ELKHART LAKE – Marie Madura’s new fourth graders are going to have the same kind of surprise in the fall the outgoing class did on the final day of school.
Maybe they’ll have gone to summer camp. Maybe to Walt Disney World. Maybe to see relatives far from the Chicago suburbs.
But she’ll have the best “what I did on my summer vacation” story.
She went motorcycle racing.
“My last day with my students was on Wednesday, so I said goodbye to them, and then we loaded up the car, and I hightailed it over here,” Madura said May 30 at Road America. “I was like, ‘Hey, bye, guys. I gotta go race.’ And they’re like, ‘What? Oh, that’s awesome!’”
Madura is one of 10 competitors and teammates in a unique program that’s become part of the MotoAmerica paddock, Royal Enfield’s “Build. Train. Race.”
The series brings together women who are new to racing, allows them to learn about the machinery by modifying stock Royal Enfield 650 Twin bikes, gets them training under three-time world champion Freddie Spencer and puts them on the track during some of the most prestigious events in American motorcycle competition.
Four-mile Road America hosted the second round, the third and fourth races, for the BTR along with the premier Superbike class, Supersport, King of the Baggers and Twins Cup. Royal Enfield, an India-based manufacturer of mid-sized motorcycles with North American headquarters in Milwaukee, also fields a flat track division.
Women who apply are screened based on a résumé and video and then go through interviews. Usually they’ve participated in track days; some have done some club racing. Then the 10 accepted are flown to Texas for a one-week bike build and instruction at a private track. Ultimately they have two years to build their skills and try to pick up some hardware along the way.
“Each time we come together as a team, I feel like I’m making leaps and bounds and just personal growth, determination, endurance, just across the field,” Madura said. “Because there’s so many pieces that goes into this.
“I’m learning it’s a mental game, too. Part of having such a large team that we have here is understanding that under the tent we are friends, we are family, and I always say we are not enemies, but we are rivals on track. So understanding that, I will absolutely help you with whatever you need, but on track, like, if I need to get to that corner and you’re on that race line, I’m going to do everything in my power to get around you.”
There’s no such thing as a typical rider in the Royal Enfield series. Ages range from 18 to 46, and the participants come from all sorts of backgrounds from five U.S. states, Canada and Brazil.
Emma Betters was in Madura’s position as a first-year rider three years ago when she joined with about six months of club experience.
Then after her second season she became mechanic for the series in addition to her full-time job as a mechanical engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Betters also made a Twins Cup start recently.
“It was a good fit, and it’s been really cool to get to stay involved in the program [and] watch other people grow the same way,” Betters said. “Honestly, my first year, I was really new to racing. I was learning a lot, learned a lot about working on the bike, learned a lot about riding on the track, made a ton of improvements in the second year.
“It’s been really, really cool not to just help them work on the bike stuff, but also kind of learn something about different tracks that we’re going to, about how the bike functions while you’re racing.”
BTR has been around for six seasons. Betters has seen it from different perspectives for two-thirds of the program’s existence.
“We just continue to make improvements,” she said. “You’re getting new parts for the bikes, new sponsors, things like that, which is really cool. But their riding has also gotten really, really good. The competition has gotten really good.”
Spencer gets some of the credit for that, having taken an interest in educating racers and the motorcycle community in general. Spencer instantly brought credibility to BTR and found a great fit with Royal Enfield as it has turned to motorsports to help build its brand.
“From the very beginning, the first time that people are selected, walk in the workshop that we have for them with the professional mechanics, they feel comfortable with confidence that they could commit to, with 100% of their effort,” Spencer said. “That’s going to make a difference.
“We say, we’re here to help you. You bring your commitment. I guarantee you’re going to get a better understanding of the bike, where I’m teaching the techniques that you can utilize not only on this bike but any motorcycle that you ride, and you’re going to always be part of the BTR family.”
Although BTR is different from the other programs in the paddock in that it has its entire field working out of one trailer and tent, it’s not completely isolated the rest of the competitors. Betters’ Twins Cup opportunity is one example.
“I feel like from a fan perspective everybody’s really cool,” Betters said. “They come through every weekend super duper excited about what we’re doing.
“Teams as a whole kind of tend to stay a little bit isolated. We’ve got a couple of other riders. Sonya Lloyd [a Twins Cup regular] was in the program in 2023. She came over and hung out and talked with us for a bit yesterday. So I’d say we’re as integrated in the paddock as we could be.”
Making a career as a rider, mechanic, engineer or in any other capacity isn’t necessarily a goal for women in BTR, even if do make such steps.
Madura figures she has a lot better chance of teaching elementary school and club racing for the long term, but she has seen great progress in her first couple of weekends and enjoys dreaming.
“If I could go somewhere racing if I could show my true dedication towards the sport, I would 110% take it up,” Madura said. “I would absolutely love to jump on a bike for a team and really represent my riding skills. But for this year, I am more than happy to show how much I could rip and shred on this Royal Enfield.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Royal Enfield brings different motorcycle opportunity to Road America paddock
Reporting by Dave Kallmann, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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