American Flattrack

Between JD’s / Estenson’s official announcement, plus a rumor of the FT750 engine being banned? WTF is going on in American Flat Track? Did NASCAR DMG the series like they did to road racing?

I’ll admit I stopped paying attention a couple years ago after watching rider after rider in AFT Singles become paralyzed / killed / TBI and just lost the stomach to see that, so just haven’t paid attention. Last I knew the series was on the up still.

 

https://www.americanflattrack.com/assets/view/28578/2024+AFT+Rule+Change+Summary.pdf

So, bikes based on production engines can be lighter. Race engines are being restricted to 750cc max while production can go to 800cc for liquid cooled, 900cc for air cooled. Race engines WILL run throttle body restrictors this year. Doesn't seem like radical changes?

 

Devil is in the details, me thinks? Bigger changes with respect to what everyone has invested in here to fore. This isn't like the Moto GP paddock, with major factory engineering occuring in the off-season.

I still haven't understood all of the implications myself, but we're seeing many changes this off-season. Indian needed to be equalized a bit, but KTM was just getting their program working.

Just my $0.02...

 

Preface this all with, these are my observations, and biases. I am not actually in the AFT paddock. Just an interested fan.

Pro flat track teams are always running on the bleeding edge of broke, worse than road racing. And the series ownership requires teams to pay to race. This has been a bone of contention for a number of long term fans. AFT also requires a certain level of professional image to run twins class that isn't "traditional" flat track. Big transport trucks, team shirts, that kind of stuff. No more "man in a van with a plan". Teams, and sponsors, blow in and out of flat track with regularity. They come in with enthusiasm and money. And usually leave after either doing what they feel they came to do. Or, more likely, finding out it's a big money suck with little financial return. Like most motor racing.

Indian was warned when they came in with the FTR, that AFT intended to go to only production based motors. They were given a timeline, 3-4 years as I recall, to get a production based racer ready. They never did, and AFT didn't hold themselves to the initial plan. Pissing off Harley enough that they walked away from their major marketing success. Because they were all in with a prod based motor, the XG750R. That then proceeded to get stomped by the FTR(no surprise). Now AFT are finally weening all the teams off of the FTR by slowly taking away the benefits of a race only motor over production motors. First it was the variable crank weights, then restrictors in the intake, then weight changes. Unfortunately some teams are so invested in the FTR they may not be able to convert to something else. No other manufacturers have shown enough interest in twins class to do anything new and specific to flat track. There's not enough return on investment. So, you have the occasion dedicated team building up a platform to make them competitive. Limited by budget and manpower/time investments. And that's how a new bike enters into twins class. Sponsorships are already thin because it's a niche within a niche sport. And most sponsors are not interested in waiting a couple years to see if a new platform WILL be competitive.

Old fans can't stop whining online about "The Good Old Days" being so awesome, and the racing will never be the same. Talking incredible crap about the current racing. Which makes it even less appealing to sponsors and manufacturers. If they "fans" do nothing but talk shit about the racing why should they invest? And so the money runs shorter.

Judging from rumors, there are going to be a number of KTM teams in twins class in the coming year. Some are teams converting from FTR to KTM. Not the one that did the best with a KTM last year. Again, par for the course in flat track.

Pro flat track teams are notorious for not announcing the next years plan until just before Daytona, or whatever the first race of the year is. Usually because they are scrambling to figure out how to pay for it all. Or just too busy building bikes.

The best show is the singles class. Every major brand usually has representation. Though there is no factory direct involvement anymore. KTM closed up shop on their singles team at the end of this year. There's some backdoor support from Honda going to Turner Racing, and Yamaha seems to be throwing some money to Estenson. But, no one else is footing team bills directly there. Pretty much everyone offers contingency, though.

 

I'll definitely agree with the above statement ^^ about the negativity of the older fans. I would hear it on Facebook and at the track and it's pretty wild. Even on the local level the negativity of the track prep, promoters, etc. is way worse than any other form of motorcycle racing I've participated in. Even for me, I went from watching every race and going to a few pro races as well as racing locally myself to unfollowing the facebook groups and not watching anything in just a couple of years.

I will say riding a TT track is still one of my favorite types of riding I've ever done

 

The part about requiring rigs and haulers died after the first race of that season and everyone keeps bringing it up. There was NEVER a requirement for big semi trucks, but they did want a more professional appearance which they absolutely succeeded. But multiple riders, used their vans and box vans with no issues.

As far as the twins, I can talk for years about that. But you're mostly correct. The issue is that Mees is just that good and so is his team at adapting. Some of the smaller teams, struggled with changing cams and pistons to change the power delivery to still make the indian the bike to beat, which it is on average.

The Yamaha has by far the most development, and team Estensen has the resources and budget to do whats necessary and with Tommy hayden basically running the show, hes hired the best techs and even some from road racing to help develop elecronics. The work is paying off.

the singles is my favorite class becuase the bikes are so even. The issue is that theres 10 different dudes that can win and it pays between $1300-$1700 to win. Which is fucking peanuts without contingencies and support.

You are gonna see multiple teams backing off or downright stopping. Estensen went from 4 riders to 2. KTM went 2 to zero. Turner Honda is downsizing a lot.

We are in a make it or break it for Flat track as the sport will always be there, but if we lose Mission or Estensen, we are fucked.

 

The singles class needs to run OEM motors. Not touchy. Motors are the biggest expense, some over 10k and are good for one race weekend. If we want to keep it to where we have new blood coming in we need to keep at least one FN class "cheap".

This goes for roadracing too. It used to be we had SS classes where you couldn't change the throttle asssy, master, windscreen etc. Now days you can change just about everything even the motor. To keep it simple I'm for NO motor work, but let everyone change the stuff that is visable. Sorry about the derail

 

I watched the tv broadcast (when I remembered it was on) and some of the races were awesome.
One big thing I came away questioning were some of the tracks they went to and wtf they were thinking. One place, I knew like it was my backyard. Raced there, went to the mall a mile or two away often and saw everyone from 38 special to guns and roses at. It was a hella shithole death trap back then and looked worse this last summer. Maybe they thought it’d draw a crowd and no idea if it did but I was shitting twinkees every time they went into the corners.

 

RE: Old timers wanting the "good old days" to return.

I don't follow FT or even domestic RR as closely as I once did. However, I think I can present an analogy that applies: F1 and NASCAR racing - today and yesteryear.

I hate the Hollywood treatment of F1. WTF is the CEO of Apple doing waving a checkered flag? Or all these Hollywierd types I have no idea who they are?

Why are they there? To create attention, of course. It brings in the newer fans of the sport. Why didn't it work for NASCAR back in the day?

Yes, it did, for a moment. But look at NASCAR today. A shell of what it once was. The old timers? We gave up on it long ago, never to return as before. Multiple stages, staged cautions, etc. What BS.

I can assure you the same will happen with F1.

Now, back to FT - once the "experiments" end, and the "fan of the current trend" folks leave to the next big thing, who will be there to support the sport?

No one. Good luck with that, folks!

 

The Hollywierd thing isn't a recent thing. Roman Polanski made a whole documentary about Jackie Stuart's Mocanco Grand Prix in 1972. Nothing more Hollywierd that Roman Polanski.

The problem is, not doing anything over a decade ago to stop the XR domination, would have meant the death of flat track eventually. Because it really wasn't doing that well at the time as a defacto spec class using a 30+ year old platform. The "good old days" were the 60s and 70s to these twits. Maybe the 80's, but that's sullied by the Honda treatment debacle. Which another segment will repeatedly bring up as an example of how those in charge will ruin flat track in favor of Harley Davidson. Nevermind the fact that those in charge now are not those that were in charge at the time Honda got out of flat track. And that Harley left anyway.

 

Well this is pretty cool for those of us needing a mid-winter racing fix:

Winter Throwdown Flat Track Race To Be Shown On MotoAmerica Live+ - MotoAmerica

 

Thanks Scott!

 

@Robby-Bobby's got a hand in this shindig also.

 

Figured he would have chimed in here by now but of course, he is the hardest working man in show business

 

I thought I did comment.

 

Yet another flat track race promo without a single bit of info on where it's taking place...

 

Based on the awesome artwork in the poster, the North Pole.

Seriously though, that is killer art.

 

Based on the MA link it is in Callahan FL. That appears to be just North of Jacksonville. It is about 4 hrs away from our place in Eastpoint. Maybe I should go.

 

Yep, that's where I found it as well. No offense to CText, but it's no where on his website that I could find. He's not the only one that's guilty of it though. The majority of race promo's for flat track always leave out the track name and/or location.

 

Sorry guys, I think that is an old flyer that I earlier on in the year. I attached the newer one we did with the schedule.

The Live+ graphic was posted with the location on my website.




And the schedule:





Hope to see many of you at Callahan Speedway in Callahan, Florida (Right outside of Jacksonville) for the Winter Throwdown Vol.6 event.

We have our King of Throwdown 1v1 bracket challenge on Thursday January 11 for the top dogs. Best out of 3, single-elimination, one versus one races.

January 12 and 13 are the races.

If you can't be there, you can watch it on motoamericaliveplus.com/throwdown