INTERVIEW
AMA PRO FLAT TRACK SENIOR DIRECTOR RONNIE JONES
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cally. You look at them and you
just go, "wow." I think it's really
something that our series offers.
At the motocross races, they
look like motocross bikes that
you see in the showroom. Same
with road racing, most of the
bikes now are basically produc-
tion motorcycles. So we're kind
of in a niche market for the man-
ufacturers—midrange, mid-price,
twin engine—typically bikes that
are not generally regarded as su-
per performers, but we're taking
those bikes and making super
performers out of them.
Also, look at how many cus-
tom bike shows there are. Peo-
ple go to custom bike shows not
even to hear them or to watch
them go race. We're putting cus-
tom bikes out on a racetrack and
racing them. I think that's where
our draw is. That's what we have
to sell, along with some of the
best racing.
The actual on-track racing is
as good as it gets worldwide, in
my opinion, two or four-wheel.
We just have to figure out what
pieces need to be placed in
around it to make the fans want
to come out, because clearly it's
not just about putting on the best
racing. There's got to be more to
it than that, or they'd be coming.
We're not getting the crowds that
we want and so we've just got
to figure out what it is that we've
got to do.
Yes, sell our equipment,
sell our riders, put the word
out there, show the world, but
there's other things that we're
not doing right now, things that
we know need to be done and
that we'll be working on to add
those pieces to the puzzle. So
that when the puzzle's all put
together it's going to look really
neat and a lot of people will want
to come look at it.
Flat track's momentum
has continued to build as the
season's progressed. You had
the X Games, which many can
look at as being as a success.
What is the next step for the
series to set flat track apart
from other forms of motor-
cycle racing? You have some
proposed rule changes to the
class structure.
I don't know that there's one
thing. I think there's going to be
a series of things. Making our
sport easily understood is the
key. So that's really what we're
looking at regarding the class
rules. The formula that we're
looking at is instead of a rider-
based class, going to an equip-
ment-based class, which I think
resembles just about every other
