Answer Racing Made Gear in Valencia and Never Pretended to Be Anything Else
No Italian design philosophy. No lifestyle branding. No crossover ambitions. Answer Racing made motocross gear for motocross riders and that was the entire business plan.
Photo by Martin Pettitt / Flickr / CC BY 2.0
Pemulis Water & Power • February 2026
Valencia, California, in the nineties was a particular kind of place — a master-planned suburb north of Los Angeles that happened to be within driving distance of half the tracks in Southern California. Answer Racing operated out of there, making motocross gear with the specific energy of a company that existed to solve a problem rather than to build a brand. Fox had the lifestyle. AXO had the Italian cachet. Answer had pants that fit right and held up and cost what they should cost.
This is not a criticism. In a market full of companies trying to be more than gear companies — trying to be culture, trying to be fashion, trying to be the aesthetic identity of an entire sport — Answer's commitment to just making good gear was its own kind of statement. The riders who wore Answer weren't making a fashion choice. They were making a practical one, and the practical choice held up at the track, which is the only place it needed to hold up.
Answer pants from the era are straightforward in the way that all good workwear is straightforward: the construction serves the function, the details are there because they need to be, and nothing is added for the sake of adding it. They are, in the best sense, just pants — pants designed for a specific and violent activity, built to do that activity until they can't anymore, and then replaced.
We have a pair of 90s Answer Racing MX pants in the shop. Original, intact, from the era. One of one.