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/912289
VOL. 54 ISSUE 48 DECEMBER 5, 2017 P47 logical thing of all." "Well, you can't race the twins on the short tracks and the TTs." I said, "Hold on, I'm looking at old YouTube videos of Bubba Shobert do- ing exactly that in 1986!" "Well, that was a long time ago." "Yes, when the bikes were heavier and the brakes were worse, and the suspension was lousy. Now we've got these beautiful machines, who's telling me we can't do that." Okay, so now it's "Well, then you can't race the little bikes on the miles." "Why not?" "Well, they'll all blow up!" "Really, those badly engineered 450cc dirt bikes from Japan and Austria that have been fine-tuned over the last few decades…. really, they'll all blow up?" Okay, so we had to go through a kind of cathartic exercise of slaying drag- ons, simplifying the sport, and engineering new relationships with the promoters to get them to understand that being a promoter wasn't just producing a poster and selling tickets. The promoter must be telling the public "This is the hottest thing in town this weekend, and you've got to be there." And it's more than the rac- ing, it's the family zones, it's the kids play areas, it's craft beer and real food that you would actually want to eat, and well-lit parking lots, and, and, and, and. None of it's rocket science, it just really wasn't yet there in flat track. Now it is. Did it need someone from outside the entire sport to come and tell them this? I think it needed somebody from outside the sport who had sufficient related experience in the motorcycle industry that he wouldn't be seen as an MBA suit. Because that's the other danger, if somebody comes into a proud old sport and says, "Guys, you've been doing it all wrong—look, look at this pie chart." That won't be taken seri- ously; it's true. So I think I was perceived as having an under- standing through my involvement in superbike racing and through working with motorcycle deal- erships, and through product development, and knowing OEMs and knowing how to raise money, etc. I was able to put my hand up and say, "Guys, it's worth listening to me for five minutes!" So when did you actually take over the restructuring of AFT? I consulted throughout that first season, 2015, and then I presented a strategic five-year plan to the Board of AMA Pro Racing, of which Jim France is chairman, with some quite wide-ranging recommenda- tions for change. We spent a whole day discussing these, and at the end they were very happy and energetic about the prospect. Jim asked me if I would come on board as CEO of AMA Pro Racing to supervise this project, which I accepted to do. So 2016 was really the first season of starting to get to grips with it, and 2017 has been our true debut season where we've perfected a number of changes, including the rebrand- ing. The sport was previously called AMA Pro Flat Track. Okay, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's a bit of a mouthful, and there's this inherent confusion. "So you guys are the AMA?" "No, no, we're not the AMA." "But you're AMA Racing?" "Yes we are, so?" "But isn't there another AMA Racing?" "Yes there is. They sanction all amateur sport, we sanction all Pro Sport. " "So you're not the AMA? I'm totally confused!" So what we needed to do is that old cliché "The by-product was that we satisfied all the dirt bike manufacturers by now having a dedicated singles class for their bikes. So everybody came out ahead—we should have done it decades ago."