Life, like racing, changes rapidly, and in the ten years or so since Chris has been at the forefront of American dirt track racing and road racing, life has changed for him, but he always adjusts immediately and stays on top of it. Moving from his sunny hometown in Central California to the Amish country of Pennsylvania with his wife Pam never fazed him, he was instantly at home and enjoying it.

Last year the Carr's youngest son Cameron was diagnosed with a mild form of autism. As severe as it sounded, Chris and Pam just poured all of their focus on getting Cameron in the right programs to help overcome the obstacles and Cameron is improving and adapting -just like Dad.

In 2003, Chris has a new Harley-Davidson dealership sponsor with the departure of longtime supporter and friend Mike Shattuck, who formerly owned Harley-Davidson of Sacramento. Shattuck's retirement allowed the opportunity for Lancaster Harley-Davidson, owned by the Texter family and run by former racer Randy Texter to step in and provide the parts, engines, and so forth that the team needed. Actually located quite near the Carr home in Central Pennsylvania, Lancaster H-D has a history of supporting dirt track racing and will undoubtedly benefit from having Carr aboard.

As Daytona and the launch of the season looms, I managed to get in a few questions and answers with Chris, and here's the transcript.

As a lot of people know, Mike Shattuck, who owned Harley-Davidson of Sacramento, had retired at the end of the 2002 season. He officially was bought out of his store in October of 2002, and is enjoying his retirement; he's been off in Hawaii and a bunch of fun stuff. Their new owner is not involved in racing nearly as much, or is not as much of an enthusiast as Mike Shattuck has been for the last 15 years. Having to take care of the nut on buying a dealership and a whole lot of other things, they didn't really show a whole lot of interest in staying involved in flat track under the new ownership.

Through some business associates, I had met with Randy Texter at his dealership back in September, and he had expressed an interest in being a part of our program and being our official dealer. One thing led to another, and we're a part of the Lancaster Harley-Davidson family now, and they're a great family to be a part of. They share common goals with myself in that they like to go out and win races, and they're also big fans of the sport and big supporters of the sport of flat track. If there were any one dealer in the country to pick - besides Harley-Davidson of Sacramento under Mike Shattuck - it would certainly be Lancaster Hartley-Davidson and the Texter family. I'm glad to be working with them.

They also sponsor other riders as well, correct? Bryan Bigelow, Jared Mees, and more?

And Steve Beattie, yes. They have their hands in a lot of cookie jars as far as flat track is concerned, that just goes to show their commitment to the sport of flat track racing. All four of us are part of four different teams. It's a credit to them to be able to support as many riders as they have.

How does Lancaster's support compare with what Harley of Sacramento's?

The support level is going to be very similar. Being a first-year effort, it's a matter of trying to work with each other and trying to find out what everybody's comfortable with. I don't know if we're to the level of support that I've had with Harley of Sacramento, but certainly the support that they're providing for us in invaluable and we're happy to have them help us out.

Do you expect to see Mike Shattuck at some of the races this year?

I imagine we'll see him at a few here and there - if we can drag him away from all the other fun stuff he's doing! Mike's a fan of flat track, and now that he's retired, I wouldn't be surprised to see him a at a few more than we normally do.

Let's talk about the Ford Motor Co. deal for 2003.

Ford's involvement is fantastic. I signed another 1-year contract with them, similar to the one I had a year ago. I feel good about what I've been able to accomplish, not only on the racetrack, but off, and for a company like Ford to see the value in their involvement in our program and want to resign again tells me that we're doing something right. We're going to still continue to strive to produce the best possible results in the marketing aspect for them as time goes on. We're hoping to expand our program, and Ford's hoping to expend their involvement in flat track in other levels as well.

Have you been involved in any off-season promotional work?

Not actively. I think they rely on my experience in flat track racing to kind of help guide them in the right direction marketing-wise as far as what types of events they want to be involved with. They lean pretty heavily on me as part of event that they want to sponsor so they can get the best bang for their buck as far as attendance is concerned. That's been something that's been quite challenging and fun for me.

Sounds like you're both giving back something to one another and to the sport.

Yes. I'm giving them the value to put them together with the people who are going to give them their money's worth. I believe they have agreed to sponsor ten of the races on the Progressive Insurance schedule this year, so they're not just helping Chris Carr, they're helping promoters make more money, lots of things.

One of my goals, obviously, is to see racers make more money.

What do you think of the new Supermotard program announced earlier this year?

I think Supermotard is very interesting in that it's emerging here in the US now. It's been fairly strong overseas for several years and it's kind of ironic that it's the opposite of motocross - Supermotard was invented in the United States back in the 80s with the Superbikers - now it's more popular in Europe, whereas, you take a look at motocross, it started in Europe and now the Americans dominate. It's kind of had a role reversal in a sense.

I'm glad to see that the AMA has decided to push this market - which is somewhat of a niche market right now. It's growing by leaps and bounds. You think of all the manufacturers world wide - not necessarily the Big Four - that have (production) supermotard bikes available. They have equipment that's based on production units, and I could see some good growth out of this - I see potential for big growth over the next ten years.

Do you think you might give it a try?

I'm looking forward to throwing a leg over a supermotard bike a few times this year. They haven't come out with a schedule, and they haven't come out with a firm set of rules, but we hear the rumors, and it's certainly something that we can accommodate on particular weekends that don't conflict with flat track races.

How's the VOR project coming along? Has VOR helped out?

The R&D for these bikes, for the flat track aspect, has pretty much been left in our hands. The VOR folks, based out in Poway, CA, in the San Diego area, have been invaluable to us. But VOR USA is in the process of changing hands as we speak, and the new importer for their product has not been officially named. I have contact with the company that is waiting on return contracts, and we are going to receive support, we just don't know at what level yet. We've got to wait until all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed before we figure out what's happening there, but we've got enough pieces to get going this year, and we imagine that we're going to run the VOR exclusively on short tracks for the remainder of the year.

Does the VOR have what it takes to compete with the Honda CR450F?

Engine-wise, it's certainly every bit as good as the Honda. I'm a year behind in developing a production chassis, but we also have frame-chassis that we can use, and the nice thing about VOR is that there's not a lot of pressure to run production-based product, because they're not looking to sell 5000 units here in the U.S. I mean that would be a pipe-dream for them. I don't think the company can produce 5000 units worldwide, much less anything else.

It's got good pieces in it. It's a great engine, it has a ton of potential. We're not caught up in any kind of bureaucracy when we're dealing with VOR.

You're going for a fifth championship this year, potentially your third straight. How's your take on the 2003 season?

We've got a good mix of both young and old talent...or middle-aged, however you want to call it. I think this year could very well shape up to be one of the most competitive since '98 when we went into the Springfield Mile, and (Rich) King, (Will) Davis, myself, and (Scott) Parker were within tem points with three races left in the season. I highly expect that this could turn out to be the same way with a few different players, obviously.

I expect King to go real good on the Harley; with this being their hundredth anniversary, I expect them to pull out all the stops and do everything they can to win a championship. We look forward to a big challenge from him as well as Murphree. Their team's emerging and they had great results last year. The rest of the guys are kind of question ,marks with the changes they've got going, but I expect (Mike) Hacker to doe well with Moroney's, especially on the miles, and we all know he's capable on the half-miles.

How about some of the really fresh talent, like Jake Johnson?

The thing that I've noticed about Jake is that he's continuing to work on being a better rider. The experience is going to come with time, but he's working on being smoother and picking his spots and being aggressive when he needs to be. If he can control those urges I think he's going to go places.

A lot of changes on the schedule this season, are the good or bad?

Well, if you look at the core of the schedule, there are nine are ten solid races that are history, then we have a few kind of emerging races - for instance the Vernon Downs race is three years old, it's getting more popular, they're growing a bigger crowd - then we have a handful of short tracks that are unknown entities in a sense. I think we have a great balance of races that we can strive to build on, ones that are tried-and-true and year-in and year-out have shown great promise and have been very steady as far as attendance is concerned. When you think of the Springfields, the miles, and the short tracks keep getting better and better every year. Then you've got places like Lima that continue to grow.

I think we've got a great mix and a great balance of events, more diverse than we've had in the last fifteen years. We've got a little more emphasis on short track ad TT than we've ever had, currently with seven events on single-cylinder bikes. It opens the opportunities for the younger riders to maybe make a splash and parlay the opportunity into a ride on a big motor for the half-miles and miles.

How's your off-season been?

It's been pretty cold to work on anything exterior. The biggest thing we've worked on has been our youngest son Cameron. We've got him enrolled in what's called the DCIU program here in our county for him to get education. For those who don't know, he's been diagnosed in the low end of the autism spectrum order and he's just started schooling, and we now have some wraparound services where specialist come in for four hours a day, five days a week to work him, and we're ecstatic over his progress over the last three months. For those that knew him a year ago, you're going to see a different child this year. So we're very happy - that's been probably the biggest focus over the home front over the winter.

Between Cameron and trying to dial in the 2003 program, that's been the main focus. I've gone and tested in Texas between Christmas and New Year's and I leave next week to go test some more. We've been busy. Between sponsorship programs we've been trying to create and getting the equipment ready to go, and hiring new folks to work with the program.

Have you focused any more on physical conditioning after admitting at Peoria last year that you were maybe lacking there?

We are. Obviously, at thirty-five years of age, I've got to work a little bit harder than I did when I was twenty-five, physically. It took a long time to beat me at Peoria simply because they were in better shape. That opened my eyes a little bit, so I'm a little better prepared for this year. I'm not real big on divulging training methods or anything like that because everybody's different. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another. But my fans can rest assured we're going to be chasing that checkered flag pretty hard and heavy everywhere this year, including Peoria.