“The racing on the world championship level is insane,” Daniels said. “I can’t even describe it. You have to see it to understand how deep the talent level is over there. I have no doubt in my mind that you put me over there and give me testing and tons of racing on those tracks and I could be racing up at the front. I fully believe that, but I’m going to have to spend a lot of time over there to get to that point. The tracks are different, the bikes are different and the intensity is at a whole different level.”
Racing runs deep in the Daniels family. Dallas’ dad, Nick, not only built race bikes for the Haydens, he was a national-level racer himself. He scored top-10 finishes in American Flat Track as well as earning solid results in AMA Supermoto during the mid-2000s, when that series was sponsored by Red Bull and attracted talent from around the world.
Dallas Daniels is considered one of the most precise riders in American Flat Track, able to hit his marks on a dime lap after lap. Nowhere was that more evident than his master-class performance in the Atlanta Super TT.
When asked about his precision style of riding, Daniels credits his dad and the group of buddies that used to race minibikes in the Daniels’ backyard.
“From the time I was six years old I was racing against my dad and other full-grown guys in our back yard and they treated me like anybody else,” Daniels explained. “In some places it was literally no wider than a van, so you had to stay on your line. I just had that drilled into me as a kid. It got to the point when I was 8 or 9 years old, I could hit something the size of a golf ball at speed every lap. That’s just how I grew up riding.”
Daniels hopes to focus on defending his AFT Singles title. The class, which at one point was not much more than a stepping-stone to the premier SuperTwins class, has become nearly as competitive and with as deep of a talent pool as the premier series. Daniels thinks winning the class again this year is going to be even tougher.
“A lot of these teams have stepped up their game,” Daniels said. “My teammate Mickey (Rush) has been on the podium every week and he’s a huge threat, as is the KTM team with Max (Whale) and Shayna (Texter-Bauman). They’re on good equipment and they’re good. All three of the Honda boys are good. The Singles class is insanely stacked nowadays. It’s a full-on expert class with real expert riders like Henry (Wiles), Mikey and Shayna. I really wouldn’t even call it a stepping-stone class anymore.
“I think I’m going to have to be even sharper this year, not that last year was easy, but I don’t think it’ll be possible for me to get as many wins as I got last year,” acknowledged Daniels, who scored a series-leading eight victories in 2020. “There are five to 10 riders now who can win on any given weekend.”
In terms of moving up to the SuperTwins class, Daniels has a different view than many who feel there’s little hope in the premier series unless you are on one of the dominant Indian FTR750 bikes.
“My team Estenson has been doing a lot of work with the Yamahas to get them competitive with the Indians and they are chipping away at it,” Daniels noted. “It’s not easy, it takes a lot of time and testing, but I think our Yamaha SuperTwins bikes are getting to the point of being able to win consistently, probably by the end of this year or certainly by next year.”
And, hopefully, it won’t be long before fans will get to see what Daniels can do in the premier class on one of those Yamahas.