Notes From A Weekend With The Most Important Race Series In North America
All subscribers welcome
This wasn’t the biggest crowd to ever see me drive around a racetrack; probably that was a couple of years ago when I drove an Acura NSX pace car at the standing-room-only Long Beach Grand Prix. But it was certainly the biggest crowd to ever see me drive around Mid-Ohio, with packed grandstands and a parking lot filled to the back ranks. Too bad I wasn’t driving my Radical SR8, or even my smaller Radical PR6. Instead, I was behind the wheel of a 2015 base-model Acura ILX automatic, owned by Mid-Ohio and running a yellow/white Whelen light bar.
MotoAmerica calls it “the fastcar”, but this one wasn’t very fast, with a maximum speed of just 102mph on the same back straight my wife’s Miata can clear at 119.
Most of us know this idea better as the “safety car” in Formula 1, driven by Bernd Mayländer. My brief was very similar to his, minus the Benz-powered Aston. I had an EMT in the right seat, a fellow named Scott who worked as a medic in Alaska for years and could spin a hundred tales that would make you never want to go to Alaska, not even for a day. Our job was to follow MotoAmerica’s race classes around for their warm-up lap, in case someone crashed, and then to start behind the pack for Lap One, which is traditionally the time when most serious multi-bike crashes happen.
For the Royal Enfield “Build-Train-Race” junior female series, which runs about a 1:48 lap on Mid-Ohio Club (the Spec Miata record is 1:42) the Acura was just enough to keep the pack in view. For the other classes, it was painfully inadequate, so much so that I zipped the tread off the little Acura’s left front tire just trying to keep from being lapped. If they have me back next year, I’ll show up with my 392-powered Chrysler 300C on a set of new RE-71RSes. Which still won’t keep the Superbikes in my windshield, but will at least decrease the chances of me getting lapped.
Alright, enough about me and my stupid Acura ILX. Let’s talk about why I was there — MotoAmerica’s first race at Mid-Ohio in a decade. I didn’t know much about MotoAmerica prior to this weekend, but I learned in a hurry. Here are the classes, along with pace notes:
Royal Enfield BTR: Young women, ages 15-21, who learn about their motorcycles as they are racing them. Lap times from 1:48 to 2:07, basically SCCA Improved Touring B and C pace. When one of them crashed and had to go in the ambulance, it was the most upset I got all weekend.
Junior Cup: Young riders on Ninja 400s and YZF-R3 and the like. Maximum 50 horsepower. Lap times between 1:37 and 1:47. (I hold the Honda Challenge 1 track record for Mid-Ohio, at 1:39.137, in my World Challenge Accord, for context.) When you see them in the paddock afterwards, they’re just children, some smaller and slighter than my 15-year-old son.
Supersport: Up to 636cc. A mixture of young lions and old pros like 51-year-aged Larry Pegram, who took a podium on Saturday. Laps between 1:28 and 1:35. (My Radical PR6 runs a 1:30 flat on this layout, with about 25mph less top speed.)
Superbike: Literbikes, big twins. This is the marquee class of MotoAmerica, and it’s impressive to watch. Laps between 1:24 and 1:29. (My Radical SR8 can do a 1:26 here, on old tires, with 30mph less back-straight speed.) Hugely visceral and enjoyable.
Super Hooligan: A brilliant catch-all class for unfaired V-Twins from Harley, Indian, KTM, Suzuki, Yamaha, plus the Energica Eva Ribelle e-bike. Which does pretty well, running a 1:31 against the fastest Harley and KTMs at 1:29. Backmarkers are closer to 1:40.
King of The Baggers…
…which is what I came to talk about, because it’s the Greatest Show In Racing at the moment and a serious lesson for the rest of America’s motorsport series to learn. It started as a one-off event but the fan interest was so obvious it got turned into its own thing, and fast. These bikes weigh 620 pounds, put 175-plus horses to the back wheel, and knock on the door of 160mph on Mid-Ohio’s back straight on the way to 1:28 laps. At Laguna Seca, they’re faster than Eddie Lawson’s MotoGP Yamaha was in 1988. Just from a laws-of-physics perspective it’s brilliant to see. But why is it so important?
In a nutshell, it’s because KOTB is the only race series in America that gives normal people a chance to see their machines in competition. It’s Harley vs. Indian, on the type of motorcycle — the “bagger” — that most riders are buying today. The Harley engine is the Screamin’ Eagle 131, which you can buy for $7,299 without tuning and put into your own bagger. Indian uses a variant of the engine in their Challenger, a motorcycle I rode, and adored, several years ago.
To be fair, each and every MotoAmerica class uses production-based bikes — but the baggers are destination purchases for a remarkably large percentage of the motorcycling base, which is why the crowds are so hyped. Plus, it’s Indian vs. Harley-Davidson. What could be better than that? The liveries are fantastic, whether it’s the Stars-and-Stripes Harley, the maroon-and-gold Indian, or the various Saddlemen/Revzilla designs.
American car racing has nothing like this. NASCAR is a silhouette series operating to aerospace levels of precision. IMSA is mostly rich-guy brands until you get down to the GS and TCR classes, which are theoretically production-related but run on different days from the main event and in any case are largely made up of cars that people either can’t afford, like the GT4 McLarens, or don’t care about, like the TCR Hyundais. SRO has become something closely akin to private club racing. Everything south of that is driver-funded, pathetic to watch, or in the case of NASA and WRL, both.
And when you were done watching, you could buy a rider-endorsed tribute bagger! If, that is, you had $41k to spend.
A surprising number of people out there are willing to spend that kind of money on a bagger, even — and this is important — if they don’t normally buy expensive cars or spend cash on other luxury items. Some significant percentage of Americans have promised themselves something like the above motorcycle as a lifetime goal. Which explains why Harley and Indian can sell baggers at prices ranging from $25k to $47k for showroom-stock models. By creating an immediate performance heritage and context for baggers, KOTB also probably helps a lot of 45-year-olds rationalize and feel secure about the purchase of the Road Glide they really want, rather than the Gixxer thou they feel they should still want but which in practice will just sit in the garage until it’s resold.
I hate to admit it, but baggers really are the perfect motorcycle for how most people use bikes now: loud and obnoxious so you can show off a bit, but also comfortable for aging bodies and joints, with plenty of gadgetry and upscale features. You could ride one a long distance if you needed to; Danger Girl and I took an Indian Chieftain from Portland, OR to Denver, CO via Sturgis a while back. It’s possible to insure them for comprehensive and collision, so you can take out a loan if necessary and stretch it out over six or seven years, at which point it’s not impossible for a lot of families to cover. I
Not only is KOTB demographically and mechanically interesting, it’s also a real treat to watch. Especially live, where the 7000rpm roar of the V-twins in chorus seems to come from somewhere inside your lungs. Anyone could understand the appeal, unless they just despise motorsports, and motorcycles, and motoring in general.
What kind of future does KOTB have? Will it become a 50-bike extravaganza filled with privateers and alt-universe entries based on, say, the Honda Gold Wing and BMW R18? Will it be MotoAmerica’s ticket to more viewers, more funding, and more general relevance in the motorsports scene? Your guess is as good as mine.
It’s easy to imagine a future where a lot of “normie” bikers tune in to cheer on a favor brand or rider, as they do with NASCAR. Certainly the MotoAmerica people, who are thoroughly decent, thoughtful, and concerned about the welfare of their competitors, deserve that kind of success. There would, of course, be a downside: they’d probably have their own really nice “fastcar”, along with a driver who actually gets paid to steer the thing. I’d miss having the gig, but let me be honest: I’d come back as a spectator, too.
As my wife would say to one of my enthusiasms, glad you're enjoying it. Me, I never got bikes and never will but appreciate that others do.
I'm typing this sitting at Waterford Hills waiting for the afternoon sessions to start up in my local PCA track day. I'm almost done with my day job, as in I work from home a few hours a week and resist all efforts to take on something new. Buy me out please and we'll talk.
What's out here on a lovely Michigan Tuesday? My Cayman R, another one I know, a lovely 964 RS America, several rough but quick 996s, a couple Miata racers, a GT3, a GT4, a few Caymans and Boxster some grey, white, black or silver BMWs,and a Fiero. The instructors are primarily old guys, most older than me, which doesn't predict a great future for us.
There are no spectators or even wives/girlfriends. We are blissfully ignored. There are a few newbies whose money we need to pay for the track. It's 70 degrees in August and the sky is full of fluffy little clouds. It's a really good day.
I want to hear the Alaska stories.