JR Schnabel Joins Monster Energy Werner Springsteen Kawasaki for '11 AMA Flat Track Season

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Glen 'JR' Schnabel's #33 Memphis Shades/K&N Filters/Wiseco/Motion Pro-sponsored H-D XR750 back-up bike sits in his pit area during a practice session at the Springfield Mile in September 2010. The long-time veteran of the AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National Championship Series was confirmed yesterday as the new rider for the Monster Energy Werner Springsteen Kawasaki team as a team mate to Bryan Smith #42 for the 2011 season.
In what will be their second season as a team, Bill Werner, the 13-Time AMA Flat Track Grand National Championship tuner, and Jay Springsteen, the 3-Time AMA Flat Track Grand National Champion (and very likely one of, if not THE most popular riders in series history) will now have the valuable background and rider input of Schnabel to add to multi-time winner Smith's now year of experience on the EX650R-based twin. Both riders will also compete on the Kawasaki KX450-based single in the Singles Series portion of the schedule.
Schnabel, who is also one of the most popular riders in the series along with Smith, missed a good portion of the mid-part of the season in 2010 due to a broken knee, but still finished in the 15th spot in the final 2010 AMA Pro Flat Track K&N Filters presented by Motorcycle Superstore.com Grand National Championship standings. Along with Smith's input and testing (and Springer's for that matter) the team will get a valuable boost in knowledge to help better develop the parallel twin. Which means one thing and one thing only. The rest of the competition better be ready, because when is here folks!
I said the better part of all of last season that when The Master Tuner to the Stars and #42 got this thing right, that it was all downhill from there and the rest were going to be playing a major game of catch up. That time may be now come the first Twin Series round in Arizona on May 1.
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As was initially reported last week (see link from Thursday 12/30/2010 below) the speculation became fact late yesterday as JR Schnabel will be joining the Monster Energy Werner Springsteen Kawasaki team for a run at the 2011 AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National Championship season. Multi-time championship tuner Bill Werner (and another one of the super nice guys in AMA Flat Track) confirmed yesterday with Paul Carruthers from Cycle News.com.

This is great news for the sophomore team comprised of Werner, 3-Time GNC Jay Springteen and current rider Bryan Smith. Adding another rider the caliber of JR to the team is big in terms of developing the still-new machine to the nuances of the AMA Flat Track Series. With Schnabel's experience in a multitude of different flat track racing platforms, his input to the team should really help them to amp up the development on the bike that much quicker now. And from the talk P.C. had with The Master Tuner to the Stars, he's going to have a travel companion now (they both live in Wisconsin and within a short distance of one another) for the race trips!

AMA Pro Flat Track Series Racing is looking better and better as the days roll on in 2011, and this with the magnificent strides that were made in 2010, this year should really kick some behind. If you don't have your ticket yet to The Rolling Thunder Show for the 2011 season, you better get it and get it punched quick. This train is going to be chugging along at a killer clip this year and you better be ready because once it gets rolling, there won't be any jumping off!
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Thursday 12/30/10 story posted on possible JR Schnabel signing with the MEWSK team:

http://stusshots.blogspot.com/2010/12/ama-flat-track-is-jr-schnabel-hooking.html

And thanks to Paul Carruthers at Cycle News.com for breaking the official news on this great story for us:

http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/flat-track/2011/01/06/schnabel-to-go-green
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