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/1456050
FEATURE I STATE OF AMERICAN FLAT TRACK: PART 3 P98 title and scooped up nearly 90 percent of the race wins along the way. Equally disconcerting for Progressive AFT, the bike has increasingly overwhelmed the grid from front to back, expanding from just nine percent of entries in '17 to a startling 74 percent in '21. There is, of course, one very simple solution—at least from a rulebook perspective—that would guarantee an end to the FTR's dominance. However, while banning the FTR750 outright would solve any number of headaches, in practice it would create even more—and put the immediate future of Pro- gressive AFT in serious jeopardy. It's difficult to imagine the near- to-mid-term upside of engineering the exile of the series' most heav- ily engaged manufacturer while in- forming the bulk of premier-class team owners that the extremely expensive race bikes they pur- chased in order to compete at the sport's highest level are now worthless in that pursuit. Despite the level of risk in- volved, the possibility of banning the FTR750 was apparently under serious consideration as late as the Sacramento Mile, the penulti- mate round of the '21 season. At the same time that the FTR was on the chopping block, AFT was in danger of losing yet another manufacturer, this time in the form of its factory-backed Yamahas. Even following the imple- mentation of some midseason rulebook adjustments to race- only machines that 1) increased their overall minimum weight 2) decreased the maximum weight of their rear-wheel assemblies and 3) eliminated their ability to modify base flywheels—changes made in hopes of reducing the FTR's inherent inertia advan- tage—Estenson Racing and Yamaha USA had seen enough. More than anything, these adjustments seemed to indicate that AFT was serious about level- ing the playing field. But the mes- sage was dampened by a lack of impact on the track. And if nothing further had been done, "The odds are that we would have been gone," con- firmed Estenson Racing Team Owner Tim Estenson. "From a financial standpoint, we believe wholeheartedly we can get bet- ter, but to commit millions more? "Last year, they did make a change to the Indian. At least it was a Hail Mary that AFT was do- ing something, but it didn't change the behavior of the bike at all. We expected more changes to come, and they didn't. I was so frustrated going into the off-season. My attitude going into the end of the year was, 'I can't do this anymore. This is just irresponsible to try and continue against an incredible prototype motorcycle specifically built to do what we're trying to do with an asphalt bike.'" Team Manager Tommy Hayden added that while the end of Es- tenson Racing as a Progressive AFT concern was on the table,