Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1031651
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 P116 INTERVIEW Yamaha came in this year, but in a slightly half-hearted way. Will that change? Look, there's no secret that the street motorcycle market in the U.S. is challenged. It's chal- lenged worldwide, but the U.S. is a peculiar market in that it's domi- nated by big bikes, no one buys anything under 500cc in the U.S. So what that means for all the manufacturers is that their volume has shrunk, and when the volume shrinks, budget shrinks, when budgets shrink, no one goes racing so much. Road racing in the U.S. has a glorious history, but it's in a difficult place at the moment. I know from speaking to [Yamaha] that they'd love to be involved in flat track, but there's only so many ways the dollar can be cut. So they've said, if we can find a way, if we can get an ex- ternal sponsor to partner with us, we'll be there in a heartbeat. So I would say, look out for Yamaha in the 2019 AFT series. How about Triumph, a com- pany with which you have his- toric personal connections?! I have an active dialogue with Triumph, and I was in their Hinck- ley factory after Goodwood. They like flat track racing, they get it, and it's perfect for their brand in America, plus they do some Hoo- ligan racing in the U.K. They've looked at our Twins Champion- ship, and said, "yes, we do have a 900 that would conform to it, but it's not a competitive package—the motor's big and relatively heavy, plus it doesn't rev that high. What I know about Triumph after working for them for so long is that they wouldn't want to come in to make up the numbers. I get that. So under our current format, I don't think they're ready to push the button, but if anything changes, either in platforms they have, or in our rac- ing format, I think they'd be there in a heartbeat. But a company whose race boss is a big fan of AFT, is Ducati. When is Ducati coming to Flat Track? They're already there, but only with a privateer team. The guys at Ducati from top to bottom are pure racers. And they want to win every race in everything they ever do. I was in Bologna last month to see So I know they're in a learning process about what flat track is, who the audience is, how you win. So my goal is to get them to step up and really contribute to the series, and the biggest argument I've got in favor of their doing that is called KTM, which is ever increasingly a key rival for Ducati. So that brings us to Harley- Davidson. It seemed that in Year One, Indian's dominance possibly caught Harley on the back foot, because they weren't prepared for them to be so successful, so fast. But in Year Two, it's evident that Harley still can't claw back any of the gap in competi- tively that they had between I would say, look out for Yamaha in the them. What they've done with their Scrambler and all the spin offs from that, has opened up a wide new world for Ducati—a lifestyle oriented, urban biker world, in which I know they see the synergy with flat track racing. They've had a toe in the AFT wa- ter with the Lloyd Brothers Team, who this year switched from a two-valve air-cooled motor in their flat track bike, to a liquid-cooled eight-valve 821. The bike's nice, and the motor is a core prod- uct for Ducati. Every time I see [Ducati race boss] Paolo Ciabatti, he says, "Michael, we love AFT, but this is pretty scary racing—we don't yet know enough about it!" their XG750R and the Indian FTR750. Harley-Davidson made the XR750 that was introduced in 1970 and has won 681 flat-track nationals so far, and is still quite competitive today. To replace that, they've created the XG750R and are working together with Vance & Hines, which is not exactly an incompetent perfor- mance company! Terry Vance, the co-founder of the company, is crew chief and team manager, and comes to every single race. He and his V&H guys in Indianap- olis are burning the midnight oil to redress the balance. So it's not a lack of effort that's responsible