Defending Mission King Of The Baggers Champion Hayden Gillim is fired up about getting the chance to race his RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson in Saturday’s two races at Circuit of The Americas. Even though the class competed here this past September, the feeling is different when you’re part of a show that includes MotoGP in the Red Bull Grand Prix of The Americas.
“I’m really excited about it,” Gillim said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m ready to put on a really good show for everybody and show the world what these things can do around this racetrack. I’m especially excited about coming here whenever it’s not 105 degrees (as it was in September). It’s going to be a fun weekend. I think we’re going to be able to have some really good races. If Daytona shows anything, it’s going to be a dog fight.
Like the rest of the King of the Baggers field, Gillim stressed how easy the Baggers are to ride. At least compared to everyone’s initial impression of the 620-pound motorcycles.
“It’s hard to explain,” Gillim said. “They actually work a lot better than people think they do. They look at them and they think that they’re just pigs and they don’t go around the track very good, but they work so good. These guys, every team that’s out here, have put in so much work on these bikes to make them go fast. Every time we go to the track, it’s faster and faster and faster and faster. We’re definitely off the MotoGP pace, but we aren’t far off of our Superbike guys whenever we come here on these. This is definitely a technical track, and 620 pounds is a lot of weight to throw around, but we’re all here to do a job. This is our job to ride these things and throw these bikes around. We’re all pretty dang good at it.”
