Skelton’s Motorsports leans on family, service for early success

Skelton’s Motorsports may have only opened five years ago, but the roots of this family-owned powersports dealership were established decades before even its first major unit sale.

Todd Skelton and Scarlett Benchley are co-owners of Skelton’s Motorsports — a dealership in Kalispell, Montana, just south of Glacier National Park. But the two aren’t just business partners; they are partners in life and business. The two first met when they were both still in grade school. Scarlett had a cabin in western Montana, where Todd worked at a powersports rental and tire shop.

“We used to go to the tire shop, rent our jet skis and rafts, and have our tires done. I used to see Todd there, and he was my first crush,” Scarlett recalls.

Over the years, Todd stayed in Montana, where he raced motocross and was immersed in the powersports culture. Scarlett would spend time traveling, living in New York and LA while working in marketing and advertising, and even spending some time in Hollywood, acting in a few supporting roles in major motion pictures.

But Scarlett says she would always return to her family’s cabin in Montana for the summer and reconnect. Eventually, after she and Todd decided to start a family, they wanted to build a business that revolved around the things they both loved.

“I love my family, and I love business, and Todd loves powersports, and there was an opportunity when a manufacturer needed a dealer, and we jumped on it,” Scarlett says. “We found a building that needed some love and remodeling, and we’ve just been growing. Once we were finally up and running, we started doing so much better than we ever thought we were going to do.”

But being a brand-new dealership has its inherent hurdles. Popular brands like Polaris and Can-Am were already sold exclusively by other regional dealers. Todd says he did some research and eventually became a sought-after dealer for OEMs not currently in the Flathead Valley market.

“We were researching around, and Massimo was the first company we found that was available in the Valley,” Todd says, adding that once that first OEM walked through the door, others kept coming. “The dealer reps would stop in, say ‘hey, you want to become a dealer of these guys?’ And I’m like, yeah, sure.”

Skelton’s continued to add more OEMs and expand its brand offerings, which include Hisun, trailer manufacturers Echo and Triton and, more recently, CrazEbikes and Denago.

“It’s nice. I mean, at least you know that there’s still a market out there for someone who started just five years ago and still find a way to thrive,” Todd says.

But despite some limitations Skelton’s faced with brands and territories, the dealership saw a big opportunity to grow in other areas, like service.

“When we first opened, we limited ourselves and only serviced the machines that we sold here at our dealership,” Scarlett recalls. “We would tell people, bring it into the certified Can-Am dealership or bring it into the certified Honda dealership. But they’d be so backed up. I mean, other dealerships are four months out before anyone can get service in.”

Once Skelton’s opened its shop to more brands, service department revenue increased exponentially. Todd, the only technician, says he can be working on as many as 12 machines in his shop at a time. And while most service dealers are booked out at least four to six months, “I’m freaking out if I have a machine longer than a month,” he says.

Skelton’s is in the process of constructing a new building for its services department as that side of the business continues to grow. The added space won’t just be beneficial for allowing more vehicles to be serviced, but also for accommodating extra staff. Currently, the dealership is operating with just two employees, Todd and Scarlett. Well, four employees, if you count the part-time help — their two- and five-year-old daughters — who have their own office in the back. However, Scarlett says bringing in more manpower would give her and Todd a much-needed break.

“For the last five years, we’ve been operating just the two of us,” she says. “We’ve been here six days a week for the last five years. We are happy to do it, but I think we’ll be even happier once we have some great employees working here, and hopefully they enjoy working with us and they feel like they’re part of our family too. And I would also love a vacation.”

“Oh yeah, I’m swamped,” Todd adds. “We’ve been staying late every night.”

So far, the two-person team has been getting the job done, thanks to Todd’s Powersports background and Scarlett’s marketing and relationship management experience, which she says works well in direct communication with manufacturers and prioritizing their customer service. Todd has been riding dirt bikes since he was 5 years old. Scarlett, a 2024 PSB Women With Spark award winner, had to familiarize herself with the technical aspects of the business. With Todd typically in the back working on machines, she is usually up front, ordering parts and troubleshooting problems with customers over the phone. She said she needed a crash course and ended up going to school for engine repair.

“I guess I went from model to mechanic,” she says, explaining how important it was for her to learn how to read through and comprehend a service manual. “You have to know what you’re talking about and what you’re looking at,” she says. But at the end of the day, apart from the early success, an expanding service department, and its growing product line, Skelton’s Motorsports is a dealership built on a foundation of family.

Scarlett says, “It’s been such a blessing to have our family here and have a business together.”

This story was originally featured in the August print edition of Powersports Business magazine.