Page 14 - PULSE-FOUR

Do you prefer these “parking lot” style tracks as a designer just because it gives you more freedom to do as you please?
Totally. One thing that I like about Supermoto in general is that there’s no rulebook for the track -- we try to go with a certain percentage of dirt and for a long time we would announce that it’s 30% dirt and 70% asphalt; nowadays we’re actually seeing a lot more dirt. In fact, this Sturgis event is probably going to have about 75% dirt and even some of the national series events have been a much higher percentage of dirt. It allows for bigger tracks in some cases and
it allows us to take advantages of
opportunities and condense these
tracks.
Talk a little bit about the Super- motoUSA event at Sturgis. It has to be cool just because of the atmosphere of the Rally as well as part of the course being a street circuit. Is that a fairly common thing?
It’s not uncommon at all anymore, but
this is the only event this year that
we’re doing on the SupermotoUSA
calendar that will be run on city streets. It makes for
a neat environment and a lot of times, the spectators don’t know what they’re getting until they get there, and then they see bikes flying by at ninety miles per hour. I had been to Sturgis before, but never to the Motorcycle Rally -- it’s just a sleepy little town and a beautiful part of the country, but during the Rally it’s just amazing. It’s kind of a bucket list thing and it’s not something that everyone wants to go back and do every year, but I’ll definitely enjoy the next three or four years out there. We’re there for the races, but there’s an awful lot more to do and see. We decided this year with the Sturgis event that the superstars of Supermoto are all over forty years old, so there’s a few of them that are in their thirties, but they’re all Vet category riders now, especially guys like Jeff Ward and even the Bostrom brothers. We want to have this event and do it for the next three or four years and feature these Vet riders -- we’ll still have an invitation- al pro class for the younger riders -- but we want to keep these guys that have a lot of history in Super- moto engaged in the sport.
14 THE PULSE • ISSUE FOUR
Super
Your son Gage is a multi-time Supermoto Champion and the 2015 MotoAmerica KTM RC Cup Champion. It must be cool to share your passion with him and see him have so much success in the sport.
Absolutely. He races less of my stuff these days because he’s often out of the area or whatever, but it’s absolutely rewarding -- especially with my son
and his accomplishments to see how it’s crossed over to other disciplines, because he’s even done a little bit of flat track and had success there. It’s equally re- warding for me to see the accom- plishments of Cameron Beaubier, Bobby Fong, Wyatt Farris, Elena Myers, and even JD Beach raced a handful of our races back in the day -- I’ve got tons of examples of riders that honed their skills or got their first opportunity to ride on asphalt with SupermotoUSA. Back then it was really hard for a young teenager to get on a road race track, because it wasn’t
something that the insurance companies would allow. Not by design but just because we were doing it and we were in the right part of the world, a lot of racers got their start or got their asphalt experience at a young age racing Supermoto. I’ve watched firsthand how it worked well for Gage, because there’s some- thing about it that I think gives them a lot of confi- dence, teaches them to ride a motorcycle well, and clearly it works. Road racers have that skill set if they spend some time on Supermoto.
What was it like balancing the responsibili- ties of being a promoter and a dad at the races?
Once he sort of got into the pro ranks as a teenager, a lot more attention goes into what he’s doing and
it was a balancing act for me to try and divide my time and energy doing what I needed to do with the events, but also I was preoccupied with the well-be- ing of my son and his success out there. There were absolutely some challenges and stressful moments,
>>