Industry Profile: Clark BMX
With the 2011 BMX Hall Of Fame dinner and ceremony on tap for this Thursday night at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, News thought it was a great time to profile a company who has been on the scene for the past six months or so, and gaining some good ground as they close in on their first year in business.
Why the linkage to the Hall of Fame? Well, this company is owned by a BMX Hall Of Famer, who is now back in the sport, and lovin’ how the future looks. We’re talking, of course, about Scott Clark and his Clark BMX “Rad Science Factory” Mail Order.
We hit Scott up with a collection of questions on his history in the sport, for those who might be unfamiliar with this Top Dawg pro from the 70s and 80s…as well as his vision for Clark BMX.
Talk a little about your background in the sport from day one to the present.
I started racing BMX back in 1974–I won my first race and was hooked. I turned Pro at 14yrs old and was the third BMX Pro ever. From there, I won two number one Pro titles and raced all over the world spreading the word of BMX. (Japan, France, England, Holland, Belgium, Canada etc…) Over the years, I was sponsored by R&R, Robinson, Bear, Rondo, Murray and Redline.
I was on Redline when we filmed RAD in Canada. So next time you’re watching it, I’m the Redline rider. I retired in 1986 when all the bike factories were splitting the race team budgets with their freestyle teams. I had to make a living and was also a little burned out from years and years of traveling every weekend, so I got into Speedway Motorcycles after seeing them on TV in England, and raced the SoCal Circuit for about 4 years. In 1996, I started racing Midget Dirt cars in NorCal and ran them for about eight years…along the way I won a few championships in that sport.
In 1997 I got a call from the ABA telling me I’d been inducted into the BMX Hall of Fame. It was a true honor. Then, a couple of years ago I was contacted by the midget car racing organization, BCRA, with news I was inducted into the BCRA Midget Racing Hall of Fame. That was awesome…being a hall of famer in two racing sports.
Back in the 70’s and 80’s I helped with the development of a lot of early BMX product. On Robinson I designed the bars to be narrow at the base for knee clearance. Way back in time I made the suggestion to Bill Walters Leathers to put Velcro on the pant legs to keep them from getting caught in the chain. That made Bill Walters race pants very successful.
I also was one of the riders that (Oakley founder) Jim Jannard would call in for suggestions and input when he had a new prototype. And I had a BMX company back in the 80’s called SCP. We made number plates, race pants, T-shirts and pad sets. I supplied race pants to a lot of teams back then including Mike Redman. We also exported a lot of product to France and England.
Today I own and operate CLARK BMX. We’re about 6 months into the operation of our website: www.clarkbmx.com. We had intended to launch in October 2010 but there were unexpected site production delays. We offer top brand name BMX supplies and we are putting together a house line of product under the CLARK BMX name.
What brought you back to BMX after so long out of the scene?
My brother Brett lives in Arizona. He called me and said my niece Cayla started racing BMX at the local track, (Chandler). They had been running for a few months and my brother decided to take Cayla to a few nationals. I went to see them down near Bakersfield and also here in NorCal. Being at the track and seeing how things have changed and how a lot is still the same I got to thinking… I really missed BMX and wanted to get involved again, but this time on the business side. When I had SCP, I was racing and running the company which for a Pro rider was a tough proposition.
Have you learned anything new about the sport since launching your mail order site, that you didn’t know before?
I’ve learned a ton since launching the BMX site. I have another business that manufactures high end aquariums: www.truvuaquariums.com (shameless plug) and have been doing business online since 2004. I know a lot about doing business online. On the BMX side of business there are a few things that are different.
The first thing I learned was that there are some companies that don’t want to sell to mail order sites. Many have stated they only want to sell through local stores and I get the impression they feel mail order doesn’t have the overhead etc… to complete fairly with the local retail stores. We’re in a 4000 sq ft. building with overhead, employees and expenses etc… the same as a “Retail” store. That one I don’t understand.
The other is that a lot of the vendors run out of inventory often. I think the economy may be causing them to do smaller production runs.
Another that caught me off guard was the change over from the 2011 lines to the 2012 lines… in July. I’m now in the process of updating our product offerings to the new 2012 lines.
On the customer / rider side, things are pretty much as I had imagined. I understand things from a rider stand point and see through their eyes as far as product needs: quality, price etc… Even though we are in a recession people are still buying what they need to go racing.
You have had some frame prototypes out on the track for a while now, when can we expect those to be available to the public?
I ran two frame protos and had them tested for 6 months of racing in Arizona. These days a lot of the different brand frames have the same geometry. The frame sizes are called “Expert” , “Pro” etc… but one brand is pretty much the same as the other. For the Clark BMX frames I made a couple of tweaks on some of the current steering angles and crank positions. Those changes actually made a difference in track times. I was thinking of improving corner speed when I made the changes. These days, with the riders clipped in, corner speed is very important. The corner speeds improved!
We plan on launching a small run of frames here at the end of 2012 just prior to Christmas. We actually have a waiting list of riders and stores who’ve seen and heard of the proto types.
Will your line be all-US-made, or will you be offering some US-made and some off-shore-made product?
The line will start as a US line. On the higher end of the frame market the customers want US product. It’s definitely more expensive to produce product here and that in turn makes the US frames more expensive than the imports. I see our race frames US made. In the future if the line takes off it makes total business sense to have an import line for the more casual weekend riders to have an affordable option for a Clark brand bike.
Will you be making frames only, or will there be other parts as well?
No we have a full line of product on the table. We’ve already made some CAD drawings of cranks, stems, bars, smaller parts like tensioners, seat clamps etc… I love the CAD programs, you can actually run stress tests on your designs in them. We’ve been shaving some metal off the product drawings to lighten them up and then we run a stress test to see what happens. On the cranks we’ve been trying to stiffen up the flex you get with aluminum cranks.
I have an old car racing buddy who owns a machine shop. He builds a lot of the race parts for many of the top car racing companies. He’ll be doing the Clark BMX machine work.
All this takes time, testing and money. The recession has set our time line back a bit but we are still moving forward on the Clark BMX product line.
What are the top two or three things you want BMX News readers to know about Clark BMX?
Well the first thing I’d like is for the readers to know we’re here and open for business.
When I got back involved with BMX I was really surprised to see how many new people were racing. A lot of the parents and riders have no idea of our background at Clark BMX. The guys who have stayed around BMX like Greg Hill, Toby Henderson, Bill Ryan of Supercross etc… , are aware of our racing background and they’ve also been very helpful to Clark BMX.
Probably the most important thing I’d like for everyone to know that it’s a real pleasure to be back involved with BMX. It’s something I really enjoy and know well. With the experience I received while I was away from BMX, in business, motorcycle and car racing I gained a lot of knowledge I wouldn’t have received had I not ventured outside BMX. With all that I’ve learned outside and what I know of BMX I look forward to coming up with products and ideas to help the riders improve their skill and results.
It’s been great doing this interview with BMX News, thank you very much for your interest in Clark BMX and please visit our site at www.clarkbmx.com
Above Photo: Scott in his Northern California Office with some Clark BMX crank prototypes on screen, and holding his never-been-built early-1980s signature Robinson frame
Here’s Scott in a Robinson ad celebrating his 1979 NBA Pro title. From the February 1980 issue of Bicycle Motocross Action Magazine.
