FINAL ROUND/SEPTEMBER 28, 2013
MAZDA RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA/MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA
AMA HARLEY-DAVIDSON
P86
AMA VANCE & HINES HARLEY-DAVIDSON SERIES
FINALLY, IT'S RAPP!
VETERAN STEVE RAPP FINALLY WINS AN AMA TITLE
BY CHRIS MARTIN
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN J. NELSON
F
ifteen years later, Steve
Rapp finally earned that firstcareer AMA Pro Championship title that eluded him in heartbreaking fashion during his first
full season of professional racing.
The 41-year-old veteran racer
closed out the 2013 Vance &
Hines Harley-Davidson Series at
Laguna Seca in what's become
his customary dominant fashion,
scoring his sixth win of the season in a breakaway.
After claiming his fifth consecutive pole earlier in the day, Rapp
only needed to finish 13th or better to seal the XR Showdown triumph and collect the $25,000
prize that comes along with it.
But rather than tiptoe around
the track at a conservative pace,
the Aerostar Global/Suburban
Harley-Davison rider decided the
safest route to the crown would
actually be to push hard early in
order to escape to a clear track.
He executed that plan to perfection. Rapp opened up an advantage of more than a second
on the race's opening lap and
continually added to his gap
from there, working up a lead
of greater than seven seconds
before ultimately cruising to a
5.996-second margin of victory
at the stripe.
While Rapp looked effortless
and relaxed at the front as he had
pretty much all season long, he
was all too aware that the championship wasn't officially decided in his favor until he took the
checkered flag.
"I was thinking about it a little
bit because in '98 when I was in
my first full [AMA] season of road
racing, I was going to win the
[750 Supersport] championship
and my bike broke on the last
lap," Rapp said. "So that was always lingering in the back of my
