MTB News: A conversation with Carl Decker

By Fred Dreier
VeloNews associate editor
Filed: January 10, 2008
Few current professional mountain-bike racers can say they raced in the first-ever UCI world mountain-bike championships, held in Durango back in 1990. Carl Decker can. The now-32-year-old Oregonian lined up in the junior ranks that year.
Unfortunately, the brake cable on his Bridgestone bike snapped a few minutes before the gun, and Decker had to race on his dad's bike. In 2007, 17 years later, Decker again hit the worlds, this time as an elite. The cables on his Giant didn't snap, and Decker finished 69th.
In his nearly two decades as a bike racer, Decker says he's learned the value of enjoying pastimes off the bike. These days, "The Deckerator" as he is known, gets his kicks racing rally cars on the Rally America series. He's not too shabby of a driver, and has three victories in his class, and he has yet to augur in. VeloNews caught up with Decker to learn the finer points of rallying.
VeloNews: So how did you get into racing cars?
Carl Decker: I've been into the rally car thing since before I can remember. My dad used to teach cops how to chase after bad guys. He was a pursuit specialist and he drove around in Camaros and Mustangs at high speed for a living. I remember doing some ride-alongs with him as a kid - it was sweet. We always raced auto cross in parking lots, hammering around cones.
So I've always been into cars, and recently I've been foolish enough to start racing them. It's really expensive and I don't make that much money.
VN: How expensive are we talking about?
CD: Ha, the entry fee for a [National Mountain Bike Series] race is 60 bucks and people whine about it. You go to a rally race, and if you're pre registered then its $1100, and if you're late then its $1600. Tires cost you between $300-500 bucks, and if you're a big shot then you know you're going drop like $600 on rubber. You'd think it's a sport for doctors. But I have no idea what these dudes do, because they're kind of crusty people.
VN: What's your budget like?
CD: Ha - pretty small. Each weekend I can race for about $1500 with entry fees and tires and gas and burritos for my dad and Adam [Craig]. We all share one hotel room because I'm cheap. I spend a lot of time on eBay and in junkyards. My saying is "if it isn't used, it has no use to me."
I dropped about $4000 on the car. Since I'm a bike racer I'm a weight weenie by nature, so instead of spending money adding more power to it I'm more into cutting non-essential crap out of the car and throwing them away.
VN: And your car?
CD: It's a 1993 Subaru Impreza. We call it the "Wheels of Teal" because it's pretty junky... and teal.
VN: What kind of cross-over skills do you get from mountain-bike racing in rally car?
CD: Rally car racing is about connecting a series of blind corners in a full drift. If you're not drifting, then you're not going fast enough. You have to be totally committed, and it's super fun. It seems dangerous but after doing it for a while, I don't think it's too bad. It's not like [mountain-bike racing] where you're wearing nothing more than glorified underwear to do it.
I think since [co-driver] Adam and I race for a living we're pretty used to the routine. We know to get good sleep and we're used to getting up early and pacing ourselves. That's a big part - you don't want to be wadding it up too early because you're excited. I think all of us mountain-bike racers are good at risk assessment. We're able to keep it together, but just barely. In the car you're on the verge of crashing if you want to do well. I think that's why I do well. I might not be winning after the first stage or second, but by day two or three I'm winning because whoever was in front of me is on their way home with a wrecked car.
VN: So what kind of results are you getting?
CD: So far I've been first in every race of the Group 2 guys, which is two-wheel drive Open Class cars. It's a pretty wide-open group, you just can't have three liters of engine displacement. At the nationals they start fastest to slowest, and we start in the back because we're in a slow car. But by the second or third day we're rolling out behind these $100,000 cars and we're in a car that looks like an absolute heap, and that's pretty rewarding. People figure I'm driving this ugly car with four-wheel drive, and in reality it's an ugly car with only two-wheel drive.
It's fun. We're on the same course as guys with a couple million dollars in their budget and we're dealing with the same stuff, just at a slightly decreased speed. I can say I'm undefeated against [Travis] Pastrana. In the races he showed up to he crashed and had his engine blow up.
You can read more about Carl Decker's take on rally cars and bike racing in VeloNews Issue No. 2 which hits newsstands January 29. This interview and accompanying photos can be found at:
http://www.velonews.com/race/mtn/articles/13884.0.html