Sideburn regular contributor, hero and grand national race winner, Johnny Lewis, will compete at the Daytona TT in the Twins class on the Richie Morris Racing (RMR) Twin.
In 2017, RMR had a two-rider team of Shayna Texter on the Honda 450 single and Jarod Vanderkooi on the Kawasaki 650 Twin. For 2018, RMR announced they would concentrate on the singles class, with Ryan Wells - who came 11th in the 2017 AFT Twins championship on the Briggs Auto Kawasaki 650, ahead of Jake Johnson and Kenny Coolbeth. Wells will race a Honda CRF450.
Now RMR say Lewis will race their twin at selected races. Johnny is a former Supermoto champ, so Daytona's TT track will hold no fears for him. He's also a Daytona Short Track winner and came third at the Lone Star Half-Mile in 2017, as a wild card entry on an Indian FTR750 he'd never ridden before.
Team owner, Richie Morris said, 'Johnny is a class act. He has as much natural talent as anyone in the paddock. He has a very successful riding school and he is the complete package when it comes to riders. We have our RMR Honda riders looking and taking notes at the way Johnny carries himself on track, and more importantly off the track. To build a successful team, the team owner looks for riders with obvious talent, but the thing that almost everyone misses is what happens off the track. You want a rider that appreciates all the hard work the entire team does between races and you also want a rider to train like a champion. When the rider fully understands this, it allows the team to become close with only winning in mind. Johnny goes to each race expecting to win. We like that, it aligns him with the RMR mission. In short, we are excited to have Lewis with the RMR logo on his bike.'
RMR are a Honda team and there is no mention of the make of the twin in the press release, but Vanderkooi, raced a Kawasaki 650 last year, so we're assuming Johnny will race the same bike.
The AFT 2018 season kicks off on 15 March.
Read Johnny's stories in Sideburn 30 and SB31.
Click to find out more about Johnny's JL10 training school.
Photo: Andrea Wilson/American Flat Track