FEATURE I STATE OF AMERICAN FLAT TRACK
P86
While Smith's career was
officially complete, he was still
in possession of some extraor-
dinarily relevant knowledge and
experience. So, it only made
sense when AMA Pro Racing
Chief Operating Officer Gene
Crouch invited Smith and How-
erton to fly down to the series'
headquarters in Daytona Beach
straight after the Sacramento
Mile for a three-day download to
help AFT's management team
better understand—and hopefully
crack—the series' intractable
problem with a certain hyper-
tractable race bike.
Smith was not just uniquely
qualified to help, he was interest-
ed in doing so, too, having been
working on that problem himself
for some time. (In fact, Smith
was keen enough that he was
recently brought onboard by the
series' organizers in an official
capacity in the newly created
position of "Director of Industry
Relations.")
Smith said, "One of my strong
points as a racer—and probably
one of the things that hurt me
the most as a racer—was being
too technical and learning too
much about the mechanics of
a bike. There was a time I was
building my own bikes. I think
that's why Ricky Howerton and
I became such great friends.
He's really technical obviously—a
super mechanical engineer who
can fabricate a frickin' spaceship
out of a tubing rack.
"We not only progressed the
sport with our Kawasaki and
won a championship on it, we
also screwed up a lot of stuff
and learned what to do and what
not to do. We're both like, 'Okay,
cool that worked and we won,
but why did it work? Why does
the Kawasaki do this? Why does
the Harley XG do that? Why
does the FTR do this?'"
MOMENT
OF INERTIA
The information provided by
Smith and Howerton proved to
the AFT management team that
they were on the right track, and
they were able to back it up with
years of data.
They argued the most defin-
ing component contributing to
the Indian's outstanding perfor-
mance is a law of physics known
What does "moment of
inertia" have to do with
making traction on a
dirt track? Everything,
it turns out.
