Catching Up with ... Bryan Hudgin

Apr 29 2010 - 1:29pm - Steve Matthes

Yamaha Canada released a new contingency program this week. Titled "Yamabucks for You," the program ensures everyone who owns a Yamaha sportbike, dirt bike or ATV is eligible to reap some rewards. It's more of a customer appreciation program than anything and sounds pretty cool. We have the PR, but wanted a little more insight into the deal. We also wanted to know how things are shaping up with Yamaha's powerful national MX team, so we called up the magic man behind Yamaha's PR and racing, Bryan Hudgin. "Huggy Bear" as he's called by some, was a racer himself but now he's focused on taking others to the top. He enjoys Trailer Park Boys, The Leafs and chicken fingers. I think I like him already.

DMX: Bryan, what is your job title at Yamaha and what is it exactly that you do?

Bryan Hudgin: I am the PR specialist for Yamaha, the three main functions of my job are public relations, advertising and racing. That encompasses all of our products, not just the racing end of things. I like it, it’s a lot of fun.

Let me ask you this, we’ve gone through some tough times as an industry as a whole so I’m wondering how you see the state of the industry nowadays?

Well it’s spring in Canada and this is the biggest selling season of the year for us. We’re moving units, things are gaining traction and we’re looking forward. We’re not where we all want to be and I think you can tell that by the number of manufactures that are offering sales programs. The dollars a tough issue for us right now with the way it is and we’re trying to offer rebates to try and help people out. It’s tough when 80% of the population lives within two hours of the border so it’s tough but we’re doing all we can to make sure people continue to support the Canadian dealers.

From left to right: Danny Brault, Bryan Hudgins and Kyle Beaton.

I think what people don’t realize is that sales in Canada affect the racing in Canada and the support dished out to race teams and riders are affected by sales right?

Yeah, exactly. We need to have healthy sales to have a healthy motocross series, that’s one of the things that opened my eyes up as a guy that used to race and I think Dannys (Brault) now in the same situation. You start to see things holistically and from a business standpoint, not just that you have your new YZF and that it costs so much to go do anything and why isn’t Yamaha helping out more? We try to help people out as much as we can but when you start to see things from our viewpoint, you begin to realize all the obstacles we face. Whether it’s the exchange rate with the US or even the Yen, you begin to realize that you’re only helping yourself when you buy from a Canadian dealer.

Can you talk a little more about the “Yamabucks for You” program?

That’s something that I’m happy to talk about especially as a former racer myself. And now that I’m here at Yamaha Canada and know that it does cost a lot of money to go racing at any level. So this is something that we’re happy to do for people and not make it so performance based, it’s not like if you don’t make a podium you’re not representing Yamaha properly. So this is something that if you’re on the blue team, we’re looking after you. It’s not a ton or anything like that but if you’re racing those big races anyways and you finish in ninth but you’re the third Yamaha-we’ll give you $25 in Yamabucks to spend at your dealer. I know it’s not a lot but there are a lot of people riding Yamaha’s all across the country and this is as much as we could do with the budget that was given to us.

How are the two-stroke sales going? Yamaha is definitely dedicated to those.

Well, Peter Swanton here probably wishes they were better (laughs). He’s a die-hard two-stroke guy, but yeah we’re selling them and we’re behind them. There are a lot of guys out there that love them and want to race them and I understand why. They’re a great bike. If you want to go race Gopher Dunes, then they may not be the best thing out there but anywhere else, they work awesome. Our woods racing guys choose to ride them, they work better in the woods because of the way the power is and how light they are. They’re going to all be on two-strokes this year.

Bryan in front of the camera at last years 2010 YZF250 intro.

With Yamaha supporting the Blackfoot Yamaha team, your job as a PR guy is easy but you have to have a little more excitement this year as they finally have an all-Canadian team right?

For sure, that’s something that we’ve asked them for in the past but it’s hard to do that for sure. You need talented riders because the end goal of racing is to win but if you can do it with all Canadians, then that’s even better. But this year, we’re really pumped for 2010. That team is great to work with as far as we are concerned, they are always prepared and have everything planned out ahead months and months before the season starts. So for us, they are a turn-key operation and we give them the bikes and whatever it is that they need and they run some things by me here and there and we usually give them the go-ahead. They always make Yamaha look good and they are a great team.

How’s our little Danny Brault doing there at the big company?

He’s doing alright; he’s been going down to the gym to work out. He starts whining a lot after that though. He’s still pretty gullible, I like to have fun with that. You can take the boy out of Durno but you can’t take the Durno out of the boy.