Ted McDermitt, Crew Chief
Ted’s home is Breckinridge, Michigan, which he lovingly labels “Breckintucky”. As a bit of background, Ted’s a fully self-taught genius in all aspects of dirt track motorcycle building. He does it all in his Breckinridge shop, save the specialty work such as crank building, and head work which is done by local expert Mike Stauffer. Renowned fast bits builder Ron Hamp is a short 10 minute drive away supporting the idea of a “Michigan Mafia” of dirt track talent and Ted gets his hands on Ron’s machine shop for special fabrication needs. And right down the road a bit, Brian Bigelow offers dyno testing services.
Ted’s role at Zanotti Racing changes with the seasons. In the winter, he’s deeply immersed in engine research and development. Then during the race season, Ted’s mechanical role moves to maintaining the fleet of race bikes as the team runs the circuit. Ted’s partner Lesha and he are also responsible for the logistics and long hours of transporting the bikes and support gear to and from every track. Arriving at the track, they do all the setup so when Dave and Jake arrive they are turnkey ready to go.
After the race weekend, they have the arduous and thankless project of loading and transporting everything back to Breckintucky. Once home, the bikes, gear and hauler are cleaned and maintenance actions begin. In a typical week, Ted spends 25 – 30 hours prepping the bikes for the next event. The bikes are inspected, fluids changed and clutches disassembled and checked out. If the previous race was a half mile, the heads are pulled, valve assembly inspected and new springs installed. Every second to third race the motor itself is entirely disassembled and the crankshaft inspected.
As Ted also runs his own tile installation business, the bike work goes late into the night after the “day job” ends. Ted also employs his son Cory to help with the maintenance activities. On Thursday nights it’s a family effort as Ted, Lesha, Dakota and Cory load the hauler with fresh bikes, spares and supplies once again.
The Zanotti Racing stable of Harley XR-750’s consist of two bikes set up for mile races, two more set up for ½ mile use, a bike set up for cushion tracks plus a spare backup bike, just because you never know when you’ll need it. Lastly, there is another XR in the wings awaiting a total rebuild this year.
Ted is an admitted obsessive fiend about engine development work, much to the detriment of his sleepin hours. His approach favors reliability and tractability versus some builders who build right to the edge (and many times beyond) of failure. Much of his work is applying new technologies to the ancient XR motor. As a testament to his craft, Ted has never had a race failure on any of his XR motors. And you can’t win a race unless you finish it.
It’s not only a singular passion but also a family affair. Ted’s soon Cory is responsible for creating the Zanotti logo and paint schemes. Leisha is the family’s secretary and scheduler and she also provides marketing support via reports to the team’s sponsors and supporters. Cory, Ted and Leisha provide the blood, sweat and tears to make sure that Zanotti Racing has a perfectly set up and tuned race bike each and every race weekend. A rider couldn’t have it better.
Steven Scott, Head Fabricator
With the inquisitive eyes of a youngster, Steven learned to love motorcycles and all things technical while watching his dad Rich, a professional mechanic working with GNC dirt track rider Frank Gillespie in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Steven was an avid young student and soon began learning the craft very early on.
Two weeks out of high school in Washington, he loaded his VW rabbit with guitar, amp, $1,000 and headed to the San Francisco Bay Area. He got a summer job at a local biotech firm as a gopher but quickly progressed into doing machinist work.
Back then, he was riding a Honda XR600 equipped with a dual sport kit. He started racing enduros in 1994 at 19 years of age. He would ride the bike to each event, shipping the knobbies ahead of time to the nearest motorcycle dealer. When he’d arrive, he’d swap tires and run the event. Afterwards he would swap back to the street tires and then ride home that same night. He rode that same XR to Canada on four separate trips, once two-up with a girlfriend. This gritty determination would serve him well as he’s spent thousands of hours developing his significant fabrication skills.
In 2002 Jimmy Filice approached Steven to ask his support as Jimmy contested the AMA 600cc Supersport class. It was there that Steven learned the importance of a well-financed, fully-supported race campaign or the lack thereof.
Later that year, Steven returned to his racing roots but this time moving from Enduro into dirt tracking. Steven took well to the sport, ably mentored by West Coast racing lion, Bud Riddle. Steven took particularly well to the big tracks on Bud’s big Yamaha 750 Virago.
In the day-to-day work world, he also now turned to motorcycles, landing a job at A&A Racing performing fabrication and design duties. That job was a stepping stone to Steven’s present job as head of product design at Motion Pro. Open up a Motion Pro catalog today and the majority of new products are Steven’s creations.
In addition to his day job, Steven builds custom motorcycle frames in the evenings. Specializing in Honda CRF450’s, one of Steven’s frames made the main event at the Cow Palace GNC national under pilot Chris Hart. Additionally, he’s replicated the Dick Mann Ossa, built 10 sweet Yamaha TT500 frames and a crazy 305 Super Hawk dirt tracker.
Steven was introduced to Dave and Zanotti Racing via an introduction from Riddle at the Annual San Jose Indoor race. At the time, Dave was in need of a welder and Steven fit the need in spades. The relationship flourished quickly as Steven’s prodigious talents were put to use and now Steven is the team’s master fabricator and welder. Steve and Dave both subscribe to the “A race bike’s never done” theory. Today Steve works every weeknight up to his elbows in the bike development program. In addition to his fabrication and development work, Steven’s also responsible for maintenance of the Zanotti stable of Honda CRF450's.
Colleen Zanotti, Logistics Manager
Dave builds bikes and often times spends an obscene amount of development time in his shop. Ted devotes endless hours to building and maintenance and long hours on the road and fabricates until all hours of the night. But the person that pulls it all together is Dave's efficient wife-in-crime, Colleen Zanotti. Colleen is in charge of all the logistics of running a nationwide race campaign. Equally as important she assumes control of our construction business during Dave's absences. Although the phrase is often thrown around quite loosely, the team would not be possible without Colleen. And look at that sweet little girl, their daughter Francesca....She keeps them all grounded.
She got into racing as a little girl, attending Black Hills Speedway watching her grandfather's late model team into the early hours of the morning. She's raced go karts and she's a NASCAR nut.
nowdays, flat track is a major part of her life. Her enthusiasm and considerable talents behind the lens makes her an integral part of the team. Talk sweet to her and she'll shoot your rider in action too!
Racing runs through the veins of our whole family. Our son Shawn is a talented dwarf car driver. This year, Shawn won the the Bay Area Dwarf Car Association Championship and Petaluma Speedway Championship.