PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN J NELSON
Geoff May is no stranger to the high banks of Daytona. It’s his 16th year racing at the Daytona International Speedway and tomorrow for the American Sportbike Racing Association sanctioned Daytona 200, May will start from pole position.
For the 34-year-old Georgian, it’s just the boost he needs. After a rough season with a struggling new EBR team in World Superbike (one that could potentially put anyone off racing), May was left without a ride at late notice. And unfortunately for May, the plans he was working on for a MotoAmerica—the newly formed AMA Superbike championship—fell through. Wanting to race and with no options on the table, May reached out to his fans on facebook and Project Mayday was born.
“I went on my Fan Page on Facebook and reached out to my fans to see if anybody had a contact for a title sponsor or somebody that’d be interested in backing my effort if I decided to go to Daytona,” May said. “A handful of people said, ‘try doing a crowd-sourcing campaign.’ I honestly didn’t what that was at the time. Then some guys posted the site that I used—gofundme.com.
“I went on there and figured, ‘hey, I got nothing to lose.’ I’m either going to sit at home and wish I went racing or I could give this a shot. So I did it on Friday afternoon around five o’clock and by Monday morning I had over $4,000 dollars to go racing.”
Although it was short of the $10,000 goal, it was enough for him to take on the rest of the risk financially to go racing at Daytona. Add to that, he already had bought an Yamaha R6 two weeks before from a salvage auction online.
“It’s really cool. Especially how there’s been kind of a decline in spectators out at the races,” he said. “It shows that people really do care. And the fans that come to the races, that follow it, are very passionate about it. After last year not having something very decent. For me it just made me feel good. That people still care and that they actually want to see people race enough that they’re willing to put their hard-earned money towards it. It’s really inspiring. I was ready just to kind of say, ‘you know what, it’s not working out. I’ll just hang out and see what happens and not worry about racing.’ But to see that kind of response, it’s like, yeah I got to do it. Fans want to see me race. I want to race. I got to make it happen.”
And it wasn’t just fans, people around the industry stepped up too.
“It’s very humbling not to have a ride and the fact that all those fans donated all that money,” he said. “I reached out to the racing community and the response was overwhelming there as well.”
Including Perry Melneciuc, veteran road race mechanic and Project1 Atlanta founder, who won the 200 with Joey Pasacarella in 2012.
“He [Perry] happened to have a lot of the parts needed still for the bikes, the quick change stuff for the pit stops,” May said. “He was willing to be gracious enough to go over how they did it and why they did that…”
Perry, and a few others, also recommended Brian Livengood, who lives near May, to build his engine. So Livengood built the engine and did all the mapping and tuning for May’s R6. And jumping on board to be his crew chief for the event was William Myers, who worked with Celtic Racing and just returned stateside after a two-year stint with Paul Bird’s MotoGP effort.
“I feel really confident that no one’s going to have a faster bike than I am,” May said. “It’s just really all fallen in place. It’s a really neat deal. A lot of veterans coming together to help put this deal together for me and to make sure I have all the equipment and to do the things right. I’ve got a good bike underneath me, so I’m really excited about it.”
And while his year in World Superbike with the struggling EBR team was rough, May learned something from it.
“I’ve always, my entire career tried to walk away from every weekend and learn something,” May said. “The big thing in racing World Superbike I learned is—stay positive and do the best you can with what you have; and never give up. Grind it out ‘til the job is done. It really helped my skill set. I know it didn’t show in the results, but I feel like I’m a much sharper, better racer.
“It was tough showing up to racetracks that you’ve never seen before, in a World Superbike field and missing practice sometimes. The first session is part of qualifying in World Superbike—you have to go right away. There’s no, ‘hey, let me figure out which way this track goes, you have to go instantly. So coming to Daytona, a track I’ve been to for 16 years; For me it feels like a cakewalk. It feels really, really easy and confidence inspiring.”
With his experience and his team effort, May feels good about his chances.
“I think we have good chances,” he said. “I mean, I think I’ve got myself to a point in my career now that I’m a better racer. I think I have probably more experience on this racetrack than anybody that’s going to be a front-runner, except for maybe Steve Rapp. It’s my 16th year racing at Daytona. And I’ve had some good races in the past, I have multiple AMA national podiums here, and raced for the win here and missed it by just a little bit in the past. I feel really confident. The 200’s a different race… I’ve run it on a 1000. I’ve run it on a 600. I’ve run it at night. I kind of know what it’s all about. I think that experience will help me with whatever kind of curve balls get thrown at us.”
For May, without a title sponsor to run a MotoAmerica campaign, it looks as though he’ll have to sit out a year in racing unless some good fortune comes his way. So he’s all in for Daytona. A pole-position is not a bad place to start.
