By Jim Kimball

Mike Craig didn’t want his son Christian to become a professional motocross racer.

MIKE, I UNDERSTAND THAT IT WAS YOUR DAD WHO GOT YOU INTO MOTORCYCLES.

Yes, my dad was in the military and always had motorcycles. We would go to the desert once a month to ride. All his friends would tell me, “You need to race motorcycles.”

My dad started talking about it, and we showed up at a track called Speedway 117 down in San Diego. I saw guys like Rick Johnson there. I started getting Motocross Action and MiniCycle Action!

I REMEMBER MINICYCLE ACTION.

I would open that magazine, and I wanted to be there. I wanted to do that, from my first race in 1980 at South Bay. Even though I crashed a bunch that night, that is where I wanted to be. I wanted to be another Johnny O’Mara or Rick Johnson. We had no money, but we had a place that we could ride at. Marty Smith used to ride out there. I would look for him but never saw him—he was too fast! All the things I dreamed about eventually happened.

HOW OLD WERE YOU THEN?

I was 10 when I went to my first race, and my dad signed me up in the 80cc class. He took me to the gate, and Ron Lechien and a couple other fast kids were on the line next to me. I knew nothing and was a full beginner. That night I got knocked out twice from crashing. It turned out that they put me in the 80cc Expert class when I should have been in the 80 Beginner class. I did not know that there were different levels.

HOW DID YOU FEEL AFTER THAT RACE?

When we got home, I told my dad, “I don’t know if I want to do this.” Getting knocked out and waking up in an ambulance twice in one night was tough. But then someone told us about this race coming up at Barona Oaks.

I said, “I don’t know, Dad. I don’t want to crash no more.”

He said, “Let’s go try this next race.” We unloaded my bike, and my dad signed me up in the 80 Beginner class. This was my second race. I pulled the holeshot, and I lapped up to second place. Now I was in the right class. I got a trophy and went home without getting knocked out. I told my dad, “I love this!”

WHAT GOT YOU HOOKED?

When I opened Motocross Action Magazine, I saw all these people that I wanted to be like. That was my dream. I would ride my bicycle all around the military housing, and I would act like I was on a dirt bike. I thought, “This is what I want to do,” not realizing that I would eventually become friends with all those guys in the magazine. I started as an 80 Beginner and kept on advancing. I became an intermediate within six races. As I got better, they put me in the classes where I belonged.

Mike (15) at Daytona leading Mike LaRocco (5).
Mike liked his time at Honda of Troy because Erik Kehoe was the team manager.

EVERYTHING WAS CLICKING.
My dad loved it. We went to Barona every other weekend, and I kept advancing and doing better. My dad then started working at Barona in his spare time away from the military. He helped build a starting gate and did things that made Barona big.

WHEN DID YOU START GOING TO THE BIG AMATEUR NATIONAL RACES?
In 1982, I went to the World Mini Grand Prix at Saddleback Park. My dad was making a big deal over it. We had a tent and stayed in that. After seeing pictures of Banzai Hill and the Magoo Double, I was overwhelmed to be racing there. We had 40 kids on the gate, and I thought, “This is going to be crazy.”I did okay, but I did not win. They gave me a trophy for finishing in the top 10, and I took the last trophy spot. Taking that home, I thought, “Game on. I am all in.”We had no money, just an old pick-up truck and one bike, but when we got home, I asked, “When is the next race, Dad?”

We would show up to practice at the local tracks, and Lechien and all the fast kids were selling takeoff tires from their bikes. They would do one race with new tires and take them off after every race. I would buy all those tires for $10.00 a tire. I could afford that.

Yamaha gave us a couple of bikes at a discount, and I started racing the World Minis. I started winning in the Expert class and was rarin’ to go pro. Then I did a couple of races at Carlsbad against Ricky Johnson and Micky Dymond. I beat those guys in a couple of the races. Yamaha was suddenly behind me. They gave me five new bikes, and Pro Circuit hopped them up. Eventually, I finished fourth at the 1987 Anaheim Supercross. I did not really have a factory deal until 1989.

WHAT KIND OF SUPPORT DID YOU GET IN 1989?

In 1989, I was getting factory support, racing 125 West Supercross, and things were awesome. When you have a satellite deal, you have bikes, parts—and all of that was free—but my dad and I had to drive the van to all the races. The money you won was the money you spent to get to the races. My fourth place at Anaheim was the money that got us to the next race.

WHAT WERE YOU EARNING?

Fourth at Anaheim paid around $1200. Back at school, I was able to buy everybody pizza. I had just enough money to keep the flow going. The better I did, the more money I got.

YOU EARNED A FACTORY YAMAHA RIDE IN 1998 FOR THE 125 WEST SUPERCROSS AND EVEN RACED A COUPLE OF 250 ROUNDS ON THE EAST COAST.

I rode the Pontiac Supercross on a 250. I did a couple of those to get my feet wet. I made the main, and that paid for our trip. I did not do that great, but I qualified for the main. When Supercross ended in September, there were races in Europe, Japan and Australia. I had a manager that would send me to all these different races. The promoters gave me $2000 to $5000 to show up and gave me a new bike to race. I would bring a gun case with my suspension in it, and they would put it on the bike. I would come home with $5000 to $10,000 every week. Then, once I started winning, they would invite me back for the next year and pay me more start money.

WHY DID YOU SWITCH TO KAWASAKI FOR 1990?

Late in 1989, I went to Sweden to do the Gothenberg Supercross. It started raining, and they used big old containers to make jumps. I hit a container. It threw me upside down, and I broke my neck. They took me to a hospital and put a halo on me. I broke two vertebrae in my neck and got sent home. Everybody I would see on the airplane would be like, “What the heck?” I had a big halo around my whole head.

LET’S HEAR MORE

Sitting at home, I start thinking about Anaheim 1, so I called Yamaha to see where my bikes were. I called and got no answer. Finally, they called back and said, “We are not going to be able to do anything. You are injured.” When they said that, I called Kawasaki and told them, “Yamaha is not going to do anything. Can you give me a bike-and-parts deal?”

They said, “Yes, we’ll give you bikes for Supercross, but we need you to race Ultracross too.” I got my bikes, went to Pro Circuit and told Mitch, “I need a good bike for Anaheim 1.” This was a month before the race. He built me an engine and took me out to the Kawasaki test track to test the engine and my fitness. I was riding well. We went to Anaheim 1, and I won the 125 West class!

GOOD FOR YOU! THAT MUST HAVE BEEN EMOTIONAL.

You must remember that in motocross, you are only as good as your last race. Sitting there with a broken neck, companies don’t really want to mess with you.

It was perfect timing. The announcer said that my dad, Les Craig, was my mechanic. It was probably the biggest moment ever for my dad and me. On the final lap, I looked over at the Yamaha guys and pointed at them as if to say, “I told you!
YOUR DAD WAS REALLY INFLUENTIAL IN YOUR RACING CAREER, WASN’T HE?

Yes, he passed away last year. He was everything to me. He made it all happen and loved it. We became friends with all the guys in the pits. I brought Bob Hannah over to my mom’s house and said to my mom and brother, “This is Bob Hannah, right here.” All he wanted was sweet tea. My mom made sweet tea, and Bob drank all of it.

CAN YOU TELL EVERYONE WHAT ULTRACROSS WAS?

I won the Mickey Thompson Ultracross Championship in 1990 and 1991. It was a hybrid motocross and truck race in a stadium. It was weird, because the trucks would run the track backwards on the Ultracross track, while the bikes did it the normal way. Winning it two years in a row kept Kawasaki happy. Later, I started doing pretty well on the 250 in Supercross. Then I signed a deal with Factory Kawasaki for 1993. This gave me a chance to show what I could do. In 1993, I got the full Kawasaki deal, and it was amazing. My teammates were Mike Kiedrowski and Mike LaRocco.

IF KAWASAKI WAS GOOD, WHY DID YOU RETURN TO YAMAHA FOR 1994?They needed someone to replace Damon Bradshaw, and when they looked down the results charts, they saw my name, so I got the phone call. I was in Europe when they called me.

I was with Yamaha for maybe six months before my mechanic and I had a blow-up. Previously, he was Bob Hannah’s mechanic, so he won a lot of races. I didn’t immediately win, and he was always asking me, “What’s going on?” But that was as good as I could do. I was not going to win every race. He and I did not get along.

Mike Craig (19) won the 1994 Tampa Supercross in front of Mike Kiedrowski, Mike Larocco, Brian Swink and Jeremy McGrath.

YET YOU STILL WON THE TAMPA SUPERCROSS.

Yes, the 250 class was stacked that year with Jeff Stanton, Jeremy McGrath, Ryan Hughes, Doug Henry and Jeff Emig. I almost won a couple of them but ended up crashing. In hindsight, I would have liked to have won more! But, to have one Supercross win is a big thing. A lot of people go their whole career and never get one.

HOW DID YOUR YAMAHA RELATIONSHIP END?

Yamaha was good. Keith McCarty offered me a great deal. But, like I mentioned, I had problems with my mechanic. He had worked with many great riders, but after about five races he said that I owed him $2500. He kept asking me for money. Yamaha paid him $100,000 a year! I only got $36,000 a year, and he was asking me for money! I would show up at the track, and he would ask, “Have you got my check?
WHAT CAME NEXT?
I made up an excuse and said that I tripped on my boots in my Daytona hotel room. That never happened. I called Yamaha and said, “I hurt my knee tripping on my boot,” and I went to the hospital. I faked it all because I did not want to go back and hear the same stuff from my mechanic. I should have called Yamaha and told them, because I talked to Yamaha afterwards and they said, “Why didn’t you come to us and tell us that? He was not supposed to ask you for money.”

YOUR TIME AT YAMAHA WAS SHORT-LIVED, AND YOU PARTED WAYS MID-YEAR IN 1994.
I went home, and when Yamaha called me, I got out of my contract. I had my family, and I was trying to make money and make a life for them. I should have told Yamaha about my mechanic. I should have been more mature about it and told the Yamaha guys what was really going on. Yamaha has great people there.

WHAT DREW YOU TO HONDA OF TROY NEXT?
Factory Yamaha had been amazing. There was probably nothing better. Kawasaki was full of amazing people with a good product, but going to Honda was different, as Eric Kehoe was the team manager and a friend of mine. Eric knew the speed I had and knew what I could do. He just wanted to see me do it! I was top five at every race and was almost on the podium. I was with Honda of Troy from 1994 to 1999.

YOU HAD A BIG INJURY NEAR THE END, DIDN’T YOU?
Yes, in 1998 at Budd’s Creek. I went down in the first turn. Ezra Lusk and I crashed together. My front wheel got caught up in his footpeg and broke a couple of spokes. I wanted to get to the front, so I remember jumping as far as I could.

When I landed, the front wheel folded over the bars and snapped my femur. I remember lying there with my boot sitting next to my helmet. I had to pick my leg up off my helmet and lay my leg straight. I went to the hospital, and they rodded me. I went home, rehabbed and never got better.

Yamaha hired Mike to race the 125 class, but when Damon Bradshaw got injured, they moved him to the 250 class in 1994.

DIDN’T YOU RIDE FOR PLANET HONDA IN 1999?

My leg never got better, so in 1999, I went to Planet Honda, a Michigan-based dealership. The owner called me and offered me a deal, so I jumped to go there. My leg was not getting better, but I kept training. They had to put a new rod in my leg. Then, Pro Am, another Michigan dealer, asked me to race for them. Planet Honda was not paying me, so I went with whoever would pay me. I went to the 125 Nationals and had a couple of good motos. My speed was there, but my leg was getting worse, and they had to redo my leg. That was the end of my deal.

I TALKED TO YOU AT RED BUD IN 1999, AND YOU SEEMED LIKE A DIFFERENT GUY.

I was lost. I was at a place where I was trying to make money and things were not happening. I should not have come back until my leg was 100 percent. I could barely walk. My wife and I were splitting up. It was at a time when if you were winning, you could get any girl—whether you or she were married.

WHAT ELSE WAS GOING ON?

My son Christian wanted to race moto at 13 years old. I kept pushing it off a little bit. I did not want him to do moto because of the people that got hurt, people getting paralyzed and all the injuries. I didn’t want my kid to go through that.

BUT YOU CONTINUED RACING, RIGHT?

I did some races in 2000 and 2001, but was doing too much stuff off track. My results weren’t that great. I may have gotten a couple top-10 finishes. Then, I had a couple of friends who were opening a Suzuki shop.

It was called Escondido’s Cycle Center, and this guy named Ron Ketcham wanted me to come in to meet him. He was a super nice guy. They were building this new building, and they wanted me to build a Supercross team. I was like, “Yeah.” I started calling sponsors and telling everybody that I was going to have a Supercross team. We were going to have an 18-wheeler, and as I was building it, we had Hansen’s Energy Drink, now known as Monster Energy, come on board.

Scott Sepcovik started putting some sponsors together for me. Suzuki stepped up, and they gave me 22 bikes. I had four different riders. My life was kind of all over the place, but building this team and trying to make it helped me. It was called Team ECC.

YES, I REMEMBER TEAM ECC.

When we rolled into Anaheim 1, I had four riders: Turbo Reif, Josh Woods, Shay Bentley and Steve Lamson. Bentley and Lamson had won championships, so I had some talent on my team.

We gave them a bonus program. If they could win a championship, we would give them a million dollars. It sounds kind of gnarly, but the owner of the team, he was the one that did this deal and got Lloyd’s of London to insure that million dollars. Shay Bentley got a third at Daytona. For me to start a race team and get a couple of podiums the first year, I was doing good.

THAT SORT OF SOUNDS LIKE WARNING BELLS. WHAT HAPPENED?

When I built this team, I was doing great, and things were falling into place for me. In my spare time, I started going out, now that I was single again. I started partying a little bit, which turned into a lot, and two years later I lost my spot on the team. Instead of realizing what I had and what I built, I was out partying—and I started doing drugs.

CAN YOU THINK OF A REASON WHY YOU BEGAN USING DRUGS?

I want to tell you, but I don’t want it to blow up on me. I had a family and a beautiful life. I had a good life, and things were going well. I can tell you, but I don’t know how to word it.

IS THIS A SPIRAL-INTO-DARKNESS TALE?

Yes and no! I put my house on the market and got rid of it. That was when I started on meth. At no point during my whole life would I have thought that I would touch drugs. I started taking drugs to numb myself. My dad passed away a year ago, and he got to see me clean. That is the best part of my life. I had to get out of this whole stage and figure out why I ever did this in the first place. I had to be better than that. I want to be grandpa to my grandkids. I want all that back. Now, I am sitting here, and I have been clean for two years. I could tell you the reason I think I started doing drugs, but it was my own decision to go that direction. I don’t want anyone to feel that I’m blaming them.

Mike earned one premier Supercross win, but he sabotaged his career the next week.

HOW DID YOU BEGIN TO GET CLEAN?

I have always had God in my life. I did not like going to church, but I knew there was a God. Somebody told me that you must give yourself to God. One night, I sat there, and I just said, “I give up.” Whatever is going to happen, I want to be good again.

One thing about God is, he forgives, and Christian knows now that if he sees me and talks to me again, it is going to be good. He is not going to see his dad as a drugged-out loser.

IT’S GREAT TO SEE YOU HAPPY NOW AND COACHING MOTOCROSS KIDS.

It is incredible. I feel like I am better at this than racing. I never want to go backwards.