AMERICAN FLAT TRACK CEO MICHAEL LOCK: PART 2
P66
INTERVIEW
I saw that, yes! That would
provide a whole new dimension
to the championship—the greater
diversity of powerplants, the
greater diversity of brand sup-
port, the more different manu-
facturers from different coun-
tries, the better for the sport.
What sort of package do
you see AFT developing into
outside of the USA? Because,
it's America's homegrown
sport—but Speedway was
Australia's homegrown sport
which emigrated to Britain
and then the rest of the world.
Look at the huge success
of the Speedway GP series
today. Do you think AFT can
become IFT?
There's no doubt whatsoever
about that. I've been thinking
about this for a couple of years,
and the first stage is to secure
international broadcasting. I want
the world to see our TV show, so
I'm currently negotiating with two
pretty powerful entities to secure
an international broadcast deal
for 2018. I'm very confident that
we will end up going with one of
them. They're both names you'd
recognize and trust, and one of
them would make you raise an
eyebrow and say, "Really, are they
interested?" What we must do first
is beam our sport into the homes
of European and Asian audienc-
es. I am currently in discussions
with a rather well known annual
motorcycle festival held on a small
island in Western Europe who are
very interested in showcasing our
sport at their festival. I'm hoping to
get that wrapped up in order to be
able to do that for 2018, between
two of our rounds. We're going
to have to collect all the bikes, fly
them over, do our stuff, and fly
them back for the next round.
Would that not mean con-
structing a purpose-built track?
It may not! They may not go
around an oval. They may go up
a hill.
Lock says
2018 will be a
year of fine-
tuning the AFT
Championship.
"We need probably
50 percent of the
series to be miles,
because any mile is
like the Coliseum in
ancient Rome. It's
a spectacle!"
