Gary Whittington to Lead Refreshed Crupi Team
Crupi throttled-back their team effort a little for 2014. We say “a little,” since they still had hotshoes Nick Koehler, Colin Whittington and Anna Johnson rippin up the racing landscape– but the team wasn’t the dozen-deep, team sheet wrecking-machine it was in previous years.
One of the other team news tidbits to come out of Hall of Fame Weekend was that Gary Whittington (Colin’s Dad) would take up the role of Factory Team manager for 2015, and would begin rebuilding the squad to full strength.
Gary told News:
When recently speaking with the Crupi owner, Greg Swingrover, he laid out his thoughts on which direction he felt our brand should go. We discussed several topics such as potential riders and their ability to help support the brand, while also being at the top peak of their peer group. The tough decisions for an Owner or Team Manager is to decide whether to put a lot of the budget on a top Pro that has a great shot of Olympic glory or to focus on a different level of rider, such as a top Amateur that can support the product with top of the podium finishes, while traveling the USA BMX National circuit. We talked about the 2011 National Championship Factory Team award that Crupi won and how much FUN we had that year with all of the amazing riders and families all under one (ok several) team tents. That is the magic we envisioned for the future Factory Team.
I know that the type of success that was put together for the 2011 Championship team didn’t come overnight. It came with the recruitment of several very talented riders over a few years, but the chemistry was truly something special. That is the future I see for the 2015 team. We plan on adding two or three new riders who are already leaders in their respective classes. We will continue building success each year, possibly adding more riders the following year to eventually roster the same level of powerhouses that we once had. Let the rebuild begin!
We are stoked for Greg and Gary on getting the Crupi track battle machine cranked up to full-boost again. We will have more on those pickups Gary mentioned, as soon as info becomes available.
