Justin Barclay has been involved in the sport of motorcycle racing his whole life. The son of a famous grasstrack racer in England (Ian Barclay), and somebody who has raced himself, and worked in the industry for years.
Barclay has been building motocross tracks for many years, he also owns a professional motocross facility at Cusses Gorse in the south of England.
Having built many tracks for Youthstream, and a bunch for events throughout the world. He is known as one of the best track builders in the sport, and his most recent baby is building the circuit for the USGP at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Everyone involved in the sport is excited for this race and the following week at Glen Helen in California. We decided to give Justin a call and ask him what type of circuit we might end up with.
Of course with both AMA and FIM riders competing, and those two championships running on totally different circuits, it’s nice to know who this new circuit will favor.
Justin, thanks for your time. Firstly, what type of circuit are we going to get in Charlotte?
It is going to be a little bit supercross styled, but I will do my best to make it not a supercross track. I mean it’s a massive area, but not a big area for a race track. It will be jumps and stuff, but a lot more scrub hills and rollers. They have an off-road race there this weekend. It’s pretty cool to see how they go on the dirt. The dirt is an orange clay, a bit like Brazil. Mark Peters is also coming over as well, to help build it.
Do you think it might be something like Sun City in South Africa?
You could say that, but probably not as supercross styled. That was pretty jumpy. I don’t know, there is nothing like this to compare it with. To be honest, usually if somebody asks me to build a motocross track in a road racing circuit I would be like, not really, but with this one. It’s Charlotte, it’s something different, it’s at night. Monster Energy are really into this race and they won’t do it by halves, it’s going to be a really cool event.
Obviously it’s a new circuit and we want it to be neutral, so it doesn’t suit the Supercross riders and it doesn’t suit the GP guys. What do you think we will end up with, who will it suit?
The problem is a track that suits the European guys is a track with a lot of traffic on it, so if you have a lot of classes, the track gets rough, big jumps, big waves. In America the tracks are a lot more groomed, they ride one day, so it’s flatter and faster. We can only prep it so much with the hope it gets rough. To suit the GP guys, it needs traffic on it, to get rough, and it’s probably not going to get that.
If you were a betting man, and maybe you can’t answer this because you are building the track, but if you were a betting man, who would you bet is going to do well on it?
I am going to say Febvre. If he is on his A-game, then Febvre. It has big sweeping turns and I can see him backing it in like Supermoto. Good start and who knows. You would be a silly man against Gajser. It’s something nobody has ridden, so it is equal for everyone really.
How do you get an idea in your head about how the circuit should look?
I have been over there like four or five times. As you know the venue has changed from the drag strip, which was a big area, but not wide enough, then we looked at the infield of the Nascar track, something like Daytona but that area was too big. Then we came back to the dirt track, and it was perfect, because it isn’t too big and it isn’t too small. There is an area we go outside the oval, so it will be good. You know the Youthstream requirements and you know the FIM requirements and you build it to that. You need to have things like the finish line, the pit lane, the start lane, the three things have to be handy to each other. So then you have to fit in what you can.
What about the start straight and first corner. How will they look?
MXLarge: The first straight goes right along the center line of the oval, which will be about 90 metres, but the first corner in the complete turn one and two of the Speedway oval, so that will be wide open, it’s a huge first corner. It is going to be awesome. If people know about motorcycles, there is nothing better than turning a motorcycle left, flat out.
You just want to get back to your grasstrack roots, hahaha.
I do, I was with Chris Holder (former world speedway champion) making his mini-supercross track, we talked about that. I would love to get into making speedway tracks.
How excited are you, I mean you have done a lot of tracks, you have your own professional motocross track at Cusses Gorse in Wiltshire, but how excited are you to be involved in the making of this track?
Without passion you don’t hang around motorbikes. This is something different, some people might agree with it, some people won’t. This is something new, and exciting for people outside out sport, so if we want new people into the sport, then this is a good thing. This is something different and exciting.
Obviously Monster Energy, Charlotte Motor Speedway, and Youthstream are big companies and they all want this to work. Having been there a handful of times, do you hear how it’s going as far as promotion for this event.
I am not sure; I know it’s been plugged a lot. I had friends in California in May and they saw ads on television for it, and as you know California is on the other side of the country. I know they haven’t had any racing in that area for a long time, so that state is hungry for something like that. It’s a Saturday night race, so that suits the American public. With those three companies you mentioned plugging it, I imagine it’s going to be pretty good.
