Larry Lawrence | April 6, 2016
Former World Grand Prix Champion Kevin Schwantz hatched the idea of bringing AMA Pro Flat Track to COTA. (Gold & Goose photo)
Kevin Schwantz had an idea to bring more fans and attention to the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas weekend at the Circuit of the Americas. The former Grand Prix World Champion’s notion was to bring an AMA Pro Flat Track race to COTA.
“They loved it and said make it happen,” Schwantz said. “So I got with Michael Lock and Steve (McLaughlin) and we kind of kicked it around a little bit more in Las Vegas. Sometimes these things can get shoved aside and be forgotten about in the off season, but I just kept the ball rolling.”
Steve McLaughlin’s SMI is promoting the AMA Pro Flat Track’s newest event utilizing last year’s X Games circuit modified based on a Chris Carr design, with work to enhance drainage as well as stability of the surface. Veteran track builder Dennis Pearson constructing the COTA flat track. The race is being called the Harley-Davidson Lone Star Half Mile, but the track is smallish as Half-Miles go and should provide a unique test with the big Grand National Twins on a tighter oval.
Schwantz raced flat track a few times in his youth during the amateur program at the Houston Astrodome, borrowing race bikes from his uncle, AMA Pro Darryl Hurst.
“I’d ride the short track and the TT in different classes and I’d usually win a class or two,” Schwantz recalls. “I was going up against the kids who raced flat track full time. I’d start practicing about the time my uncle was getting ready.”
The AMA Pro Grand National Twins fire up for the first time in 2016 this Saturday at COTA. (Larry Lawrence photo)
Schwantz hopes that the Grand National at COTA will serve as a springboard for some grassroots flat track racing at the facility.
“I’d love this race develop into a big yearly AMA National event and then maybe I can start promoting some regional events at the track. I’d like to get some of that crowd we’re missing in Austin out to COTA and get them interested in the facility with something that’s a little less expensive than a Formula One or a MotoGP or a World Endurance Championship. Get them coming out on a Friday, Saturday night on weekly or monthly basis and try and grow it.”
This will be the opening event for the AMA Pro Flat Track Twins machines. As usual Bryan Smith and Jared Mees are among the big favorites coming into the race. If you recall Mees had the X Games race won last year when his bike threw a chain. Smith went on to win. Brad Baker, Sammy Halbert, Jake Johnson and Kenny Coolbeth, Jr. are also riders many are looking to do well at COTA.
Halbert, who won the opening round of the Daytona Short Track doubleheader, has an early season GNC1 championship lead with 40 points, three ahead of Johnson’s 37 points.