INTERVIEW
JOHN ULRICH
P86
Hatched as a result of
an anemic AMA Pro Road
Racing schedule, which
was first announced as a
five-round series with no
west coast races before
the addition of Laguna
Seca. Ulrich decided to do
something about it.
"It was a lot of work,"
Ulrich said about the new
venture. "We had to learn
about a lot of stuff that we
didn't have experience
with. Primarily doing a TV
package… That was a real
educational experience.
But if Chris [his son/rac-
er/fellow team owner] and
I can come up with an idea
driving down the freeway
in Southern California in
his van and then put this
thing together and get a
TV package, it's hard for
me to believe why somebody
else [AMA Pro Racing] that has
got a fully trained professional
staff that's supposed to be do-
ing this kind of stuff, can't figure
it out."
A lot of effort is involved in put-
ting together a race series. Espe-
cially when thrown together in a
timeline that any event coordina-
tor would deem as last minute.
"We really got rolling on it about
three months ago and it was un-
believable," Ulrich said about the
effort. "Anytime that I stopped
and started thinking about all the
stuff we still had to do it was hard
to get a handle on it. So I just
stopped thinking about that and
treated it like an endurance race
– just make another lap, make
another lap. Don't think about
four hours from now or whatever,
just make another lap. And so
Superbike Shootout has
seen some great racing so
far… The battle between
Josh Hayes (4), Martin
Cardenas (36), Cameron
Beaubier (2) and Roger
Hayden (hidden) at Auto
Club Speedway was one for
the memory books.
