Posts Tagged ‘American Flat Track’

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Up Shift – The State of Montana is now the third state to have legal motorcycle lane-filtering. 

Motorcyclists in the Big Sky State can overtake slow or stopped traffic by filtering between the lanes of traffic. But they have to stay at 20 MPH or below while doing so.

My Take – While I tremendously applaud the efforts of the motorcycle community in Montana for making this happen, was there much need for it? There are so few people in Montana how often will conditions allow lane-filtering?

ON THE PLUS SIDE…Other, vastly more populated, states (Oregon and Virginia for example) are also looking at legalization of motorcycle lane-filtering. Maybe the momentum is building for more states to pass the law.

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Up Shift – Harley Davidson my soon offer a bolt on supercharger for its V-Twin motorcycles. Cycle World is reporting that the Motor Company is working on the supercharger as part of it’s Screamin’ Eagle performance line. If you are not familiar with the Screamin’ Eagle line it is their in-house performance division that develops products (cams, exhausts, engines, etc.) to “hop-up” your motorcycle horsepower and torque. 

My Take – With the retraction going on at Harley Davidson I am a bit surprised with this development.  Harley has killed many new bikes designs, dropped out of racing and closed production lines so this new part is more the exception along the lines of the Pan American adventure motorcycle.

It will be interesting to see if it makes it into the parts catalog.

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Up Shift – Over the last few years American Flat Track racing has made quite a comeback, at least until Covid.  With the racing season to start soon Royal Enfield is joining the series with a factory sponsored team.

Johnny Lewis will be riding for Royal Enfield and the company is expecting good things to come from their involvement with American Flat Track.

My Take – This is great for the sport! More factory team involved means a greater chance for success.  But with American Flat Track on NBC and tape delayed how many fans are going to get to see Johnny and the other racers.

I don’t think that I am to different from the other fans in that if I know the outcome I am not going to watch the event.

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Ride on, Ride Safe

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I have started a new type of post to replace the “5 Things That Caught My Eye” articles. I am going to “Up Shift” and quickly discuss motorcycle news articles that I thought was cool or good and “Down Shift” on those that are not. So bear with me as this evolves over the next few months. Feel free to comment or even suggest news articles for discussion.

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Upshift: Royal Enfield “Build Train Race” – Royal Enfield has challenged four women to Build Train and Race Flat Track motorcycles based on their new Interceptor 650.

The participants are: Melissa Paris, professional road racer, Lana McNaughton founder of the Women’s Moto BuildTrainRace_WHT-300x271Exhibit, Motorcycle enthusiast Jillian Deschenes and DIY shop owner Andrea Lothorp. Each has already received their Royal Enfield Interceptor motorcycles and are building their bikes now.

After some training they will race their Royal Enfield Flat Trackers during this year’s Milwaukee Mama Tried event. Check out the Royal Enfield Build Train Race website.

My take: I think this is great for a first year and hope it is not a one off!  In fact, while American Flat Track is a co-ed racing series, it might make sense for Royal Enfield to work with AFT on an amateur “spec” series for women. Run it on the same weekend with the Flat Track races. The pro series might just become even more co-ed in a few years.

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Downshift: Yamaha & Suzuki Leave MotoAmerica – Looks like the old racing statement of “Win on Sunday Sell on Monday” is no longer true. Sales at both Yamaha and Suzuki motorcycles are down and the companies are just not willing to spend the money on factory road racing in America.

motoamerica-logoBoth manufacturers are keeping their fingers in MotoAmerica supporting, for Yamaha, Estenson Racing and Team Hammer getting Suzuki support. But that does not lessen the sting of no direct factory teams in America’s premier motorcycle racing league.

My take: This news really hurts after the 2019 racing season. MotoAmerica was the best racing in the world with any of six teams capable of winning.  On top of that bad news, we know that a MotoAmerica fan favorite JD Beach has moved to American Flat Track (he ran both last year). We still have not heard what is going to happen with Josh Herrin or Tony Elias.

It is going to be interesting to see how things play out this MotoAmerica season maybe some fresh blood will rise to the top.

ama-supercross-logo-vector-downloadAMA Supercross has left Fox Sports Network and moved to NBC Sports Channel, I am sure Supercross got a better deal financially but the fans are screwed.  First race is January 4th 2019.

Most of the fans of Supercross have to watch the races from home, few of the races are near most of us, especially if you live on the east coast. That being a fact, NBCSC is delaying the broadcast of 7 of the races. The Nashville race, for example, is delayed until 11PM EST. My wife and I love Supercross but we are not going to watch until 3 in the morning races of which we know the results.

Now NBCSC has a fix for this delay issue!

For the small fee of $75 you can watch all the races LIVE on line, imagine that! Well no thanks, we will pass. As an aside… I think NBC’s coverage of most sports is poor so I am hoping for the best with Supercross.

So now we get delayed, sometimes by weeks, broadcast of American Flat Track and now Supercross. NBC does hate motorcycle racing!

If you would like to hear what we had to say, regarding this issue, on the DAWGHOUSE MOTORCYCLE RADIO click here!

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A few posts ago I wrote my thought on the new electric motorcycles that Harley Davidson is bringing to market in the next couple years.  Now there is more information available and that got me thinking. (RUN for the hills) 

First a little catch up for those that might have missed it.  Harley Davidson has invested in Alta Motors whose claim to fame is alta motorsthe Redshift MX (the equivalent of a 250cc motocross bike) that has won some of the Red Bull Straight Rhythm races.  Alta also has SuperMoto bike, but I did not see it on their website. Alta and Harley are going to work together to bring two electric motorcycles to market under the Harley colors.  The name of the new bike(s) is Revelation. 

Now here is where my Revelation comes in! 

I was thinking that this would be an interesting twist on the Harley Davidson involvement with American Flat Track.  Harleyflat track does not have any motorcycles in the singles Flat Track series. Soooooo 

Why not enter a Harley team on the new electric motorcycles?  Could you not see Shayna Texter and Kolby “Flying Tomato” Carlile wining on Harley electric bikes?

BUT WAIT… There’s more! 

During this week’s DawgHouse Motorcycle Radio podcast (show #453), my buddy Phil tossed a greater even better idea out before I could even get started, and I fully agreed with his idea! 

Harley Davidson should run an exhibition race between the heats at “SUPERCROSS”  for me…. MIND BLOWN.  Phil hit ama-supercross-logo-vector-downloadthis out of the park.

Yes, Harley has not had dirt bikes for years.  BUT WHY NOT!  What a way to get a product (already proven) in front of people and get them thinking of Harley electric motorcycles. If they are talking about your electric dirt bikes they may come in to see your electric street bikes!

What would you think about seeing 20 of the top amateur supercross riders racing on identical dirt bikes with the Harley name?  On national TV every week for the entire Supercross season, with commercials for their electric motorcycles sprinkled about.

As I see it… what the heck… do both!  Harley Davidson electric motorcycles racing Flat Track and doing exhibition Supercross racing WOW!!!

What do you guys think? (I reserve the right to poo-poo on any negative comments 😊 )

This week on the DawgHouse Motorcycle News, Rants & Racing show #382

Phil has a minor rant about … Ghost Rider?!/!?!  Yes he does, Marvel Agents of SHEILD has twisted is nipple becasuse  it is GHOST RIDER not Ghost Driver!  IMHO they hired an actor and then found out he could not ride a motorcycle! It might not be real motorcycle news but it is fun.

Mondial Motorcycles makes a comeback with a scrambler! Ken’s motorcycle news story is about Mondial Motorcycles coming back from the grave.  Neither Phil or I recall ever really hearing about Mondial.  Of course when Ken was riding wheels were still made of stone.

Riding the Isle of Mann TT Course on one wheel. 37 miles on one wheel, gusts up to 40 miles an hour and the course was not closed for the stunt.  This is what Dougie Lampkin had to overcome to do something no one had done before.

AMA Pro Flat Track makes some big changes. Starting with re-branding as American Flat Track.

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