Martin Whiteley is a very busy man. His company 23 Degrees Sports has developed a reputation for representing some of the greatest riders and teams in the sport, and team Trek World Racing is his latest project. We caught up with him at the PMB world cup to ask him a few questions about the new team, and what is involved in running an outfit like this on the world cup circuit.

NSR: This is the first World Cup for team Trek World Racing and there has obviously been a lot going on behind the scenes to get the team to this point. For those that aren’t familiar with what goes into a racing team like this, fill us in on all the preparation that has got the team to this point. Starting from scratch all the way thorough to you being ready to race your first world cup.

MW: Always the first step is generating the revenue so that you can fund the program. So you got to get a good group of sponsors together that believe in the program, understand what you are trying to achieve, and happily invest in it. We are not a charity case, we are something that is a worthwhile investment. So you got to get that message out there, get you funding together, then go shopping for your riders and your staff and your equipment. And once you have done that you start working out your schedules for all your athletes and the difference with our team is that we obviously have a cross country schedule and a downhill schedule. Sometimes we together like this week and other times we are in different parts of the world at the same time. So you got to think about the infrastructure, how those things can independently operate and then work together as a unit. And the you start working on all the logistics of hotels, and clothing we manage more then 700 articles of clothing , and all sorts of stuff you are going to need when you are in a place like South Africa as opposed to another part of the world where you have your trucks and everything to support you.

NSR: Traditionally yourself and your company 23 Degrees have been a hugely successful operation. Everyone knows the success you had with Honda and how well that team did on the world cup. What would you attribute that success to, and do you have a formula you work to?

MW: That’s a really hard question you know and I should know the answer. My estimation is that we are extremely professional you know. We take care of the people that believe in us, whether that be the athletes that ask us to manage their careers, or the sponsors that want to invest in our programs. Contact lists, you know I’ve been involved in this sport since 1984 so I’ve been around a long time and know a lot of people. And once you have had your first success you can build on that end everything rolls along. We were pretty lucky in our very first year to win the world cup, so people suddenly said hey they do know how to run a team. So when that happens with a company like Honda you have a track record, and once you have a track record… The hardest thing is to get started, and getting started with Global was a really difficult project. But I think that’s it. Success builds success, and if you take care of everyone that is investing with you whether it’s emotionally or financially then you are going to be fine.

NSR: Building on that, these days everyone is talking about the global economy, the credit crunch, and things like that. Do you think it’s going to be a particularly hard year for teams this year based on that?

MW: No, it hasn’t seemed harder then any other year. Every year we see a couple of teams leave and a couple of new ones come. That’s exactly what has happened here, we have seen a few teams disappear and a few more come in. Now it is harder to get out of industry dollars. If you want to the car industry you are not going to get sponsorship. So you have to be a bit more resourceful, but the bike industry so far I think is doing fairly well. I mean people are looking to alternate forms of transport, and the bicycle provides a very economical form of transport to get around. So in that sense, and bike shops seem to be doing very well on repairs, so I think generally we are going to get through this quite well this year. I’m tired of all this doom and gloom, people talking about recession. You know, where are all the people lining up for one kilometer for bread? Its not the dark 20’s so I don’t see it. I still see people at Starbucks and I see people spending their income, and when you have 8.5% unemployment that still means you have 91.5% employed. And all those people have got salaries, and I think they were scared by a lot of the media talk. And eventually they were waiting for the storm that never came, and now they are starting to say bugger it, I’m going to enjoy my life.

NSR: Yea, and if you look at Trek specifically the new downhill bike the Session 88. That’s a brand new bike for them, they have put a lot of research into that bike, and a lot of money has gone into the development and such. Its not the type of development a company does if they are expecting sales to slump. Do you think it was just good timing that they were working on a new downhill bike for this year? When you guys came along…

MW: No look, I’ve been talking to them since the middle of 07. And you know we always knew that Honda was going to end, and that it had a life span. So you have to be smart and have a plan B ready. So a good friend of mine who runs the suspension centre facility for Trek, Jose Gonzales was keeping me updated on all the goings on. And then when I saw what they had developed, I thought wow you know, we can actually run a team competitively in both the disciplines with some amazing equipment. It was a little bit of good timing, but we have been keeping our ear to the ground, and it’s been almost two years since we started those talks. So this is not that new for me. Even though it’s our first race and it took a while to get here. Trek are very well insulated for a lot of this economic stuff and they are having a good year. They have actually sold 50% more than their predicted sales for the Session 88 already. So everything is well ahead of where they wanted to be, so it’s a great sponsor to have.

NSR: And once you had developed that relationship with them, choosing Leov and Neethling, was that a natural progression for you?

MW: Yea, I mean for me anyone can go and buy champions. That’s not terribly clever. What is clever is developing champions. And recognizing those who have the potential, and giving them the equipment in which to grow. So what I looked for were riders that were knocking on the podium door, but were suffering a little bit. Weather it be from poor support or equipment, and knowing that if we gave them that level of support and equipment that they would only go up. The danger you have in buying a champion is that he is a champion on another bike or another program. Because a champion can always go backwards, and what we wanted to do was find riders that we knew as soon as they threw a leg over the bike would begin moving forward. And I think you will see that in the results this season. Tracy has never looked more focussed in her life, and never ridden as fast. She has been missing having boys to train with which has been great for Rachel Atherton as she has her brothers. So now Tracy has a couple of brothers on her team to help her. And the two boys you know, they are both pushing each other up and that’s what you want. And in cross country it’s exactly the same. They guys that are there have amazing potential, and just needed to have the level of support that they may not have had elsewhere.

NSR: With regards to the team… In a sport like this results mean a lot. But at the end of the day all of these teams here are basically a form of marketing, and they want to get exposure. How do you find a balance there with looking for results and getting exposure for the brands you represent.

MW: Well results are a form of marketing, there is no question. But if we were just to focus on that it would be quite an empty tune. You know a melody is made up of many things, or an orchestra has many instruments. So for us I think we are selling the message here really well (gestures towards all that is going on in the Trek World racing pits). People understand what the brand is. If they went to our launch or visited our web site and watched the video we have there already. This is the first time I have had in house videography. And the idea is to get the message out that this is a pretty cool sport weather its cross country or downhill, and have the kids look up to that. Every single one of these riders can tell you when they were first impressed buy the sport and what it was that impressed them. It wasn’t a bike shop, it was seeing a rider, or seeing Eurosport, or seeing something. Even Greg tells me that when he was a kid watching Nico Vouilloz on Eurosport down here in South Africa got him thinking that one day I can do that. And that’s what we want to do. We know the Youtube generation is much more interested in downloading videos then reading press releases, so we are going to do it all through video release. You know we will still do press releases for the traditional guys, but that’s for them. And that’s the marketing aspect, but if you not having results there is always a story to tell. This amazing life on the road we have is pretty attractive to a lot of people. If you get under the skin of that and show people what we do. But I know we will have results to talk about so those things will work in harmony.

NSR: Going along with the video aspect, you have been involved with Clay Porters movies. Both the previous one F1RST, and now the current one “The Tipping Point”. How did that relationship come about?

MW: Um… He was pestering me, and I didn’t really want to do it to be honest. I don’t think of myself as a film producer. But what I do have you know is that all of these riders have a god given talent as bicycle riders. My thing is organization and that’s essentially what a producer does. Clay is an artist and he is not the most organized guy so put us together and it kind of worked. So its taking care of his planning, his world premieres, his ticketing, and sponsors and stuff so he can just get on with making a movie. And when I saw Between the Tape I just though wow, this is a video I could show my mother or someone and say that’s what I do for a job. And they would get it. It wasn’t just action with rock n roll music, it actually told a story. And I though I could really work with this guy. He has a really good story to tell, and has a really good story telling ability. He is obviously growing as a cinematographer and so it’s been great. I think Ill just do these two movies, I think I’ve learned as much as I can, and I think I’ve put him on the right path and he will do the next one without me and that’s fine because I’ve just got too much to do. But I really enjoyed the whole process and I will continue to be his mentor and help him with anything he is not sure about. As a resource he comes to me on all sorts of stuff like how many world championships has Steve Peat done, and what medals has he won, and I have all that data and that sort of helps him, you know, put his fact together. So yea, Ill continue to do that for him because I love his work

NSR: Alright, that’s pretty much it. Thanks for your time, and all the best with the team for the rest of the year.

MW: I’m looking forward to it.

For more info on the Trek World Racing team check out their official site HERE.

Tags: Andrew Neethling, Justin Leov, Martin Whiteley, Pietermartizburg World Cup, Trek World Racing

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 12th, 2009 at 9:23 am and is filed under All Mountain / XC, Downhill, Interviews, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.