| December 23, 2016
For years Bryan Smith had come just shy of the coveted Grand National Championship, but in 2016, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. It was time for champagne.
Bryan Smith and his tuner Ricky Howerton have an expression between the pair of them about good news or bad news: “Are we drinking champagne or Jack Daniels?” If you’re in racing, good news means winning, more importantly winning the championship. On the flip side, coming just shy of a championship year after year, not so good. Going into 2016, it was a unanimous decision that they were tired of Jack Daniels. They had plenty of wins, but not the Grand National Championship. So in 2016, the end goal was champagne.
Following a tumultuous 2016 season and yet another close battle with rival Jared Mees, Smith and Howerton got their answer—they’d be drinking champagne after the Santa Rosa Mile AMA Pro Flat Track final. And not only did they drink it, they doused themselves in it while standing on top of the podium, surrounded by their team, family and friends. The Michigan rider had just secured his first AMA Grand National Championship.
To read this in Cycle News Digital Edition Magazine, click HERE
Story and Photography Andrea Wilson
Getting It Done
Just two points separated Smith and three-time Grand National Champion Mees going into the final race of the season and, as it turned out, as well as the final lap and final corner! The championship was ultimately decided in the final turn of the year at the Santa Rosa Mile when, separated by just inches, Smith slammed the door shut on Mees and locked up the 2016 championship.
“If it came down to racing, I was going to win it or wear it,” Smith said about his mindset going into the Santa Rosa final. “I think the last lap you can watch that and realize it. I was either going to beat him or crash trying—that was for damn sure. I just needed to win that for everybody that’s been behind me—my family that’s been let down by my bad luck or my mistakes, my team, all the guys that have been behind me. It was just like, ‘this cannot get taken away this time. This cannot go the wrong way. I’ve got to do it!’”
Racing from the outside looks like an individual sport, but that is far from the truth. It’s also a sport that requires teamwork. The Crosley-Radio Howerton Motorsports team is a tightly knit group of people, all working hard together for one goal—the AMA Grand National Championship. Adding to that appreciation is that Smith’s crew is essentially a bunch of weekend warriors with day jobs; after all, being on the payroll would take away from the race budget.
“They’ve all worked so hard and they want to win it,” he said. “Ricky in particular wanted to win it, probably more than I did. For him to work as hard as he has and everything he has done it just drove me that much more.”
So the Nicky Hayden 2006 Valencia sticker—a stack of chips with a blend of the Detroit skyline with the words “All In”—on Smith’s helmet was not just for show. Smith was using it as inspiration, refusing to let another title slip out of his grasp.
“A lot of racers can say ‘that was as hard as I can ride’ or whatever, but it’s a pretty crazy mindset, and probably only a few racers have ever went into a race going, ‘man, this is literally—all in—where it doesn’t matter, whatever it takes, whether you’re going to crash or not, you’re going to do it. So obviously, luckily, I didn’t crash, but rolling up to the starting line, it’s almost an eerie feeling in your gut. Like, well, I’m going to win this Championship or I’m going to be getting hauled out of here in an ambulance.”
As Smith came back to the finish line, one of his guys said, “man you write stories.” And he was right. It was a story-tale ending that could not have been written better—a race for the ages that will stick in the minds of those who witnessed it.
But surely, if Smith was writing a script, he would have written an easier one, especially for the season itself. It literally was a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows.
“It’s no wonder that it came down to the last lap, last corner, because me and Jared were damn near even all year,” he said. “Really, what set it all up is we left Daytona with exactly the same points. I would have some good races and he would have a bad one, and a decent one. Then he’d have a couple good races, I’d have a bad one and a decent one. He had some mechanical failures. I had a crash at Peoria that kind of was the last straw. A lot of the other races we came out even, where I would win and he’d get second, or he would win and I’d get second.”
It wasn’t the first time Smith had a season of highs and lows, so he knew that the outcome could have very easily gone the other way.
“Obviously, I’m thankful it worked out the way it did, but it was real easy for it to not work out that way,” he said. “From just the crash in Peoria and in Charlotte with the steel shoe falling off—just amazing how dramatic it was. You couldn’t ever plan for that stuff.”
Years Of Disappointment
There were so many years of disappointment for Smith—many years of bad luck, many years of being nearly there, many years of no crown. So to really appreciate his story, you have to look at those bad luck, close-but-no-cigar years. The one that stands out most is the Calistoga Half Mile in 2014, when Smith went into the penultimate round with a nine-point lead on Mees; he left with a 13-point deficit. In a freak deal, the oil-site glass of Smith’s engine got cracked by a rock, resulting in bits of smoke and eventually the black flag, which he ignored. He finished the race in second, but was later DQ’d for not adhering to the black flag and pulling off the track. This bit of bad luck ultimately cost him the title. Mees went on to win his second AMA Grand National Championship by three points.
A disqualification nearly put an end to the Smith’s title hopes this year, as well. Right before the series headed to the final two rounds of the season on the mile tracks—Smith’s specialty—Mees’ team protested Smith’s rear wheel which did not conform to AMA rules at the Central N.Y. Half Mile. However, Smith’s team had previously gotten written approval from the AMA’s technical director to use that wheel, so Smith appealed the disqualification. The appeal went to an independent appeal board where Smith proved his case and won.
“Obviously I would have lost the Championship if that disqualification would have stood,” he said. “I was disappointed that they even disqualified me, but I was thankful that AMA Pro let me appeal it. It was almost like when that happened and they actually DQ’d me, that was kind of when I thought my bad luck finally showed up for the season. Like, this is the time I get screwed out of another championship.”
Smith still kept fighting and kept the faith that they would win their appeal.
“Once I knew the appeal board would be made up of outside interest, and that they could see all the facts, I knew they would see that we were in the right and everything we were using on my bike, that my wheel was approved,” he said. “I just wish that whole mess would not have happened. I’m thankful it worked out, because that would have been another part of the drama, that if it would have gone the wrong way, that would have been where our Championship was lost for sure.”
Although it was righted and Smith went into Santa Rosa leading Mees by a small margin, his history of bad luck still clung to the back of his mind.
“No doubt about it,” he said about that dark cloud that seems to hang over his head. “This year, going into Santa Rosa, I was still thinking, ‘it’s mine to lose,’ and just waiting for the bad luck to show up like it always does. It’s kind of been the story of my pro career. I get so close and have the rug yanked out from underneath me. If something completely off the wall would have happened at Santa Rosa it would not have surprised me, but I would have been 100 percent pissed, no doubt.”
It was a burden that got heavier and heavier for the guy who grew up in flat track’s title town, Flint, Michigan, the home of 16 GNC titles and more if you add the surrounding area.
Good-Bye Monkey
“It has been a giant burden even though I’m pretty content with my career and my life,” he says. “The last couple years of losing hasn’t been fun or cool by any means, but I’ve been able to just shake it off and go on and do what I do and enjoy life. But when people remind you, when fans and friends and family remind you of it—that you should have won it, and why didn’t you win it, or whatever, it kind of gets old. So it’s good to get that monkey of the ‘would have, should have,’ off my back.”
Smith also feels that most riders would have packed it in a long time ago, carrying the burden of the bridesmaid syndrome and the weight of years of bad luck.
“I’ve had more than any racer I know of share of bad luck,” he said. “That’s why I joked at the banquet about that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in a Jared Mees shirt was going to drop down and take my [number-one] plate. Most people would have quit after some of the tough luck I’ve had.”
But Smith’s not most people. He stayed the course, put his head down and never gave up on his dream of being a GNC champion. It’s what champions do. Now that he’s got that monkey off his back, he feels he can build on it.
“It’s kind of hard to even explain,” he says. “Not that the racing is going to be any easier, or that you’re not going to try as hard, but in the past we’ve always had one race where either I’ve screwed up or a mechanical, and that’s always the one you look back on. Now that we’ve done it you don’t have to worry about tripping, you can just focus on winning. You know you can do it. You have done it. Now you’re just looking at doing it again as opposed to how in the hell are you going to do it.”
Taste Of Champagne
Now that the path to champagne has been plotted, Smith heads into 2017 with confidence. Even though the series heads into a bit of an unknown with the GNC class racing only twins, which has always been Smith’s preference, but for the first time in long time it will be on TTs and short tracks. He’ll still be with Howerton and his team but on new machinery, with factory Indian Motorcycles, and for the first time since 2003, with a teammate—2013 Grand National Champion Brad Baker. Completing the Wrecking Crew, his rival Mees will also be on an Indian.
That doesn’t bother Smith; in fact, he looks forward to it.
“I’m really excited for that because I’ve heard all the way up until two weeks ago that it was a drag race to the finish line and ‘Smith’s got so much straight line that’s why he beat you,’” Smith said. “Not that he rode it to the corner better—it’s never that. It’s always that the Kawasaki is so fast. So to be on the identical bike as some of the guys that say that the Kawasaki is the only reason I beat them will be good, because it’ll show them and myself who’s better. There’ll be no excuse at that point.”
Now that Smith has tasted championship champagne for the first time, you can bet that he wants to taste it again. Even more. CN