VOL. 54 ISSUE 48 DECEMBER 5, 2017 P41
early age growing up in London,
who went to work for Honda
Britain straight out of college,
initially in the Parts Department
before working his way up to be
one of the bright young mar-
keteers in Honda Europe. That
brought him to the attention of
John Bloor, who headhunted
him in 1990 to work for his newly
relaunched Triumph company in
establishing a network of import-
ers across Europe. In 1993 Lock
was assigned the task of estab-
But it's undoubtedly ironic
that the man responsible for
transforming what was previously
the best kept secret of Ameri-
can motorsport into an acces-
sible, slickly staged and artfully
presented spectacle should be
British. Michael Lock, 52, was a
passionate motorcyclist from an
"I spoke to riders, team owners, media,
fans and just got to really immerse
myself in the sport."
(Above) Lock wants to make being
at the races a better experience for
the fans. (Left) Lock understood
that flat track racing was already
great—that wasn't the problem.
Marketing and flawed rules were.
(Bottom left) Lock and seven-time
GNC Champion Chris Carr, AFT's
Chief Competition Officer (CCO),
have proven to be a productive
combination.
lishing Triumph America in Atlan-
ta, which he ran for three years
on a 24/7 basis before suffering
corporate burnout, and resign-
ing to recharge his batteries by
taking an MBA degree at Cardiff
University. He was then hired as
CEO of Ducati UK, a key export
market for the Italian company
in the heyday of Carl Fogarty.
However, he lasted just 90 days
there before he was summoned
to Bologna to offer advice on
how to rescue the car crash that
Ducati's North American opera-
tion had become, which resulted
in his moving back to the USA,
this time to California to head
up DNA. He stayed there as
CEO for the next decade, build-
ing numbers until this became
Ducati's number-one market
globally, in the course of which
he inevitably became involved in
the company's superbike road
race program. He left in 2010 to
go to Norway to work with Ford's
electric satellite Think Auto, after
