DE LEON SPRINGS, Fla.---
As the sun sets the dust and dirt begin to kick up. There’s a loud buzz in the air. It’s a race night at Volusia Speedway.
“It’s intense man,” Briar Bauman says standing in front of his ride with a prominent #1 on the front. “I think the things we are capable of doing on a motorcycle and the speeds we are going at is pretty impressive.”
In the Progressive American Flat Track motorcycle series, racers like Briar have a #1 for a reason.
“Two years in a row I won the championship,” he says. “So I won my title and was able to defend it and I get to run it again for 2021.”
Briar is the best in the SuperTwins series, but in his own household….
“It’s good, we are able to push each other and encourage each other on and off the track,” Shayna Texter-Bauman says. Last October she and Briar became husband and wife.
“Honestly we do such a good job of boosting each other’s confidence,” Briar says.
These days there’s a lot to be confident about. Shayna hasn’t won a championship yet, but she’s the winningest rider in American Flat Track Singles class history. She’s also the first female to win an American Flat Track Main Event.
“I race in a male dominated sport so when the helmet’s on I want to be treated like a motorcycle racer,” Shayna says.
Right now Shayna is the only female competing in the sport. Most nights the men are stuck chasing the long blonde hair that flows out the back of her helmet.
“I just want to pave the way for females and show the men that we can do it right alongside of them or even ahead of them,” Shayna says.
At Volusia Speedway she won both races to begin the year, a great start to what she hopes is her first championship run.
“She just wants to win. There’s no other ifs, ands or but,” Briar says.
Her husbands proud, so’s the man who taught her how to race.
“He’d probably be speechless and emotional,” Shayna says. “He was that kind of guy.”
Her father Randy Texter was a flat track racer, but passed away in 2010. Shayna wants to carry on the family tradition and the one she’s creating for women as well.
“Even when I’m done racing I’m not going to be stepping away forever,” Shayna says. “I want to help this sport continue to grow and put eyes on it and hopefully get more women and younger kids involved in the sport.”