Everyone expected Dallas Daniels to win the 2025 Grand National Championship, and he did. Pretty simple, right? If only.
By Chris Martin | Photography by Tim Lester & Kristen Lassen
Those lofty preseason expectations were understandable in the wake of Daniels’ magical/cursed ’24 Progressive American Flat Track campaign that marked the culmination of a single-minded, multi-year, multimillion-dollar effort on the part of Estenson Racing Yamaha.
With Jared Mees heading into retirement and the Indian FTR750 destined to be ineligible in Mission AFT SuperTwins competition the following season, 2024 represented Estenson’s last, best chance to finally vanquish that all-conquering combo.
And it all came together, until it all fell apart.
A relentless Daniels racked up a 19-point advantage over the year’s opening 10 rounds and had a number of his best tracks still ahead. However, a training crash ahead of the Peoria TT left him unconscious with a broken leg, numerous bruises and contusions, fluid in his lungs, difficulty maintaining his oxygen levels, a separated shoulder, and a shattered lifelong goal to be crowned Grand National Champion.
While Mees escaped into the sunset on his Indian with an unprecedented 10th premier-class title, Daniels improbably recovered fast enough to not only return but also score three successive podiums to close out his ill-fated campaign.
Those results, even while hobbled, issued the warning that Daniels would be more than ready to take vengeance upon anyone who dared stand in his path as he marched toward destiny the following season.
Despite being tabbed the heaviest Mission SuperTwins title favorite in several years, Daniels wouldn’t have it. “It’s not going to be like that,” he’d say. “These guys are too good.”
Whatever. Daniels came out and swept the Daytona Short Track double opener with relative ease, as expected, providing even more credence to the prognosticators who predicted he’d run roughshod over the field all season long.
But Dallas was proven prescient at the following round. At the Senoia Short Track, Rick Ware Racing’s Briar Bauman and Mission Roof Systems’ Brandon Robinson took their Harley-Davidson XG750Rs to a stunning 1-2 finish on Yamaha’s home turf.
Daniels and Estenson were further put on the back foot as the season progressed and Bauman struck up victory after victory.
The fight was on.
Looking back, Daniels said, “Coming into the year, with how I did last year, and where the rest of the competition was compared to us, I’m sure a lot of people did think it would be a cakewalk for us. I can understand why fans might have believed that. But as a racer, I knew that wasn’t going to be the case.
“I knew Briar was not going to be happy with how the last few seasons went. A two-time champion is not going to be okay with just being a midpack guy. And with Jared leaving, I knew he was going to want to be the guy who stepped up to take his place. He was going to be strong.”
While Bauman came out in full force, Daniels struggled to tap into that ’24 form everyone took for granted. While difficult to perceive behind his historic run of podiums, the Illinois native struggled to perform at his peak.
Was he missing some purpose with the loss of Mees and Indian? Perhaps. And at the same time, Dallas had to deal with the fact that the crosshairs he and every other rider in the field had previously locked on Mees had been shifted over to him while he was still operating at less than full strength.
“I did not have the off-season I had before. Coming off that injury, it was harder than I wanted to admit. I would say I was slightly unprepared physically, but even more so, I was unprepared on the mental side of things.
“And for that reason, the motorcycle was a little unprepared too. We didn’t do as much testing as we had the year before. We had to do much of our testing at the track.”
That all makes for a bad mix when thrust into combat with a fully motivated and properly armed Briar Bauman. While the RWR ace had been a race-winning presence throughout the entirety of Daniels’ time in the premier class, the two had never really engaged in a protracted confrontation.
Instead, they had each served as Mees’ primary foils. Bauman from 2019 to 2022, during which time he twice defeated Mees straight-up for the Grand National Championship, and Daniels from 2023 to 2024, when the two elevated the game to new heights.
But with Mees now absent, the two were sent into direct competition. The results were spectacular.
Daniels soon learned that Bauman posed a very different threat from the one to which he had grown accustomed.
“Jared and Briar are two different types of people, two different types of racers, and at two different points in their lives. They do have some similarities; Briar trained with Jared, and Jared was something of a mentor to him. But still, it was different.
“I caught Jared at the end of his career. He was older and wiser. But there were some tracks that he struggled with, and those were typically tracks that were good for me. I knew in advance where I would have a good chance to make ground.
“I could not count on that this year with Briar. Yeah, they struggled a little on the power tracks, but he was still up there battling for wins. But really, he’s at his prime, and he’s just good everywhere.
“It was just hard.”
As the season evolved, Daniels slowly transitioned from overwhelming favorite to unexpected underdog. Outside of the Miles, Bauman was a constant menace, reeling in eight wins, four runners-up and one third.
Daniels managed to stay in the fight by responding with an inexorable consistency of his own—notching up a record 23 consecutive podiums, a tear that dated back to the opening of the ’24 season.
However, that streak ended in the dirt, mired in controversy and anger, after Bauman knocked Daniels down after misjudging his line in the comically tight confines of the Jackpine Gypsies Short Track.
Both riders were forced to the back of the field for the restart. From there, Bauman snaked his way up to third while Dallas made his way to fifth. That result gave Bauman an 11-point advantage following 11 of 16 rounds and set their smoldering rivalry ablaze.
Now better positioned to view it with clear eyes (and the championship), Daniels admitted, “It was probably good for the sport at the time. It was good to have two rivals kind of going at it and racing hard on the track.
“And that track promoted that type of racing. I’m very surprised that was more or less the only time that really happened that week.
“But it was tough, you know. Just because the year wasn’t really going how I planned up until that point. I didn’t expect to totally dominate, but I would have wanted to have more wins by that point in the season. I was in a position where I needed to start winning, and that night I felt like I could. And then there I was, put on the ground by the guy I was battling for the title. It was a tough pill to swallow.”
While Bauman was his most immediate rival, Daniels also battled himself all season long. Things just never gelled the way they were meant to. Nothing ever came easy for the Estenson Racing Yamaha crew—certainly not as they had the year before.
“Every race was just a grind. We’d start off on the back foot and then work, work, work, work, work. Finally, by the heat races and the dash, we’d start to get a grasp on it and be on our way to finally getting something underneath me that I felt I could perform on.
“I think I had trouble coming to grips with the fact that I wasn’t the same person. Obviously, we were struggling with the motorcycle as well. That hurt my confidence. It was just kind of a double-edged sword.”
That ever-present struggle and ceaseless drive to fight through it was epitomized at the Springfield Mile—the biggest, most prestigious, and most consequential event on the calendar.
Down double-digit points with just three rounds to go, Daniels was expected—again, expectations—to take full advantage of his Yamaha’s top-end advantage over Bauman’s Harley-Davidson and slash that championship deficit.
Despite heading up a Yamaha 1-2-3 at the DuQuoin Mile, Daniels struggled to find his form on Saturday at Springfield. He was just 11th fastest in the second qualifying session that directly preceded the first of the three Mission Triple Challenge main events that would combine to decide the Springfield Mile I’s overall winner.
Dallas came home fourth in race one but, fortunately, ahead of seventh-placed Bauman.
The alarm bells started ringing in earnest in race two, however, where Bauman finished a close second while Daniels crossed the stripe an uncharacteristic seventh.
With his season on the line, Daniels edged 0.092 of a second ahead of HRP Racing’s Brandon Price to not only win main-event three but also claim the day’s overall victory. Bauman, meanwhile, finished fifth in the race and fourth overall, allowing Daniels to close to within just two points of his archnemesis.
That served as the springboard, aided by a disastrous Springfield Mile II for Bauman in which he was black-flagged as a result of a smoking machine, for Daniels to finally complete his boyhood dream of claiming the sport’s ultimate prize.
While it didn’t play out the way most foresaw, Daniels is even more appreciative of the accomplishment due to the struggle.
“It was just a grind of a season. I’m really proud we were able to come out on top because the season was so difficult. We had to go out and earn it for a lot of reasons. Briar was tough. I wasn’t at my best at the start of the season, and neither was the bike. We had to earn it.
“I think we learned a lot about ourselves, about our team, and about our bike this year. Sometimes, tempers flare and guys get mad, but you circle back and say, ‘Hey, we all want the same thing, and we’re all trying to do this for the same reason.’
“In a weird way, it brought us all closer together. And from now on, we’re going to be much stronger.”
As he repeatedly makes clear, the triumph wasn’t Daniels’ achievement alone.
It was also Yamaha’s first unshared Grand National Championship in more than half a century, going all the way back to Kenny Roberts’ two-year reign in 1973 and 1974.
And while it wasn’t 50-plus years for Tim Estenson, it might have felt that way at times. Estenson believed and persevered, pushing forward with the project even during the tough times, including a 2020 season in which the team’s two pilots, JD Beach and Kolby Carlile, finished 14th and 18th in points, with only a single finish better than 10th between them all year.
Daniels saw that struggle firsthand, winning the first of his two AFT Singles crowns for Estenson that same year.
“This championship is more than just a championship on all sorts of levels. For me, I dreamed of this as a kid. This is the ultimate for myself, my family, my dad.
“And my crew chief, James Hart—this is his whole life. Him, his dad, his brother—they could never quite get there. And now he did with us.
“For Tommy Hayden, the Haydens were never able to check this box because they went road racing. And the Haydens got to be a big part of this.
“And then on top of that, you’ve got Yamaha and Tim. I remember watching them [in 2020], just wondering if it was ever going to pay off. It’s also great for JD and those guys, everything they went through to develop the motorcycle, and getting to finally see it prevail.
“So this was so much of an accomplishment for everybody on the team.”
Now that it’s done, what’s one to do after they’ve completed a life-defining journey to number one?
How about aiming for 11? After all, that’s the only way left to finally beat Mees.
When asked, Daniels instinctively laughed before actually pondering the question. “As a kid, my goal was to be the best flat tracker ever. And I would say that goal still remains. I want to etch my name in history, whether that’s wins or championships.
“But as I get older, I can imagine other goals, too. I would still like to be one of the guys who does the old-school Grand Slam (wins in Mile, Half Mile, TT, Short Track and the nation’s premier road-racing class). I know that’s kind of ridiculous to say because I haven’t done much road racing and getting a Superbike win would be insane. But, you know, I also want to race the Daytona 200 someday. There’s some stuff like that I want to do, but obviously, my goal right now is to be the best flat tracker.
“Could I win 11 Grand National Championships? I would like to do it and etch my name above his and everyone else’s. Of course, it would be difficult, and it would take a lot of years, but it’s not impossible.
“Who knows? Every year I race, the goal is to win the title. We’ll just have to see what the future holds.” CN
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