Dante Oliveira might not be a household name, at least on the East Coast, but the 25-year-old racer from Northern California is a multiple-time AMA champion, with two titles earned just this year.
Words and Photography By Mark Kariya
Growing up, Dante Oliveira soon came to the realization that he wasn’t going to be an athlete in the traditional sense. Though he tried his hand at baseball and basketball in elementary school, reality forced him to confront the obvious early on. “I don’t think I was very good,” he says.
Nowadays, he doesn’t even remember what position he played. “I have no clue! My mom [Gina Anotti] was the coach,” he laughs.
But his dad, George, had a backup plan and got Dante and his siblings into riding motorcycles. Though George’s parents were against motorcycles and never allowed him to have one, he’d sneak rides on friends’ bikes, and by the time Dante and the kids were ready for bikes of their own, so was he. George was 38 when he finally bought his first motorcycle.
George, Gina, and their five kids—Bianca, Sophia, Dante, Mateo and Dominique—lived in Hollister, California, so they had several places to choose from to learn to ride and, soon, race. Being in the very active AMA District 36 provided many opportunities for competition, with Dante starting out in hare scrambles at the E Street track in Marysville, California, aboard the KTM 50 he’d received as his 6th birthday present. The race was on his 6th birthday.
“I recall going to my first race, sitting in the back of the van, putting my boots on and gearing up as we’re pulling through the gate, but after that I don’t remember that first race,” he says. “But I remember getting a new bike, driving out there, gearing up in the van. I think I wanted to sleep in my gear overnight.
“Once I started racing—my first race was in 2006—I had to make a decision on what I was going to do, so I started racing dirt bikes more because baseball practice and games would often land on race weekends, so we did a couple weekends where there would be baseball Saturday and dirt bikes Sunday or vice versa. It came down to where I had to pick one to concentrate on, so it was two wheels for me. By middle school, I was always racing. You know how it is for a kid racing dirt bikes.”
Though he and his siblings raced some local motocross events, they mostly rode D-36 hare scrambles, and it was a family affair. “We’d bring the whole family to the races in our van; my sisters were racing, my brother and I were racing, so we’d just throw the camper out there and run wild over the weekend. It was easier for my parents to keep track of us since we all had one race to do. I raced with one of my sisters in the same race all the time, sometimes with my older sister, too.
“I’m pretty sure I started racing first, then shortly after we were all racing. We all grew up riding; we started riding at a young age, starting with bicycles. When my dad got his first bike, we all ended up getting bikes. We have a good buddy who has some property up past Hollister Hills [Off-Highway Vehicle] park, so we’d go up there a lot and we’d all ride. We all got into racing, the five of us kids every other weekend or whatever it was.”
With six bikes to keep race-prepped, all five kids had to learn how to do at least some bike work though, Dante recalls: “We were responsible for a good majority of it, but when it came to anything motor-wise, that was my dad’s responsibility. It was a bit of a free-for-all for quite a few years—a lot of zip-ties and duct tape!
“In high school, I was racing a lot, but there were times where I wasn’t making that next step, so I worked a little bit with my dad, my sisters and Mateo installing playgrounds. I wasn’t into that, so I was like, ‘I’ve got to ride some dirt bikes!’ By 2018, 2019, it was full-on dirt bikes, although it’s always been full-on dirt bikes. There were periods when I was a young, dumb high school kid.
“When I first graduated high school, I worked with him for, like, three weeks, and I finally went, ‘When am I getting paid?’
“Him and my sister laughed!
“I said, ‘I’m not coming back!’
“Then I got a job being tortilla man. I did that for about four months, delivering tortillas for Mission Tortillas all over. I would stock the shelves from 2 a.m. to 9 o’clock, sleep till 1 o’clock, then go ride till dark.”
Though the hours were tough, he admits, “It was cash, though, so I loved it! I didn’t love doing it, honestly—it was rough—but just out of high school and getting some cash was good.”
After some success in D-36, Dante branched out and began traveling to more races. In 2016, he, Mateo and Sophia chased the AMA West Hare Scrambles (WHS) Regional Championship Series, where he won the 250cc Pro title, now with help from RPM Racing KTM. Sophia topped Women A; this was before the advent of the Pro Women class, and Mateo finished second in Big Wheel at the end of the year.
Dante, Mateo, Sophia and Bianca got bikes and support as members of Brian Garrahan’s Garrahan Off-Road Training (GOT) team for a few years, riding smaller bikes, with Dante also pointing out local shop Faultline Powersports as an early backer.
Family and friends provided funding for bikes. After several years on 150s, he added a 250 SX to the stable in 2016. It was a banner year as he moved up to the Pro class and owned the 250cc Pro division in the AMA WHS series.
That attracted the attention of RPM Racing KTM—one of KTM’s satellite off-road teams—who rewarded him with a contract for 2017. Moving up to the Open Pros on 350 and 450 XC-Fs in the World Off-Road Championship Series (WORCS) proved to be a learning experience with success not immediately forthcoming, but he and RPM kept grinding.
RPM Racing Team Owner Mike Hurlbert remembers the journey to sign Dante—and eventually Mateo—very clearly. “Travis Coy won the 2014 WORCS Pro 2 Championship and asked the Oliveira brothers to join us in the championship photo. Travis later told me, ‘You should get both these kids on our team!’”
Over the next couple of years, Coy and fiancé-now-wife Kacy Martinez continued to extol the speed the Oliveiras demonstrated. So, when KTM and Hurlbert decided to focus more on West Coast-centric series, KTM asked which riders he’d pick. Hurlbert recalls, “I said, ‘The Oliveira brothers are looking very promising, and I’m fairly confident we could find a way to win races and championships with them.’ I signed Dante in 2017.
“Dante won the first Open Pro WORCS event for our team. We had tried for over 15 years without the premier-class WORCS win. I will never forget that great feeling!
“I will always cherish how special Dante was to work with. He never, ever blamed the team or the bike if he didn’t win; he just kept training and practicing until he became the best rider. He never asked for more than what we gave him; he just loved riding and racing.
“We won a lot of races together from 2017 to 2020, capping it off with the 2020 AMA NGPC Championship. At the end of 2020, KTM asked if they could take Dante for the factory team, and that allowed me to free up budget to continue with Trystan Hart, who was making a big impact in extreme enduros and EnduroCross—and sign up Dante’s younger brother, Mateo.”
“Then I got a job being tortilla man. I did that for about four months, delivering tortillas for Mission Tortillas all over. I would stock the shelves from 2 a.m. to 9 o’clock, sleep till 1 o’clock, then go ride till dark.”
“We did one year where I was factory-supported through KTM,” Dante says. “I was still RPM, but KTM was building my bikes, and sometimes they’d send a mechanic with me.”
So, it was no surprise that Oliveira signed a full FMF KTM contract for 2021, which is where he’s been ever since, and it has been a rewarding ride for both parties. After a few years finishing second Open Pro to legendary teammate Taylor Robert in WORCS, Oliveira grabbed the first of his two WORCS Championships in 2021, but he really came into his own in NGPC. Having first claimed the series title in 2020, he’s been practically unbeatable there and earlier this year nabbed his sixth straight NGPC crown. He shows no signs of slowing down there and, in fact, seems to be getting better every year in the face of ever-faster competition.
That surprised him as much as anyone: “I was always a woods guy, in a way, racing D-36 hare scrambles from the start, so even going to the grand prix was a big learning curve. I remember showing up to those, at first me and my brother getting our doors blown off! Like, ‘What is going on?’ It took us a couple of years to get comfortable, and now we love it!”
Asked how far he thinks he can take this run, he laughs and responds, “I don’t know. I go year by year. I was absolutely stoked when I got my first championship after battling Zach Bell.
“The second and third [championships] were the hardest to back up, but I feel like I’ve crafted that style of racing pretty well.”
Oliveira credits motocross for developing the speed needed to win this much faster style of racing and notes, “Al Posey was helping me out a little bit building my engines here and there when I was younger, and he would always say, ‘If you want to get faster, you have to race motocross.’ So we started doing a bunch of local MX, because when you’re little, whatever race that was going on that was local on the weekends, we were going to it, whether it was motocross, fairgrounds races, flat track, or hare scrambles, we were there! I think that always helped out later racing different stuff.”
“I said, ‘The Oliveira brothers are looking very promising, and I’m fairly confident we could find a way to win races and championships with them.’ I signed Dante in 2017.” ~Mike Hurlbert
Through motocross, they developed key traits for winning. “That got our intensity up and a little more fight during the motos to push, and I think that made a huge difference.”
And what about racing pro motocross? He’s done remarkably well, going 15-12 for 13th overall at the AMA Pro Motocross Championship Series opener in 2023, his best result to date. He replies, “If there’s an opportunity, I’m all ears, and I’m ready to go. Any time I’m able to line up on the gate with all those guys, it’s a rush and an absolute blast and a challenge. It’s no joke lining up on that 40-man gate. One of the biggest adrenaline rushes ever is taking off on that line. It’s a gnarly group of guys and a very stacked field. I think we’re planning to do a few more.”
He didn’t forget his hare scrambles roots and switched from WORCS to AMA WHS, winning the title in both 2023 and ’24. Dante also dipped his boot into racing on an international stage, competing in the FIM International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) for the first time in 2018 in Chile.
This was a form of racing he was unfamiliar with growing up. It wasn’t until he’d been on big bikes that he learned of it through some of his friends who’d gone.
“The Garrahan brothers did a ton of them. Brian would talk about it here and there, but, honestly, I never really knew much about it until my buddies from around here in Hollister were going. J.T. Baker went, the Lehrs went, Kale Elworthy, Alex Dorsey, [Anson] Maloney—once I started seeing them and watching videos of them all go, I started learning more about it, checking it out, and hearing stories about their trips there and about going to their fundraisers. That’s when I kind of got into it.
“You hear about it being the biggest enduro in the world, kind of like the Olympics of motorsports for off-road. That kind of got me a little fired up and wanting to see what it’s all about and representing our country and seeing where you stack up against everybody.”
Contrary to many who find Six Days almost overwhelming when they first undertake it, Oliveira insists he considered it fairly easy to learn all that’s involved in the race.
“I think just being young [he was 18], that was all a breeze—just go with the flow. The hardest part was just the mental aspect, being able to finish the days, let alone the week. It’s long days on the bike, then you see your name on the scoreboard; you don’t even know who you’re racing at first, but you want to be higher up on the board, and that fires you up. It’s a lot of ups and downs! Even now, seven years after my first one, it’s a lot of ups and downs.
“But the different food and the different countries, that’s all exciting for me.”
Oliveira has fond memories of his second Six Days, which was in Portugal in 2019, as he has family ties there and so looks forward to returning for the 2026 edition.
“My grandpa and grandma on my dad’s side were born in Portugal. We were at the Autodromo International do Algarve road race circuit for the parc ferme that year, and they had some stores around there, and there was ‘Oliveira’ on the butt patches of some of the leathers and whatnot on display, so that was pretty funny. I’m excited to go back; I had a blast in 2019.”
Not a shock since he was the fastest Club rider, and with teammates Ricky Russell and Austin Walton, led XCGear to the Club team win for the week.
Asked if he ever thought as an up-and-coming prospect that he’d find himself racing on an international level, he ponders before answering, “I don’t know if I ever thought about racing all around the world, but I knew I wanted to race dirt bikes for a living. I don’t think I ever put much thought to where I was racing, what I was racing, but all I wanted to do was race dirt bikes.”
Last season saw him expand his repertoire more with a couple of forays into the Grand National Cross Country (GNCC) Series, filling in for injured FMF KTM teammate Ben Kelley. He competed in five of the 13 rounds, taking the overall at round four in South Carolina; his other overalls ranged from sixth to 12th.
“I’m a racer, so I have high expectations no matter where I go. It impressed me with how gnarly the desert is and the skillset involved in racing there.”
GNCCs are known for being physically demanding three-hour marathons in the woods with lots of variety in terrain and seemingly endless lappers to pick through as the race drags on. They’re very different than nearly any racing type that the West Coast offers.
“With everything in racing, it’s just the confidence in showing up, in lining up, and just going racing,” he declares. “I feel like where I live, I have a pretty great mix of everything that you need to go and race nearly anywhere, terrain-wise. The guys I grew up and trained with, they all raced GNCCs at times, so I knew about it. But I think just learning the courses is different. GNCC guys come over here and race a grand prix or a WORCS race or a hare & hound, they’re at a disadvantage. Whereas I’ve been to that desert, that motocross track, or that grand prix track. I’ve ridden it before, and I know the dirt, I know the layout, and knowing the lay of the land, where going back East for GNCCs, it’s new for me.
“The challenge is being able to learn the tracks and adapt quickly and charge right off the bat.”
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And this year, of course, Oliveira took on another challenge—and successfully. Originally penciled in for NGPC and WHS, he won both openers in January. But then the AMA Hare & Hound (H&H) National Championship Series kicked off the very next weekend and presented another opportunity to do some racing.
“Mateo started talking a few weeks before and saying if round one of the H&Hs gets some rain, he’s going to go line up. I was like, ‘Oh, he’s kind of crazy!’
“I stayed quiet and kept racing, but I started thinking about it here and there. I watched a couple of YouTube videos, then we raced around the [WHS] out in Page, [Arizona], and I felt like that was pretty much like a desert race in a way, how it was laid out chasing the ribbon. Sure, you’re doing laps on it, but in a way, I thought, it felt like how a hare & hound would be.
“After winning that, I thought, ‘You know, I think I could do this; I think I’m up for it,’ and I kind of stayed quiet.
“I brought it up to [FMF KTM Team Manager] Timmy [Weigand], and he didn’t think I was all too serious, but I bugged him a couple more times, and he questioned me on why I wanted to do it because they’d tried to get me to do it for five years, and I’d shut it down every time!
“So, he was a little thrown off even asking if I could do it, but I kept bugging him.
“I think it was Thursday before the race on Sunday, and he gave me the okay at, like, 4 o’clock, so I had to go to the race site outside of Lucerne Valley, California, on Friday to camp out and ride around a little bit.”
Though defending series champ Zane Roberts beat him by over eight minutes, Oliveira’s runner-up finish turned heads. The question was, could he do it again when it was dusty and/or he got a bad start?
He proved doubters wrong by compiling an incredibly consistent first season in the desert with two wins and seven runner-up finishes to wrest the crown away from Roberts—his first time out—the final points a close 235-231 in favor of the desert rookie.
However, he claims he was confident the whole time. “I’m a racer, so I have high expectations no matter where I go. It impressed me with how gnarly the desert is and the skillset involved in racing there because I’ve raced against fast guys like Zane in other series, and I know he’s a good rider, but in the desert, those guys ride well. They read the terrain well, and it’s a steep learning curve, for sure.
“It’s a crazy style of racing, I think, but pretty enjoyable. You haven’t seen any of the course before; it’s always changing. Sure, you’re in the same desert the whole time, but some races you do 80-plus miles, so you’re covering a lot of land, from flat-out sand washes, up over big mountain tops, nasty, rocky terrain—it’s always different—pinning it across a valley then going to nasty, technical trail into the next valley. You’ve got to be on your toes, looking around—everything’s always changing. It’s kind of exciting and something I’ve never done before. It was pretty fun this year.
“It would’ve been cool to start doing them a couple of years ago and not put it off.”
The career span of an athlete, of course, is not infinite. At 25 years old, Dante Oliveira may be just getting into his prime, but racing at such a high level has no longevity guarantee. How does he see his future, especially now that he and his partner, Carly, welcomed Vinny Angelo into the family earlier this year?
Not surprisingly, he looks forward to the challenge, saying, “It hasn’t affected my mindset so much. It’s an awesome blessing! It’s a new chapter, an amazing gift—maybe it changes me to be more of a man, in a way, and more of a provider rather than just having me race a dirt bike with [my] lady. Now we have a family, and I need to be a man and take care of them.
“But on the bike, nothing changes. The need to win is much greater!
“We have some strong racers coming up, which is even more motivation and a little more exciting to go race against them. Time will tell. I don’t know. I’m going to fight for [every championship] again next year, and we’ll see what happens. I don’t have a specific number on how many NGPC titles I want. Maybe I’ll go and change up and do a different style of racing in the next couple of years—who knows?—if an opportunity arises.” CN
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