Is it possible for a woman to race motorcycles without being taken to task for being a woman? Melissa Paris doesn’t care because she just wants to race. You won’t hear her talking about the obstacles that have been thrown in her way. Just the details of how she got to where she is today.That progression started with a race on a 600 less than a year after she started riding. From there she moved on to 125’s where two years of club racing resulted in several podiums and a win. With that experience under her belt she stepped up to the USGPRU 250GP class in 2008. She took two pole positions, a win, and a third place finish to fifth in the championship.
Paris goes into every race with the advantage of having a coach who is a three time AMA national champion. Her coach and her husband is Josh Hayes. Hayes is supportive of her career and is there for advice when she needs it, but communication between the two racers can be difficult and they don’t always agree. Josh was at Daytona last October when Melissa was racing in the Biketoberfest CCS Daytona Race of Champions. A race where she drafted to a win and her first championship after a race-long battle for the lead.
Like most race wins it wasn’t as easy as it looked, “I swear, when I pulled up to the grid one of the guys next to me started laughing, I think because my bike and I looked so small compared to most of the other machines. Then I had a contact fall out on the second lap. I did the rest of the race with one eye and little in the way of depth perception.”
Hayes was watching the race from the infield, “Josh is always giving me good advice and after the race he mentioned I'd made a mistake letting off going into the infield kink on one lap. What he didn't see was that the racer next to me was pushing me with his elbow, and I had to let off in order to stay on the track. On the last lap that rider weaved and ran himself into the wall on the banking, dragging his elbow against it nearly all the way around.”
Being competitive in the USGPRU and winning at Daytona gave her the confidence to move to another series in 2009. This year she’s competing in the AMA’s Daytona Sportbike class in addition to competing at USGPRU, WERA, ASRA and CCS races. In her first race in the Daytona Sportbike class she raced in the Daytona 200 and finished 21st in a field of 85. She’s scored two wins, five podiums and nineteen top ten finishes in the other series.
Racing in the Daytona 200 for the first time was a big step, but with a wild card entry in the World Supersport race at Miller Motorsports Park she took an even bigger step. She hadn’t planned on competing at Miller, but Mark Rozema, who builds her bikes, sent in an application on a whim, and the organizers surprised them with an invitation to race. Miller’s a track she likes and she’s done well there so that would be a plus in her first race against world class riders. When the race weekend came around Paris managed to qualify 27th, but an on track run in with another rider during the race forced her to retire after 12 laps and finish in 29th place. Her next race will be the upcoming AMA round at Elkhart Lake.
Road Racer X talked to her in the days leading up to the WSS race at Miller:
http://www.roadracerx.com/features/tuesday-conversation/tuesday-conversation-melissa-paris-world-supersport/
http://www.melissaparis.com/
