In Southern California desert racing, Paul Krause is legendary not just for his many accomplishments and diversity of races but for the amazing longevity of his career.

     He first gained national attention while still a college student, driving from Northern California to the AMA District 37 desert races in SoCal, often winning then going right back to Berkeley nearly every week until graduating in 1987 with a degree in history.

     The pattern never seemed to change as the years passed, though the drives were usually shorter after moving back to Southern California. He got married, raised a family and eventually took the reigns of the family business where he works Monday through Friday yet still finds time to prep bikes and race nearly every weekend.

     Krause has ridden for ATK and Husqvarna though he gained the most notoriety with Kawasaki’s Team Green during its heyday where he and his partners won the biggest events (SCORE’s San Felipe 250 once, the Baja 500 five times and the Baja 1000 three times). After Kawasaki bowed out of the desert, Krause switched to dealer rides on Yamaha and then KTM, which he’s been on since 2000.

     He also added a lot of variety, racing different events around the country and around the world. If there was a big race, he wanted to try it. Among those, this led to numerous AMA National enduros, the International Six Days Enduro (ISDE) which he rode 11 times and two stabs at the Dakar Rally, where he notes he’s the last person to complete this storied event on a twin-cylinder motorcycle before they were banned.

     Through it all, he somehow summoned the energy to still compete in local District races, making for a very full schedule of more than 40 race weekends a year, often racing in one state on Saturday then driving back to a District 37 race on Sunday! And remember, he did that while working full time, often putting in more than 40 hours a week. Also, don’t think he’s just putting around at any event he enters—he’s still successfully going for titles though it’s now in the over 40- and over 50-year-old age groups (he won the over 50 or Super Senior Expert division in the 2020 FMF AMA National Grand Prix Championship Series as well as AMA District 37’s Magnum Heavyweight crown in both desert and sprint enduro standings).

     On those rare nights when he’s not prepping for a race, he can often be found at ice hockey games cheering for the hometown Anaheim Ducks.