flag in the opening ceremonies parade. Do it if you can, but don’t wait till you are 40 to try. |
How did you like riding the new KTM in Greece vs. your KX 250?
Well, I really liked getting there and just having a new bike to ride with any and every part imaginable, that might be needed there for me!!! I really wish I wouldn’t have broken my collarbone before I went though, so I could have at least ridden one before I got there. The engine, brakes, etc.. seemed fine, it just really handled funny to me. It was like the back end was too soft and it wouldn’t “follow” the front end, especially off-camber uphill type of climbs…. I was asking David Kamo about it after day one, and he said the spring was likely too soft, so at the start of day two, I tightened it up, and it did seem better… I have three kx 250’s, 94, 98, and the 2006 model I have been riding at the lacc events. They are all faster than the KTM, but the KTM was far better for the ISDE because most of that event is just a lot of trail riding, and the wide linear smooth power band of the KTM was better overall, and the BREMBO brakes of the KTM are to die for!! Also did I mention how nice and lazy the button was!! Ahhahah
Changing gears a little congrats on winning both the ’09 and ’10 LACC Vintage races – how did you get into vintage bikes?
I guess I never intended to, I am just too sentimental, and keep everything!! Hahah I have every motorcycle that I won every SERA helmet with, every trophy/plaque I have ever won, and hundreds of old race mylars!! Once I had accumulated 15-20 bikes, I guess I just got plum foolish, and now with over 70 odd motorcycles. I just love getting a new one, as they all have a story to tell.
Right now I am about 75% done with my 1985 Kdx 200 restoration. My “Fredette Special”. Everyone that comes in my shop just loves to look at them, and one day me, Jimmy, and John will have us a little museum like Dave Mungenast in Missouri, and our buddy Roger Ganner in Oklahoma. It is really neat to ride something from the 70’s and early 80’s and see how far we’ve come.
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It is also cool to take one out like to your race and have the people smiling and pointing at it saying, “I used to have one of those, or boy I sure wanted one of those back in the day.” As far as riding them though, once you get to the late 80’s there isn’t much “new” to the feel of them… Thank you AMA production rule, cause with the exception of the nice new forks that came out in the mid 00’s, and the new four strokes(thank you AMA for allowing Yamaha to “run what they brung in 1997) we are sill riding 1985 motorcycles, with 12 inches of travel, disc brakes, and about 225 lbs. I was recently talking to Trampas and he told me about testing a freaking rotary engined bike back in the 80’s!!! Now the OEM’S can’t “gamble” with something new and you can “test” till they run out of petroleum fossil fuels, but until you RACE said machine, you just don’t know. So we are forever behind. Example, in the early 80’s Honda had some cr 250’s with electronically controlled power valves(servo motors). They didn’t offer a bike with this setup for sale until 2002. |
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We appreciate you going above and beyond working the Tioga round, any thoughts you’d like to throw out to the racing community regarding supporting the sport? I guess I started making trails when I was only 10 to ride my bikes on, so it is just in me to do that I suppose, but to answer your question… for as long as I’ve done this racing thing there has always been a bunch of users and very few doers when it comes to promoting the races. I know that sounds bad to say, and agitates some people but it is the truth. They all want to come ride the events and moan and grown, it was too fast, it was too tight, it was too dusty, the creeks should have had bridges, the briars ripped me off the bike.. I’ve heard it all.. When you ask them what they do about them situations at “their” race, I love it when they say they don’t have one. I tell them to get one or quit complaining. |
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| For 20+
years, I’ve ridden offroad and it is always the same club
Presidents, and their “few” loyal friends, and or members
you see promoting the races.
Fred Pittman, Glenn Hollingshead, Robert Rocko, John Reed,
Dave Crain, etc.. etc, I can’t name them all but it is a
very short list that make up the SERA clubs for instance.
The Acadiana Dirt Riders has always had the most active number of workers for as long as I remember also, and I am proud to have been a member since 1987(except for that time a friend I used to have talked me into come and helping his fledgling club that was dangerously low on workers. We all know how that turned out. As Fred Pittman always says, it must be a sickness a select few of us have, to want to go out in the woods and cut mile after mile of trail, a seemingly thankless task. It is all worth it when you seen people enjoying the fruits of your labor, but many of them don’t understand what it took to make that trail. I mean the next time you go to Forest Hill for example and are riding through some “kinda” thick woods look to your left and right… that trail didn’t magically appear, and the USFS didn’t make it, and all them arrows, “X’s”, and ribbons you are following at the events, they don’t “grow” on the trees, and they don’t automatically disappear after the event.
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Most are aware of your Hutchinson’s ATV shop in Pineville but tell us about your other work and your education.
Well when I was in about the 3rd grade I started working on bikes out of necessity, because I wanted to ride. I had a hand me down z50, that always need the points adjusted, valves set, chain adjusted, etc, and my dad was at work most of the time, necessity being what is…. with a little help from my dad, I was off!! My dad was a gunsmith with a lathe, milling machine and all kinds of tools, so I had “stuff” to use… By the time I was ten, my parents bought me my one and only new bike, a 1978 xr75 Honda and I was hooked for life!! Back to the vintage bikes, I sold this little XR to my aforementioned former friend in the late 80’s, and have been on a quest to find it ever since!! I have one I restored, but it isn’t mine.
Anyway, my first business venture was selling night crawlers, but I soon figured out people would PAY ME to work on their three-wheelers…. Hello easy money!! So I started doing that in my parent’s backyard. In 1985 while a Jr. in high school, I opened my first “official” bike shop with one of my customers as my partner. In 1986 we took on Polaris, and by 1990, my partner quit his full-time job, we acquired a Yamaha ATV franchise, built a nice new shop on the Hwy 165, had 5 full time employees besides ourselves, and were on our way!! Life was good. Well one phone call the day before Thanksgiving in 1993 ended that situation, and six years later after a nice trip through our wonderful court system I was “out” of that business!!!
In the meantime, went back to the SAME shed in my parent’s backyard, and worked my way through college working on bikes, and operation my mobile disc jockey service that I started in 1988. I have an associate of science degree from Louisiana State University in Alexandria, and a BS in mechanical engineering from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. While in college there was a five team senior design competition, which of course my team won with a couple of “engineering modifications” that we made to my old 1987 Husky 430 automatic. I rode that bike in 1999, 2000, and 2002 with two year end fifth overalls and 1 fourth overall in the SERA enduro series, and enough freaking 2nd and 3rd event overalls to last me a lifetime!!! The best off-road bike ever made, and my favorite motorcycle ever.
Anyway, after college my first “real” job was at a manufacturing plant in Natchitoches Louisiana. After about 9 months and 2 weeks, I put in my notice there and quit without another job. The most inefficiently run operation I had ever seen in my life, and I wasn’t spending another day helping them chase their tail, and ignoring the obvious.
After that I took a job at a local firm that built Pharmacy automation equipment, hello pill counting!!! Did that for 4 years, got a cool patent or three outta that (worth one dollar to me!!!), LOVED doing what I did, but once again was dis-enchanted with what corporate America calls “management” and quit that mess to go back in business for myself doing what I am best at, motorcycles of course. That long time(over 30 years) industry leading, former family owned business, was promptly bankrupted just a year or so after I left. I saw it coming.
I feel very blessed and thankful for my god given ability to diagnose and repair mechanical things!!! I have a very loyal customer base that goes back over 3 decades now I can claim also!! LOL.. I’m doing what I was put on this earth to do obviously…
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Favorite movie? On Any Sunday what else??
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First 3 things after winning the Powerball?
1. Make sure my parents do nothing but travel the world for the rest of their lives.
2. Pay off all family and close friends houses.
3. A large piece of property with a modest house, with plenty of choice riding, a lake full of fish and ducks, pastures with horses(and some with grass tracks!!!), and the nicest shop/motorcycle museum ever seen in the south!!
 '87 Polaris Cyclone |
 200X Colfax 3-Wheeler Race in '86 |
 Holeshot in Monroe '85 LAHSS |
Wrapping things up: folks you'd like to thank who've helped you throughout the years?
I know I can’t thank everyone that has helped me racing for the past 25+ years, but I’ll take a stab at it here….
First my parents for getting that first Z50 Honda in Guam for
my brother, and bringing it back for me to ride, then buying that
All of Team 3/4 , David Bragg for riding with me from 85-99, we had so many memorable trips, races weekends… some real life and death battles out play riding over the years… Jimmy Winn for the same, many, many miles riding/racing, John Dean for the welding and such!! New members: Clyde Lemmons, Chris Darby, Harold Hill, and Sean Harris for all the help with the ISDE effort, Harold Constance and Greg Richardson for getting bikes again and re-joining after so many years away.
A special thanks to Valerie Miller for coming into my life and accompanying me to several of the LACC events this past year..
All the following people that made my two ISDE trips possible, thank you so much for helping me realize a dream… Chris Carter of Motion Pro, Andre Clemmons of Linear Controls, Darin and Debbie Lafleur, Jeff Fredette, the crew at J&M Supply, Susan Ayers at Tucker Rocky, Jim Ralston for the cool riding area!!, Jim David, Bruce and Donna Comeaux, Tracy Barstow, Gene and Angie Stelly, all the members of the Acadiana Dirt Riders, Roger Ganner, John Sawazhki, Teme Singleton, Butch and Andy Beebe, Earl Waltman, Bill Carpenter, Dwight and Debbie Rudder, Dean Grewe, Stephen and Carolyn Reed, Beth Neff, Shana Orman, Rodney Landry, Galen R. Iverstine, Walker Ogden, Mike Joiner, Anthony Self, and all the volunteers that attend the ISDE year in and year out to help our riders at the event.
Thanks for taking the time
Hutchinson
and see 'ya at the races!
More Pictures:
..."say whaaat?"
Greece 2008
Ride it like a rental...
The MAN Jeff Fredette throwing up the Team 3/4 gang sign.
Having to sign another autograph...
Fun times again with David Bragg at the 24 Hour.
Great Piney Woods '05
Piney Woods '05 with Mr. Reed
ATC 250R Colfax '86
First race ever on Cagiva
