| December 22, 2019
Over the past few years, the question in American Flat Track was who could beat Jared Mees? Briar Bauman answered that with a career-best season in 2019 to take the AFT Twins Championship
After years of working toward his first American Flat Track Championship, everything aligned for Briar Bauman to have a dream season to clinch the title a weekend early.
Story and Photography by Andrea Wilson
2019 American Flat Track Twins Champion Briar Bauman Interview
You never forget your first championship. That is especially true for the newly crowned American Flat Track AFT Twins Champion Briar Bauman. His debut season with the factory Indian Motorcycle Flat Track Team was one for the ages. A career-best season with five wins and 15 podiums to dethrone Jared Mees, one of the best riders in the sport’s modern era. Unbeknownst to others, the Californian’s dream season nearly went up in smoke with an injury at a key point of the year. Undeterred, he put his head down and stayed the course to clinch his first Grand National Championship.
Bauman admits his mentality this season was about “sending it,” but looking ahead, he wants to improve as a racer.
So who is Briar Bauman? Where did he come from? After two years of Mees domination in the premier class, many would’ve overlooked the 24-year-old as the guy to come out swinging in 2019 and take down the reigning champ. We had a chance to sit with Bauman to look back at those early days, his rise in the sport, and his standout year.
Early Beginnings
Bauman was born in Salinas, California, home to some of the sport’s best, but for Bauman and his younger brother, Bronson, their start in the sport is a little different from most. Neither of their parents was avid motorcyclists. They just sort of stumbled into flat track racing.
It was actually the Bauman brothers’ mother, Lisa Bauman, idea to get the boys involved with racing. Briar takes her for a victory lap after a big win at the season opener in Daytona Beach. Photo: American Flat Track/Scott Hunter
“My parents didn’t have any involvement with motorcycle racing, ” Bauman said. “We just decided to get motorcycles and go race. Which is crazier when I think about it now than when I was a kid. It was actually my mom’s idea, which is a little bit different than how it typically works. There was a race that was right down the road from our house. It was called the Ricky Graham Memorial Race. We went and did that. That’s what started the racing career for Bronson and I.”
It was a lot of money and time spent to keep two kids in racing, but the Bauman brothers’ parents were fully supportive of their love of flat track racing. When Briar went pro, he had a brief, but successful Singles career and then decided to make the jump straight to the premier class in 2012 and race a twin. Looking back on it now, he recalls how big of a leap that was.
“Honestly, I thought I kind of ran the world at that time,” he said. “I thought I’ll go ride a twin, and it will be a piece of cake, no big deal, but it was definitely the hardest thing I’ve done in my career. First off, you don’t realize how insanely good the top 10 guys are; their mechanics, their equipment. I got myself into a position where I wasn’t in the best situation as far as rides, I was shuffled around a lot. It was an uphill battle. It was the hardest transition I’ve ever had to make. Looking at it now, it’s kind of made me how I am. It showed me that you can kind of get through whatever you have to.”
The Bauman Family celebrates Briar’s championship win with (L-R) Lisa, Briar, Bronson and Barry. Photo: American Flat Track/Scott Hunter
Being an up-and-comer and privateer was no easy task, especially during a time when the sport was long on enthusiasm but short of cash. For a while, it was just about breaking even to do something you loved. At some point, though, that mentality changes.
“Financially, I didn’t even know what making money in flat track was until a couple years ago,” he said. “My parents were willing to basically empty accounts to make sure Bronson and I were at the track. I had some great sponsors, Rod Lake was one of them, [and] a few guys that kept me going. The goal was to break even and make the main event every weekend to try to get that thousand bucks. Then I had some years where I started winning the Nationals and started making a little more money, but the bills started to stack up, and you think, ‘I kind of need to make money now.’ ”
It was a dream come true for the Bauman Family to have both Briar and Bronson on the factory Indian Motorcycle team.
The Turning Point
After a tough 2016, it was looking like it was the end of the road for Bauman. Then he got the call from Dave Zanotti from Zanotti Racing, one of the sport’s top tuners and owner of a team with a rich legacy in flat track racing. It was there where the stars aligned, and things really started clicking for the young Californian. Together with mechanic Michelle Disalvo, the privateer team showed strength against the factories and took home a pair of wins, starting with Bauman’s first Twins win at the Lima Half-Mile and then at the Buffalo Chip TT.
“I got to the end of the year, and I literally was thinking, ‘Man, I don’t know if this is going to pan out,’ ” he said. “I didn’t have the greatest year. Financially, it didn’t look good at all. Fortunately, Dave gave me a call that off-season, which I didn’t expect at all because of how bad my year was that year. We were able to kind of start popping off pretty good results [in 2017], and things turned around. We did things that I don’t think a lot of people expected us to do, and it turned around.”
Over the past two years, everyone has been chasing the dominant Jared Mees (1). In 2019, Bauman (14) not only caught him but dethroned him.
Most racers will tell you that one of the keys to success is a great relationship with your crew. Bauman found that with Zanotti Racing.
“Dave, Michelle, and I; I couldn’t ask for a better group,” he said. “It’s really nice to have a team owner that was a racer himself. He never raced motorcycles, but he raced bicycles. I would get pretty down on myself when I had a bad night. It helped to know that the guy who’s funding it, supporting it, working on the bikes, and spending countless hours, is going to understand that sometimes it’s just not your day. He also understands who I am, too, on top of that. He understands I joke around a lot. I was so nervous when we first started working together, but we’ve turned into best friends.”
The following year, Bauman put together a solid season aboard the Zanotti Indian FTR750, finishing third in the championship. Then there were changes in the paddock coming for 2019 with some rider shuffling and Indian Motorcycle’s factory effort being picked up by S&S Cycle. Once again, everything fell into place, and he got his dream ride.
“It was pretty incredible, really,” he said. “Dave and I had some pretty good success there at the end of 2018. I knew that there was a spot opening up at Indian. I was hoping to get the spot, but I felt that there were quite a few good guys who were also riding really well. There’s only a handful of factory rides, so to end up with my brother on the Factory Indian team, it’s pretty mind-blowing. Then for me, it was great to have the extra support on top of what Dave and Michelle were giving me.”
The 2019 season presented a lot of unknowns. Although there was familiarity with his core crew, it was still a new team. It worked out that everything clicked with Indian Motorcycle and S&S Cycle.
“The team chemistry is so solid,” he said. “After three years, the ups and downs and everything that Dave, Michelle, and I had gone through, we’ve only got closer through everything. Then on top of it, you throw Indian Motorcycle and S&S into the mix. All those guys are so cool, too. We have such a good time. It makes things so much easier on me on race day when everyone is as close as we are. There were days where we [Briar and his brother] went 1-2 or 1-3, it just shows how well we all click. It shows that when you’re enjoying yourself and have a great group of guys around you, it’s hard to beat that combo.”
Tuner/team owner David Zanotti was the perfect match for Bauman, and the pair had success early. Photo: American Flat Track/Scott Hunter
The Title Run
Bauman went into the year expecting to run up front, but the breakout performance even surprised him a bit. He hit the ground running with a dominant victory at the Daytona TT, and he backed it up with a string of podiums, mounting a solid campaign for the crown.
Bauman (left) celebrates with rider coach Brad Baker (right) in Minnesota.
“I kind of had an idea that I could get a few wins and probably podium a few times, but to do what I did this year was kind of mind-blowing,” he said. “I didn’t really expect that at all. I podiumed every time I raced and finished the race. I think I podiumed triple the amount of times I have in my career in one year. It was definitely a bit above and beyond what we expected. Jared just came off a year where he won 10 races and podiumed 15 times, so he’s absolutely at the top of his game. To come in and shut things down after he kind of took over, was honestly a dream come true.”
Before the season’s halfway mark, disaster struck. While training at the motocross track, Bauman injured his wrist in a crash. At first, Bauman didn’t realize that he had broken his scaphoid and the severity of that injury.
“That was a big-time moment of panic,” he said. “I didn’t really understand what I had done to myself and what the severity of it was. I went to get checked out when I broke my hand, and they said, ‘either you’re casted for 12 weeks all the way up to your shoulder, or we do surgery.’ It was 10 days before Laconia when I was told that, and I had surgery two days later. I freaked out big time. Fortunately, Shayna [Texter, Briar’s girlfriend] deals with a lot of stuff well. She loaded up with me, and we flew to California to go have surgery.”
The Californian has found a new home in the Keystone state with girlfriend Shayna Texter. The PA crew and his brother came out to celebrate with him: (L-R) Bronson, Briar, Texter, Mees, Chad Cose, Jake Johnson and Cory Texter.
The timing was less than ideal. His first two races—Laconia Short Track and Lima Half-Mile—after surgery were physically demanding cushion tracks. On top of that, outside of a short break in July, the month of August held no time for a rest with four races during the first two weeks. He and his crew kept the injury quiet. Bauman put his head down and kept moving forward.
“I just didn’t want anyone to know,” he said. “I knew no one was going to race me any differently. I thought if I keep it to myself, and if I continued to do my own deal, maybe I’ll convince myself that it didn’t actually happen, and it will be fine. Once the helmet went on, it kind of got to that point. I didn’t really think a whole lot about it. We were back in the same rhythm we had before the surgery.”
Eight days after having surgery for a broken scaphoid, Bauman was back racing on a rough Laconia Short Track.
Sealing The Deal
Going into the penultimate round at the Minnesota Mile, Bauman could clinch the title a weekend early. He looked on track to fulfill that, even take home his first Mile win and complete a career dirt-track grand slam. That was until he went into the airfence at turn one in a multi-rider incident that included his brother on the second lap of the main event.
“I went into the weekend and knew I had to get a top-three to do it,” he said. “I had a pretty good year at that point, and I had confidence that I could do it. When Bronson went down in front of me, I didn’t really anticipate things to go the way they did. That was about as big of a U-turn you can do. For a minute, I was pretty positive that I wasn’t going to get to race. My bike was mangled. That thing was destroyed. At the same time, the track was just as mangled as my bike was. If I have another roller coaster emotional night like that, I’m pretty much guaranteed to have a gray head after that. It was brutal.”
Once they realized that they could get the bike back together, his team got to work to get him ready to go for the restart. Starting from the back of the grid with his title rival up front, it was more about mitigating the damage. Well, unless you are Briar Bauman.
“Michelle and Dave, and the team got the bike back together in time to race,” he said. “Right before we got going, Shayna said, ‘Just get some points.’ I thought, ‘Man, we came too far only to come this far. Let’s just finish it off.’ I knew if I got going again, I could hopefully make a pretty good charge. Fortunately, we were able to do that. It kind of made the story a little bit sweeter. It gives me something to really talk about when I get older.”
In addition to the support from the team, his girlfriend, Shayna Texter, has been right with him when times get tough.
After clinching his first-ever AFT Twins Championship, Bauman was very emotional.
“I think I would have been emotional no matter what,” he said. “I’ve dreamed of it my whole life. There’s always a struggle for everyone at some point, I had some myself. So you think back on all of that, think how it’s really what made you. Then on top of that, to have that night, to crash. I mean, the last thing I saw before I went into the air fence was me rolling my brother over. That was the last thing you ever want to think of when you’re racing a mile. Everything was just so piled up on top of it. The stress while we were waiting for the track and the bike to be put back together, it’s overwhelming.”
It was undoubtedly a dramatic finish to the championship battle, and for Bauman, it was a statement as to who they are as a team.
The Factory Indian Motorcycle Flat Track Team celebrates the championship: (L-R) Dave Zanotti, Clayton Gatewood, Michelle DiSalvo, Paul Langley, Bronson Bauman, Dean Young, Gary Gray, Briar Bauman and Brad Baker.
“For it to end up the way it did, to win it after all of that, it was kind of like an exclamation point—we weren’t going to quit,” he said. “As long as we have the opportunity, we weren’t going to be denied. I’ve always said in my career, just give me an opportunity. Give me a shot, and I’ll try and make everything I can of it. That’s what happened that night. So yeah, emotions were flowing at the end of it all.”
The enormity of it all took a little while to sink in, but now that it has, he wants to get back out there racing.
“I kid you not—it probably took it a good three or four weeks,” he said. “It didn’t feel real. You dream of it your whole life. It was a long season, so it’s one thing to have a successful night, but to be able to do it every weekend and be relevant every weekend, is really hard. We have some great racers, and they make it really difficult on you. It’s sunk in. Now all I want to do is get back to the track with my friends and my family. I miss the competition, going to the racetrack with everyone and doing our normal deal.”
Once you’ve won your first championship, you want to win more. Looking ahead, Bauman intends to build on his success this season and improve as a racer.
“Next year’s goals are to beat myself,” he said. “Last year, everyone was like, ‘you got to beat Jared.’ That was my mentality, too. He is one of the greatest of all time in our sport. But I think that for me to prove that I’m a racer rather than a rider, I need to focus on bettering myself more than trying to be better than anyone else. There was a lot of room to improve last year. I kind of had a send-it mentality, and that got in the way of being a good motorcycle racer. So that’s the goal for next year. To improve in areas that I struggled with and hopefully get a mile win. To try to be a better racer and a better person every weekend.” CN
