The response to this year ' s Bagger Racing series has been interesting . Really interesting . The year-ago reaction that the 2020 inaugural race got at Laguna Seca ( actually late October 2020 , so some nine months ago at the time of writing ) caught everybody by surprise - it certainly did me . The ' 800 lbs behemoths being thrown around a sports bike racetrack ' response has been worn thin now though because what has proven most exciting about this latest ' derring-do ' has been the incredible performance engineering that our market has deployed , as much as the resulting racing itself . Don ' t get me wrong , there has been some exciting , tight racing , and in a healthier world I would have normally made sure I got over to Salt Lake City at the end of June for this year ' s first ever Bagger Racing League ( BRL ) meet . As with the ' King Of The Baggers ' that MotoAmerica hosted at Laguna Seca last year , the impetus that has driven the BRL has been the distribution power and race commitment that Drag Specialties and Parts Unlimited have . The back story to how there came to be two theoretically competing series is whatever it is . But for those who haven ' t been paying attention , at the start of this season MotoAmerica initially announced a five-race King Of The Baggers series . That was quite quickly reduced to three , and by the time you are reading this , the third will have taken place at Laguna Seca ( July 11th ) and the outcome of this protochampionship will be known . The series is seeing Harley-Davidson and Indian Motorcycle locking horns again , and some teams ' code hopping ' between KOTB and the BRL . At the time of writing , the Salt Lake City BRL race is still a one-off , but the intent has been there all along to make it too a three-event series . From what I hear , the organizers are working with the teams , sponsors and selected facility owners to nail final details for two more races this year . However , whether or not they are able to make that happen or , instead , will hope to focus on following up this year ' s SLC meet with an expanded plan in 2022 , the ' Proof of Concept ' test has been emphatically passed . First and foremost , it has been passed as far as the teams themselves are concerned . Associating the word " enthusiastic " to their response to the racing opportunity it provided them with barely does it justice . Many are likening the pit lane camaraderie to the old days of grassroots " all in this together " amateur racing and V-twin tribal brotherhood that was once the central esprit de corps of times past . Opportunities to experience that and be a part of something like that are ever thinner on the ground in these increasingly difficult and corporatist times . The custom bike building fraternity is still largely informed by that ' vibe ', as we here at AMD Magazine have found out ( to our joy ) during the years we have been involved in operating the AMD World Championship of Custom Bike Building . It existed , to an extent , up and down the aisles of the much missed V-Twin Expo at Cincinnati every year . authenticity isn ' t for sale in a box
It still exists ( to a large extent ) at the amateur race level - whether Motocross , Enduro , Rally , WSBK , MotoGP , the Isle of Man , or the recent generation of amateur scrambles and flat track races . You can take the enthusiasts out of the race , but you can ' t take the enthusiasm out of the racers ! The goodwill that beats away at the heart of the amateur grassroots race scene still exists between the racers themselves , at all levels of motorsport , but sponsor , team owner , promoter and facility owner ROI makes it ever harder to detect and nurture . The ' alt-moto ' scene , whether races , bike building or the new generation of shows ( Mama Tried , The One Show , Born Free , Handbuilt , The Shed , Wheels and Waves etc .) theoretically started out " in that place ", or at least doing a good job of presenting themselves as having that authenticity , but even some of them have started to succumb to ' The Man '. The so-called ' Grassroots Vibe ' isn ' t something that can be bottled , and it can ' t be deployed by PR machines - least all ( ironically ) by those who think that social media is the manipulators ' toolkit . Authenticity isn ' t for sale in a box , but my word , it certainly can sell boxes . It can ' t be ordered online , nor can it be sprinkled from a T- shirt gun . It is abstract , untouchable and unpredictable , but ours is a market and an industry where ( thank God ) we all recognize it when we are touched by it . Sadly , I wasn ' t able to be there , but everyone I have spoken with says basically the same thing about the last weekend of June at the Utah Motorsports Campus ( not far away from the Great White Dyno at Bonneville ), namely that the weekend had that abstract , untouchable and unpredictable character in spades . The best exposition of it I have read was in a ' Performance Times ' blog piece that David Zemla wrote for the S & S Cycle website , and I am also looking forward to a video that the performance fanatics at Feuling will be posting soon . Now , obviously , the money has to come from somewhere , and for me , it is Kudos to Rob Buydos and his fellow organizers , and to Drag Specialties and its parent company , LeMans corporation , for their vision and leadership . For their ongoing " Support for the Sport " and for seeing the opportunity that the so-called ' performance bagger ' market might come to represent for their vendors and their dealers . They have put their money where their customers ' hearts are . This is a rare example of a genuine shared passion for a market ' s grassroots authenticity that has resulted in " taking a punt " rather than the kind of false corporate braggadocio and virtue signalling that largely defines corporate culture in the 21st century . Congratulations to Hoban Brothers of Wisconsin for winning the primary Bagger GP class at SLC , and congratulations to everyone who made it to the starting line , and to those who tried so hard , but ultimately in vain , to be able to do so . Keep the faith and keep the flame alive !
Robin Bradley Co-owner / Editor-in-Chief robin @ dealer-world . com
4 AFTERMARKET MOTO DESIGN - AUGUST 2021 www . AMDchampionship . com