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JACK WALSHE

Here are two characteristic photos of reigning AFM weight-champion Jack Walshe — one is of him making a move on a fellow racer, the other is him bullshitting about it afterwards.

Jack Walshe has regularly been used as the watermark for the AFM Production 250cc class, as the other racers would often quote their results as either finishing ahead or behind Jack.  Nowadays this reference point is all but gone since there seem to been too many embarrassing finishes behind Jack... 

Being from Cork can't be the only explanation for Jack's pig-headed persistence to race an underpowered bike while being almost twice the weight of his competition.  It's beyond any sane reasoning why he hasn't yet replaced that old VTR dud he's riding with a more powerful EX-250 (or taken the step to a bigger class altogether).  But somehow this Irishman seems to get a kick out of being the underdog.  As you might expect, Jack's riding isn't art in motion, but more like a physics experiment. 

It's quite intriguing to see how Jack uses his skills to out-brake and out-maneuver the other racers thru the technical portions of the track, but in return getting passed right away on the straights due to the weight advantage the other riders have over him.  It would be interesting to see how he would do on a more powerful bike, with less body-weight, and riding harder, (he barely seems to break a sweat). 

In addition to this, during Jack's six years of racing, he has not yet crashed in any race.  This is probably one of the best performance/safety records in AFM's history (btw, AFM is the oldest racing club in the US).  Riding well within his comfort-zone and skill-level testifies to what a huge caliber racer he really is, (pun intended).

Jack Walshe has not only successfully been racing AFM P-250, but also tried other classes.  Click on the Forward button to see him intimidating the competition in yet another class.


Jack Walshe — 2001

"...and then I was like leaned over like this, scraping my elbow while wheeling out of the turn, as I lapped those weed-whackers for the second time..."