Motocross: Track builder knows motorcyles, bulldozers
Shane Schaefer was still a little boy when he learned not to fear the biggest earth-moving machines that a man could drive. Then he learned to drive them, before he even got a drivers' license.
"I beat down that fear at a very young age," he recalled. "My dad would put me in his lap while he was driving a bulldozer, and he'd take me down hills so steep that you didn't think it was possible."
Schaefer was still a teenager when he came to appreciate what heavy equipment is capable of doing, in the hands of someone who knows how to operate it.
Decades later, the 38-year-old Wisconsin man has carved out a unique business niche with his expertise in creating professional motocross tracks from landscapes around the world.
"There's no more satisfying feeling than to look at what was once a flat field and now is a perfectly manicured track," he said. "An office job just wouldn't give me that same feeling of accomplishment."
Schaefer, whose company Schaefer Tracks is based in Racine, Wis., is back at Spring Creek MX Park near Millville this week, where he has been the track builder for the pro races for nearly a decade.
Schaefer and two of his crew, Joey Kwak and Brent Mason, will be on bulldozers shaping the track from the early morning hours Saturday until the last race late in the afternoon. In the end, much of their hard work will be undone.
"You put all those dirt bikes on it that will blow it apart and it seems like there's no respect for what we just did," he said with a laugh. "But it's also rewarding to know that the track did it's job."
Early driver
Schaefer learned how to drive farm tractors at an early age while growing up on his family's 8,000-acre farm in southwest Wisconsin.
"I was self-taught," he explained. "When you're raised on a farm, if you don't know how to do everything, you learn it."
Schaefer's parents both also had careers with Case IH, a global leader in agricultural and farm equipment, and that exposed him to other machinery.
"I was 8 or 10 years old when I got the chance to drive some of the biggest pieces of equipment that Case builds," he recalled. "My dad would take me to the Case proving grounds in Arizona and he'd put me in the cabs of these machines, from wheel loaders to dozers, and I'd turn the key and just start operating it."
That experience was the foundation that Schaefer built his career on. After he graduated from high school in 1996, he signed on as a single operator with the pro Arenacross and he traveled to all 17 races in the series.
Schaefer freelanced as a track builder while he attended the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a BA in business administration/marketing, and shortly after graduating he started his business in 2002.
His long list of clients are from all over the world, including private tracks for pro riders, and prestigious events such as the X Games, which his company has worked the last eight years.
Most recently, Schaefer built a private track at Spring Creek for Alex and Jeremy Martin to practice on when they are home.
"Spring Creek is the top facility in America," he said. "To be honest it is the best dirt, as a builder for shaping, or for a rider racing on it."
Former racer
Schaefer became familiar with motocross tracks as an amateur racer. He won a couple of class championships in Wisconsin and Illinois, and he toyed with the idea of turning pro.
"It didn't pay the bills, and a couple of injuries made me phase out from racing," he explained. He found that driving a 200-pound motorcycle can be more dangerous that a 10-ton bulldozer.
Schaefer still has scars and hardware from a career-ending crash in a pro challenge race in Texas in 2003. He dragged himself from the course with ghastly injuries.
"I had a double-compound fracture of both bones in my left arm, so the bones were both sticking out of my skin," he revealed. "I also broke both collarbones and bit off part of my tongue.
"They sewed my tongue back on, and I still have 27 screws in my arm, holding it all together."
Schaeffer's business takes him away from home about 300 days each year, and he has literally traveled around the world. He intends to keep the business that he loves, but he will cut down on the travel beginning next year.
Shane and wife Brittany have a 3-month-old son, Austin James, and Shane intends to be home more to show him how to ride a bike – or a bulldozer.
"I'll have him in the cab with me when he's eight or nine months," he assured. "I'll help him to do whatever he wants to do."