MINDEN, NV (Feb. 6)– Dirt Tricks is like many specialty shops and businesses that supply or build quality parts for racers. And the Minden based company’s forte is manufacturing top of the line, virtually indestructible sprockets for motorcycles.
A sprocket is a critical component that connects the chain to the wheel, as both are the driveline. And there is another smaller companion sprocket at the motor.
“The front sprocket can vary from 12 to 15 teeth on most dirt bikes and the rear sprocket, on the wheel, varies from 45 to 53 teeth,” said Greg Burns, who owns Dirt Tricks. “When you change those sprockets your motorcycle will travel at a different speed.”
While low gearing is needed for technical racing a higher range is needed for say riding on I-80 where you don’t want the motor doing 10,000 rpm at 60 miles an hour.
“So we give people a lot of gear selections and teeth,” he said.
Greg Burns holds two of the new VDP sprockets Dirt Tricks has developed for motocross racing. Behind him is a huge selection of sprockets designed for off road and endurance events.
Burns is a mechanical engineer and has lived in Nevada for about 30-years. His company, Burns Machinery Inc., in Minden designs and builds equipment for the forging industry.
When he was 12-years-old he began to race motocross but now, if he competes it’s on the desert. His sprocket, like many other inventions, was spurred by necessity.
While trying to improve his motorcycles he saw the need for an improved sprocket system, especially when the more powerful 450 four-strokes became so popular in the late 1990’s as these bikes would shred chains and sprockets faster than the 250 bikes could.
“They have a broad range so they make horsepower at very low rpm’s and make almost uncontrollable horsepower at high rpm’s,” he said.
In off road racing a rider is going from low to high rpms as well as making shifts for the varying terrains they are covering so the standard sprockets, made from the hardest Aluminum that can be found, didn’t last that long.
“So if you get six hours out of a tire, you’re probably going to be changing your rear sprocket maybe every tire or two tires,” he said. “So with my background in metal and machine design I knew of a much better material.”
And that is heat-treated chrome-molly, which has the hardness of a Snap-On wrench.
One local pro riders that both uses and sells Dirt Tricks sprockets is Dennis Belingheri, who is the 2014 overall points champion in MRANN.
“My prototypes were laser cut, we put it on bikes and did some early testing in 2001 and 2002. And we found it’s just about impossible to wear out so that was the beginning of Dirt Tricks,” he said.
At first however they called them, “Iron Man Sprockets,” but he couldn’t get that trademark around Marvel Comics so he lost that name. Then he stabilized on Dirt Tricks as the brand and company’s name.
Any time a new company is created there are challenges and Burns had a couple starting with the sprocket design.
“Coming up with a good clean design took two or three revisions to get it absolutely indestructible. So getting a bullet proof design took us about a year or two,” he said.
Will Coonrod (right) and Chris Maine move one plate to make room for the next set of sprockets to be laser cut.
And he’s proud to say that out of the 1,000 sprockets they see in a month there is virtually no warrantee work needed on the product.
His next challenge was marketing.
“Developing a brand and trade name that would be recognizable around the world has taken all of these years. We’re now in our 13th year and it’s taken about eight years to where our name is recognizable,” he said.
He explained that several years ago if a person went to an east coast off road event hardly anyone had heard of Dirt Tricks. Now everybody knows about the product.
The sprocket has mainly been used for off road and endurance events. That’s because most motocross races only last about eight minutes so it takes months to wear out a sprocket.
“The guys that really abuse their bikes and go through sprockets are the desert racers and the enduro racers. In fact the professional Enduro Cross you see on TV, probably 80% of those bikes have our product on them,” he said.
Every sprocket starts as a 5 by 10 foot sheet of hardened steel weighing about 500 pounds. After the sprockets are laser cut they next go through a Blanchard grinding process that precisely flattens the product.
Noel Dieterich checks the control panel of the Mazak Laser cutter before starting to make new sprockets.
Then boltholes are drilled and the teeth ground so they have a slight bevel to them to engage the chain better. After a deburring process they go out for plating.
The Mazak Laser cutting machine in action. Due to the type of light it can only be observed through specially tinted glass. Here most of the tint has been removed from the image.
A couple of weeks later they return, are given serial numbers, dated for manufacturer, packaged and are ready for distribution.
This is a remnant of a plate that sprockets are cut from. A full size 5 by 10 plate of harden steel is good for 50 sprockets.
Both Burns Machinery, with about 12 employees, and Dirt Tricks operate in the same building and work together although the Tricks staff of three usually handles the packaging, shipping and order taking.
With regards to marketing Burns has a different take on that and the effort needed to gain international markets. This comes from a previous business where he learned a company isn’t able to advertise its way to success.
Another local rider using Dirt Tricks sprockets is 2014 MRANN points champion Steve Tichenor shown here at the season ending event in November.
“I was determined when I started Dirt Tricks that we would do it by word-of-mouth so I put it on bikes of good pro riders locally and let it build its own momentum,” he said. “We let it do that with not a lot of marketing, just word-of-mouth, going to races, getting the product on pro bikes and onto amateur bikes at a discounted price for good riders. We still do that but it took eight years to get over the hump to where we have a good viable product and now its being sold around the globe.”
His international effort is primarily through local distributors that speak the local language and know the sport in their area. And he depends on those to develop new distributors as currently these people account for about one fourth of their total sales.
In fact one of this best distributors is in Australia where the market is very good.
“The rest of the world, when it comes to off-road racing is probably many times bigger than the U.S. market. So ultimately the overseas sales could be bigger than our U.S. sales and we’re working on that,’ he said.
And of course the Internet plays a part in all of his efforts to market the product.
“So like any modern company our website is our public presence so we put a lot of energy into that,” he said. “We are making sure the product is very well represented, making sure the customer can get into it quickly, find the product they’re looking for quickly and helping them. It’s like coming into a store, if they can’t easily find what they’re looking for, they’re just going to turn around, walk out and find some other store that represents the product better.”
The result is that the Dirt Tricks website is edited on an almost daily basis, gets fresh graphics, fresh race content as well as videos of their pro riders and updates on sponsored riders.
Veteran Josh Wilson is another local desert racers that rides with Dirt Tricks sprockets on his bike.
When asked about the economic meltdown Burns explained the company really wasn’t hurt by it.
“We traditionally have grown about 25% a year but during the slowdown on 2009 all the way to 2012 instead of seeing 25% we might have seen 10%. So we were still growing, which was amazing,” he said.
Burns said the reason was that Dirt Tricks is an aftermarket component company. And that rather than buying a new bike many riders were putting money into maintaining the one they had.
“So I think that’s what sustained us and we continued to grow even through the tough years,” he said.
Now Burns is seeing a change in his traditional market and is turning his attention to the motocross world. In fact he has developed a new sprocket designed for that type of racing.
His reasoning is the shrinkage in the off road market, especially in California where riders are being forced to use fewer and fewer OHV (Off Highway Vehicle) areas. This is creating whooped and beat up areas to ride on.
“If you put 1,000 riders on an area of 1,000 acres it going to look like crap after 10-years,” he said.
Another factor working against off road racing are the restrictions placed by the BLM so even changing a course that’s been used is extremely expensive. The reason is a new environmental impact statement and the costs are around $1,000 for each mile added or changed for an existing course.
He feels the result will be shorter courses on private land and in five years desert racing as its known now might cease to exist.
“Therefore our market is shrinking and we’re actively pursuing marketing our product and developing a product, the new PVD, Physical Vapor Deposition, sprocket geared toward the motocross scene. Because it represents what can happen on private ground where there are fewer restrictions,” he said. “And in the California market many, many more times larger numbers of people that just race motocross rather than off road.”
So this new product is one that can be used for motocross, endurance and off road events. At the same time he’s also working to improve their share of the international market, which is very small.
“You can go to any professional event on the planet and you’ll find our product is well known yet we have a very small market share,” he said.
So the emphasis it to make sure the product is available to the consumers at the dealers. Currently, in many shops his product is a specialty item that has to be ordered at the counter.
“We want to change that mentality as we believe we’re losing a lot of market share because when people need a sprocket they don’t need it next week, they need it this week,” he said.
The company is now using its website to offer a “stocking dealer program,” option that will show the customer the closest dealer that has the sprockets in stock.
“And we believe we’re going to have a really big year and it started off with this new campaign. That hasn’t happened before so it’s very new for us but we believe it will improve our sales,” he said. “And we believe we’re going to have a really big year and it started off with this new campaign.”
So Dirt Tricks, a company founded on a need for a more durable component, has been steadily growing and now looks to expand its market share.
Asked about the future Burns said, “I’m very optimistic.”
For further information on Dirt Tricks sprockets and other items they offer, please go to their website at, www.dirttricks.com
