Flat Track Has Returned — My First Race at Fuji Park and a Night I Won't Forget

Hot August Friday night. Fuji Park in Carson City. The smell of dirt and exhaust in the open air, engines screaming around an oval track, and a crowd that remembered exactly why they loved this.

This was my first flat track race. And the night was electric.

The Return of Flat Track Racing to Carson City

Flat track racing has a long and storied history in American motorcycle culture — it's one of the oldest forms of motorcycle competition in the country, predating most other forms of racing by decades. Riders on purpose-built machines with no front brakes, sliding through dirt corners at full throttle, inches apart, lap after lap. It's raw, it's fast, and it's one of the most exciting things you can watch from the grandstands.

When flat track returned to Fuji Park in Carson City, the VC Motor Crew gathered and headed out on a Friday night to be part of it. The open-air arena, the summer heat, the track lit up under the lights — it all came together into one of those evenings that reminds you why live motorsports are irreplaceable. You cannot get this from a screen.

Memories of the Raceway

Being there brought back so many memories of going to the raceway when I was younger. There's something deeply familiar about the sound and smell of a dirt track — it lives in your memory in a way that other experiences don't. The roar of the engines, the dust hanging in the air, the crowd reacting to every slide and every pass. It's the same whether you're eight years old or watching it again decades later. That feeling doesn't age.

Flat track has that effect on people who grew up around it. It's not just a race — it's a connection to something older and more elemental in American motorcycle culture. These are the roots. Before supercross, before MotoGP, before all of it — there was flat track. Dirt ovals, brave riders, and crowds who understood exactly what they were watching.

Thrills, Spills, and Championships

The racing delivered everything you want from a flat track night — thrills, spills, and championship-level competition. Flat track is unforgiving in the best possible way. The margins are tiny, the speeds are high, and the dirt doesn't care how good you are. Riders who can slide a motorcycle through a corner at full throttle while inches from their competitors are doing something that takes years to master and seconds to lose. Every lap is a negotiation between speed and control, and the crowd feels every moment of it.

I love the races. I said it that night and I mean it completely. There is nothing quite like being in the grandstands at a live motorsports event — especially one with this much history and this much heart.

The Beginning of Something More

What I didn't know in August 2019 was that this was just the beginning of VCMCo.'s relationship with flat track racing. Two years later, in 2021, we would come back to Fuji Park not just as spectators but as sponsors — helping support the riders who put on the show that first electrified us on that Friday night. From fan to sponsor in two years. That's the VCMCo. way — find the things you love in this community and find a way to be part of them.

But in 2019, we were just a crew of motorcycle lovers on a hot summer night, watching flat track racing come back to Carson City and loving every second of it.

I can't wait until next year. 🏁