AMA Flat Track: Sammy Halbert Talks 2010 Season End, The Off Season & What's To Come in '11 for Halbert Brothers Racing

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Sammy Halbert #7 and Jethro Halbert #69 discuss team strategy with their Kings Kustoms/KK MC Supply/Nelson Racing/Halbert Bros Racing-sponsored
team members during the break between practice and qualifying for the Springfield Mile on September 5. Sammy, the 'mythical' '09 AMA Flat Track Grand National Champion, has been staying busy in the 'off season' break from the AMA Pro Flat Track K&N Filters presented by Motorcycle Superstore.com Grand National Championship Series, as has brother Jethro, running (and winning-in Sammy's case) the Stockton Mile, as well as the season ending Eddie Mulder series on the West Coast.
Slammin' Sammy is getting geared up for the upcoming 2011 AMA Pro Flat Track season, and per his column on Cycle News.com that was posted yesterday, he is putting together a 'special' mile racer for next season. He wouldn't say what he has going on, but he did say he is 'working on a 'non-Harley twin' to give the Werner Springsteen Monster Energy Kawasaki of Bryan Smith a run for his money on the big mile tracks. This should make for another great mix-up of brand diversity in the series as seen throughout the course of the 2010 season.
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When Cycle News was still in print, up to and including issue #35 that arrived in my mailbox some four months ago, one of their guest columnists over the course of the last year or two was Sammy Halbert, National #7 and the 'winner' of the 'mythical' 2009 AMA Flat Track Grand National Championship Series. In his columns, Slammin' Sammy would talk about how the season was going, his training regimen, and anything else that would have been an interest to readers having to do with his race program. These columns were a great insight into the current season and what Sammy had planned going forward, whether it would be running the AMA series, or showing up at a Steve Nace Racing regional event to run on an off-weekend from The Rolling Thunder Show.

With the 'new' Cycle News.com online site having been resurrected in the last couple of weeks, one of the great features to return is the 'Riders Write' column, of which Sammy Halbert had been doing before the bible of motorcyle racing tanked this last summer. Not only is the 'Riders Write' column back, but so is Sammy in talking about his racing program.

Yesterday's column as written by Sammy and posted yesterday at CN.com was an interesting read in that the younger of the Halbert Brothers squad is STILL tearing them up on the track, winning the Stockton Mile again, and also racing in the Eddie Mulder series on the West Coast. He has also been running some track days in Florida on a road racer, and it looks as if he may possibly be running some WERA events next year.

But what I found to be the most interesting part of the column, especially coming from someone who has been running the Harley-Davidson XR750 for so long in the Expert Twins Class, was he mentioned he is in the process of putting together a 'non-Harley twin' for the big mile tracks. Stopping short to confirm exactly what brand of motorcycle he is building, he did say that he was putting something together to give him a leg-up on the Werner Springsteen Monster Energy Kawasaki of Bryan Smith, which won both the Lucas Oil Indy Mile and the Springfield Mile over consecutive weekends at the end of the summer.

This really should add even more excitement to the AMA Pro Flat Track Series for the upcoming season, especially considering the level of expertise that Halbert has and his ability to adapt to just about any type of conditions on-track. You can read what he has to say here:

http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/flat-track/2010/12/06/riders-write-slammin-sammy
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