It’s hard to conjure up images of the early days of motorcycling without visualizing some mad man in a suit screaming down a dirt path at 60 with nothing but spectacles on to protect him from certain doom. I’ve always been enamored with this era of motorcycle history, and more specifically the sports that emerged from the time. Flat Track racing is, in my mind, the premiere form of American motorcycle racing.
Sure we host Moto GP at COTA and sure we’ve got Nicky Hayden out there on the track somewhere, but when I think of die hard American motorcycle racing, I think of Flat Track. I think of Bruce Brown’s On Any Sunday. I think of steel boots and no brakes.
Recently I had the chance to chat with the CEO of American Flat Track, Michael Lock about where the sport’s been, and most importantly where it’s headed.
Ted Gushue: Start at the beginning and when you get to the end, stop.
Michael Lock: There really is quite an interesting back story to where we are. I think it’s one of the reasons why we’re enjoying so much momentum now is that we’ve actually got a real American story to tell which I think is capturing everybody’s imagination. Flat track racing goes all the way back to the 1920’s. It is the original American motorcycle racing.
TG: Who were the guys that were participating back then? This had to be one of the most dangerous forms of motorsport at the time.
ML: I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. First, the machines themselves were fairly rudimentary. Second, somebody had come up with this amazingly whiz-bang idea to race the bikes with no brakes.
TG: These were tank shifters, many of them. Dangerous machines.
ML: Oh yeah. I think the first sanctioned race by the AMA, which really would be the birth of the professional sport, was way back in 1924. Harley-Davidson dominated then as they have done up until quite recently. Harley won that race. That’s really where it kicked off.
TG: Walk me through the decision to take the brakes off. What were they thinking?
Leave a Reply