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/1200048
AMERICAN FLAT TRACK CEO MICHAEL LOCK: PART 1 P92 Interview three-dimensional, but it does take time. It's much quicker to ramp up viewership on Face- book than it is to physically sell a ticket! But you have been success- ful in attracting more manu- facturers to the series, with Yamaha coming in this year via Estenson Racing. Is that a fully Yamaha USA-supported team? It's a partnership between Estenson and Yamaha. Yamaha had built the bikes over the previ- ous couple of years and tested them and developed them. And they bequeathed those bikes to Estenson who hired the rid- ers and put the team together. Those are factory Yamaha race bikes. The team scored two vic- tories in 2019 thanks to JD Beach, so presumably they're happy about that for a debut season? Well, I don't know how happy Tim Estenson the team owner is! He's a pretty competitive guy, and I think if you win just two rac- es out of 18, he's not happy with that. But it was their first year with a brand-new bike, so I think they did pretty well. And JD's a rare talent, he's a road racer who was previously a dirt tracker, who was originally a road racer! And for him to double up between the MotoAmerica road racing season and the AFT Series last year was quite a challenge for the guy. He did every single AFT round that didn't clash with the MotoAmer- ica Superbike schedule, which meant he only contested 10 of the 18 rounds. But in 2020 he'll be full-time AFT. Okay, so in AFT right now you've got Indian, you've got Harley, you've got Yamaha, and Bryan Smith came back with Kawasaki, were you ex- pecting him to do a bit better? I think Bryan Smith and his tuner Ricky Howerton were expecting to do a bit better, be- cause when they last competed with their own team with their Ka- wasaki-engined bikes, they had arguably the best bike out there, and they won the title in 2016 with it. But then they switched to go and race for Indian, and partly their work and partly that of other teams has developed the Indian FTR750 into a very potent weapon. But time doesn't stand still; you know, three years in flat track a decade ago was nothing, but three years now is an eternity. I think they expected to come back and be competi- tive off the bat, but it's hard out there now! But they battled with it all season and coming second in both the last two races showed they were back. But now they've switched to Harley-Davidson for 2020. Yes, Harley-Davidson is back again with a full factory team run by Vance & Hines, with Bryan Smith teamed with Jared Vanderkooi and Dalton Gauthier, with Ricky Howerton joining as crew chief. Is 2020 the year Harley-Davidson finally turns the tables on the dominant Indian Motorcycle team? It'll sure be interesting to watch! CN (Continued next week.) Manufacturer involvement has grown. Yamaha now has a factory effort run by the Estenson Racing Team. Who's next?