A Conversation with Racer and Powersports Entrepreneur Mark Queen of Queen Racing
- 9 oct 2017
Queen’s passion for making things go faster is the fruit of his competitive nature. The durability of his products and the quality of his builds reflect rigorous testing and an amazing attention to detail. K&N sat down with Queen to find out what makes him high-performance powersports royalty. K&N: How did you get started in racing and wrenching? Mark Queen: I got into racing as a child. I was 8 years old when I did my first snowmobile race and that is when the addiction took over. I have been racing ever since. I started off racing sleds in the wintertime and started racing motocross in the rest of the seasons. I started doing really well in both sports, getting wins and moving up into the semi-pro races and winning there also. Things were looking great, and I was getting some good support from sponsors, but I was extremely abusive on my equipment. It seemed I could break anything out there with my riding style, so I started working on my bikes and sleds every day after school at my family's body shop.
MQ: When I was 17, I had a severe accident. I crashed hard and broke my femur, back, and pelvis. I came out of surgery with zero feeling or movement from the waist down. It was a tough day not knowing how I would end up. Fortunately, after a few days, I started to get some feeling back and the rehab process started. One of my sponsors, Aquatrends, invited me to come and race one of their jet skis once I got back in race shape. So I took that chance and went to my first jet ski race. I got a bad start in the first moto, but came back from last all the way to second place. Now knowing how the start system worked, I was ready for moto 2. I got a 3rd place start and ended up lapping the 2nd place finisher. Needless to say, I was hooked. That year I went to the IJSBA World Finals and dominated, and again lapped 2nd place in the second moto. I left the Finals with a new factory Polaris sponsorship and new boats. K&N: So how did that morph into your involvement in UTV realm?
K&N: What are your current racing efforts? MQ: I took some years off from racing while starting my business and fatherhood. I am currently racing a Polaris RZR XP Turbo car in several race series. This season was a test season to try out several series to find what I want to try to compete in for a full championship series next year. If I can pull the funding and support together, I want to race the TORC series next year and win that championship. K&N: How has your involvement in racing impacted your powersports business? MQ: We sell parts that are race tested and win races. We specialize in working with race teams to help get their equipment up to race winning level, from the chassis setup to the engine tuning and clutching. The best part of racing myself is that I am usually testing something that if I prove it to work well, we can start to release it to customers. So when someone buys a Queen Racing product or tune, they know it works. K&N: Tell us a bit about your relationship K&N.
K&N: What are your goals and aspirations going forward? MQ: My future goals are to represent my sponsors to the best of my ability by giving them product feedback and development, and also in marketing. I fully plan to be a championship contender in either the Lucas Oil series or the TORC series next season! I also want to be able to add more championships to the Queen Racing team roster. Currently, I have built and tuned 31 world championship winning machines between jet skis and SxS. K&N is proud to partner with an innovative powersports company like Queen Racing. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship and continuing to develop the best products for powersports community. | ||||
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