Cycle News

VOL. 56 ISSUE 16 APRIL 23, 2019 P101 ent to keep finding rides, includ- ing a season in Grand Prix, but he never recovered the momentum he had with Honda. Like most of the great Ameri- can road racers of that time, Hale came up through flat track ranks. He was one of the most talented up-and-coming flat track riders of his era. In 1990, the Texan was named AMA Rookie of the Year, solely on the efforts of him and his dad, Bob. He ended the 1990 season with a victory in the Camel Challenge at Sacramento, win- ning $10,000 and beating Scott Parker and Chris Carr. With flat track being Hale's focus, the opportunity to road race for the first time was almost an afterthought. "Bill Bartels had this dirt track side, but he also had the 883 Sportsters going in road racing," Hale recalls. "I think it was the U.S. Twins Championship. Bill said, 'Mike, you should come try these,' because Tripp Nobles and Nigel Gale were riding them at the time. I said, 'Sure, I'd love to.' We had an off weekend, so I flew into Boston, and Bill picked me up and we drove up to Loudon, New Hampshire together. That was my first road race, and it was an AMA National on the Harley." Amazingly, Hale finished on the podium (third) in his very first road race national. That made a lot of people on the road racing side sit up and take notice. Within a couple of years, he'd made a suc- cessful transition from flat track to road racing. After winning several Harley 883 road races in '93, he was signed by Honda for 600 Supersport in '94. That year he also got a one-off superbike ride at Loudon on an outdated Honda RC30 and stunned everyone by qualifying on the front row, third behind only Troy Corser and Fred Merkel. It was not a hard choice then for Honda to move Hale up to a full- time superbike ride in '95, viewing him as their rider of the future. After leaving Honda at the end of '95, there wasn't much to cheer about with the failing Promotor Ducati team in '96, but then a glimmer of hope. "I dang near got on the podium at the last race of the year," Hale remembers. "It was at Phillip Island. I was drafting with Colin right at the line, but he got me for third. But that really helped me at the end of the season; finish it in a way that I could feel good about myself. At least a little bit of sunshine. I did that, and then I want to say the next day Suzuki was calling me for their World Superbike program." The Suzuki offer was a god- send. The team was developing a new GSX-R, and Hale was mainly just fighting to be inside the top- 10, but at least he was on a solid team and was getting paid. Then Hale took an offer to come back to America and race Ferracci Ducati, but on unfamiliar Michelins. He struggled and left the team midseason to take a GP development offer with Swiss Auto. "Me and Luca Cadalora were the test riders doing that pro- gram," Hale said. "So that was a lot of fun. But that also opened the door because of my results from that. Then Kenny [Roberts] offered me a contract to race for his team in 500 GP in '99 the fol- lowing year." While Hale finally got the chance to race GP, riding the Modenas KR3 proved to be a challenge, and he, like several of his teammates that year, ended up suffering injuries trying to ride the bike. After the '99 season, Hale did some car racing but then came a call from Honda to come back to AMA for the 2002 season. He raced Formula Xtreme and Supersport for Erion Honda and managed some strong perfor- mances, including podiums in FX and a pole in Supersport. Then he raced on-again and off-again through the 2006 season, end- ing his career riding for Buell in Formula Xtreme. Today Hale is a successful businessman and runs several insurance agencies. He chooses not to dwell on what might have been, instead, he's confident in the fact that he made decisions that just about anyone would've made in his shoes, but you cannot help but wonder the path Hale's career might have taken had he stayed with Honda. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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