A M E R I CA N F L AT T R AC K C E O M I C H A E L LO C K
P108
INTERVIEW
I
f 2017 was the year that America's
oldest form of motorcycle racing
made its big comeback, with the
rebranded 18-race AFT/American Flat
Track Championship hosting a resump-
tion of the historic struggle for dirt oval
dominance between Indian and Harley-
Davidson that was decisively won by
the Wigwam tribe, 2018 has been a
year of consolidation. Both specta-
tor attendance and media audiences
continue to ramp upwards, with tracks
forced to close their gates early and
disappoint latecomers thanks to yet
another sell-out, while the sport is be-
2
ing brought to a far wider audience
than had ever followed it before, via a
series of hour-long weekly primetime
telecasts streamed on NBCSN, which
together with AFT's own livestreaming
of every round, are bringing the non-
stop thrills and spectaculars spills of
this uniquely American race series to
a whole new global audience.
The man responsible for transform-
ing what was previously the best kept
secret of American motorsport into an
accessible, slickly staged and art-
fully presented spectacle is Michael
Lock, a 53-year old Brit who two
years ago was hired by NASCAR boss
Jim France, to revitalize a sport that
he himself had a soft spot for. That's
We catch up with AFT CEO Michael Lock
and chat with him about the progress of
the American Flat Track Championship
because Jim's the only member of the
NASCAR hierarchy to have actually
raced a motorcycle himself, and the
250cc Bultaco flat-tracker with which
he did so now adorns Michael Lock's
office in Daytona Speedway, from
where he's plotted the comeback of
America's oldest two-wheeled sport.
After interviewing Michael Lock at the
end of the 2017 debut season of his re-
vitalized AFT, the chance to talk to him
about Year Two came at the legendary
Peoria TT in deepest Illinois in mid-
August. This came after he'd shipped
a dozen AFT riders and their bikes
YEAR
