Squires (96) racing at the Daytona International Speedway in March.

Photo courtesy Bentley Squires

MIDDLETOWN Bentley Squires remembers clocking 193 miles per hour on his 2006 Suzuki GSX R1000, but he says he does not have time to feel scared when he’s racing at such speeds.

“I peak out on the starting line with racers I have read about or watched for years,” he said in a recent interview while sitting astride his massive sport bike outside Bruce Beard Automotive on West Main Road where he works as a motorcycle mechanic.

“Then I’m focused for the race,” he said, crouching down racing style. “Bang! We’re off!”

Squires, who is tall and striking in his goatee and long braid, has been racing heavy motorcycles on paved tracks all over the country for 11 years and is now in the Expert Class of AMA Sports, the competition division of the American Motorcyclist Association. He races in the Championship Cup Series.

And while he may be driving a top-of-the line racing road bike and going faster than ever before — he hit the 193 mph in a recent race in Daytona — he said he feels safer than when he raced in the Amateur Class because he is now surrounded by better drivers.

“It’s much more relaxed, everyone’s driving safer,” he said, noting that in the Amateur races, “some drivers are in over their heads.”

Squires’ life revolves around his bike and racing.

He said he currently has no girlfriend and does not believe that it is a sport for family men even though it is “relatively safe.” He works on bikes during the day and spends many evenings working on his Suzuki, with its 998.6cc, 4-stroke, 4-cylinder, liquid-cooled engine, which he races as often as he can.

Squires, 38, said he has been riding bikes for many years, but only started racing seriously in 1997 after attending a racing school in Loudon, N.H., and getting licensed as an amateur racer.

After graduating from Tiverton High School, Squires said he moved to San Diego for a number of years, working odd jobs. During this time, he crossed the country a couple of times, from California to Rhode Island and back, on a motorbike. He moved back to the East Coast permanently in 1993 and initially worked in a sail loft.

But after he got his racing license, he left the sail-making business and got a job at Newport Motorcycle Repair.

“It was a part-time job that turned into full-time,” he said of the eight years he spent there. “I learned a lot working on old, beat-up bikes.”

After a short stint at Honda Suzuki World in Warwick, he came to Bruce Beard Automotive which is just five minutes from his home.

Squires said his first racing bike was a 1994 Kawasaki 750 which he raced in the Championship Cup Series the Daytona International Speedway in October for four years in a row. But he said he found the bike increasingly outclassed. “The bike was too old,” he said. “I was working too hard to stay up with these guys on their new bikes.”

So he took a year off to save up for a new bike and in 2002 bought a “freshly crashed” V-twin Honda RC51 for $6,000. He said the bike had come into the shop after the owner had crashed it twice.

“People get into (a bike that is too big) and scare themselves with it,” he said. “I offered to buy it from him. He said he wasn’t interested, but then he called me back.”

Squires bought the bike and took in directly to Daytona where he took second place in the Heavyweight Super Twins at the Race of Champions.

“Just for the record, I beat 17 guys on Ducatis,” he said, referring to the famed Italian bikes.

He then went to the AMA Sports Road Race Grand Championships at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio, and won the 2003 Heavyweight Twins Championship, his biggest win as an Amateur.

The following year, he sold his Honda and bought a new 2003 Suzuki GSX R1000. He also entered the Expert ranks.Making that transition involves completing a certain number of races with wins or places. A racer can then apply to the Championship Cup Series to be promoted to a higher classification and the decision is made by the local regional director.

“I jumped into the big class with the big guys,” he said. “It was tough. The bike was not set up and I was clueless about making (it) go fast.”

He spent two years “really beating up the bike,” before buying his current 2006 Suzuki GSX R1000 which he said “supersedes the old model by a huge margin.” The bike cost $11,000, but Squires said he invested a further $5,000 to make it race ready.

Squires said he has never had an accident.

“I do not crash, I pride myself on that,” he said. “When I drive across country to a race with my bike in my van, I count on coming home.”

He said the key is to stay focused, noting that he barely has time to notice his speed. “If you brain fade for half a second, you’re off the road,” he said, noting that when he is cornering at such high speeds, he sets in a three-point stance, with the two wheels and his knee, which is protected by a hard, plastic guard, as the third point of balance.

Squires said he tries to compete in five national events a year, which he said is expensive.

“It’s not a sport if you want to make money,” he said, noting that prize money is about $300 at best.

Apart from driving his bike in a van to events as far away as the Barber Raceway in Birmingham, Ala., where he took third in Unlimited Superbike last August, the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course where he took fourth in the AMA Sports Road Race Grand Championships last September and Daytona, where he took 10th place in the Unlimited Superbike in March of this year, there is the upkeep of the bike.

A major expense is tires, he said, with one set lasting about 45 minutes of racing.

“The tires get torn up,” he said. “Some tracks tear up the front ones, some tear up the back ones.”

At $450 a set, the expense quickly mounts up at a meet where there may be five 20-minute races.

“I don’t come from money,” he said, noting that some competitors regularly change their tires every race while he will try to nurse his through two races if he can.

He said he spends about $3,000 for a typical three-day race weekend, including $2,000 in travel expenses $1,000 for two sets of tires.

“That’s getting there, getting home and everything else,” he said.

“It really is one of the cheapest motor sports,” he said, comparing motorcycle racing to racing cars. But he said he looking for sponsorship to take his racing to the next level — the Pro Class.

In September, he will be competing in his biggest race of the year, the AMA Roads Race Grand Championships, a winner-take-all championship at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

“Last year I took a fourth and I think I can win this year,” he said. “I’m there with my bike and it’s my turn. I can’t wait.”

“This is my life,” he said. “That’s it.”

For more information, go to:

www.amaproracing.com/

pelsworth@projo.com