She was OK but the bike had a broken mirror, busted up fairing, broken clutch lever, and a bent shift linkage, but Ashley still rode it home. I was able to ride it home but it was stuck in first gear, and now I had to fix it quickly before we headed to Bonneville!” Here’s Ashley after crashing the Buell. I went flying over the Thunderbolt and the bike was scraped pretty badly. I was following Drew around a corner when I gave the Buell a little too much throttle and lost traction when my tires slid in some sand on the road. ![]() Here she is posing on the Buell (left) in 2019 with a friend during International Female Ride Day.Īshley says, “The week before we left for Bonneville, I took the Buell out for a ride with my husband and I had my first motorcycle accident. It felt very tall and way more powerful than what I was used to riding.” Ashley didn’t build up the confidence to ride her Buell until about three weeks before she and her husband were to leave for the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah where she would race for the first time. I was completely intimidated by this motorcycle. Then my husband surprised me with a 1995 Buell S2 Thunderbolt, declaring it my new street and race bike. “I rode it around the neighborhood just to get the feel of riding. ![]() I started with a Harley-Davidson Ironhead Sportster,” Ashley continues. The very next week I took the class and passed! The second step was to ride a motorcycle on the street. The first step was to take a beginning rider course to learn and get my license. He was all for helping me make that goal happen. She continues, “In 2017 I told my husband that I wanted to try racing myself. I was so impressed by the passion they all had for the sport-everyone helping one another like a big family. While he was racing I would walk the pits and talk to other racers and their crews. I rode as a passenger for about 11 years and loved every ride we took.”Īshley explains, “During those 11 years of riding as a passenger with my husband, he started racing his motorcycles on the Bonneville Salt Flats-this is where racers test their skills and machines and go as fast as they possibly can. He picked me up for our first date on a motorcycle and I discovered on that first ride that I loved being on the back. “I didn’t ride motorcycles until I met my husband Drew. “I didn’t grow up around bikes or have any friends that rode them,” Ashley says. How did you make the transition from being a passenger to the front seat of a land speed racing motorcycle? The following is this young racer’s story in her own words. We wanted to get to know this speed demon and find out what makes her tick so we asked her some questions. ![]() “I hit 139.037 mph-my personal best,” she triumphantly exclaims. Here Ashley races her Buell Thunderbolt at Bonneville in 2019. Ashley and her husband make the annual trek to the Bonneville Salt Flats to meet up with their speed-fanatic friends for a few days of racing their motorcycles across the dry lakebed in an attempt to break top speed records. This bike would be intimidating for any rider, but she conquered it within a few weeks of learning to ride a motorcycle.Īshley Woodford, from Cave Creek, Arizona, is this year’s winner of the SheMoto Award, an honor given to a female racer who best embodies the spirit of landspeed racing-tenacity, competitive drive, wisdom, passion, camaraderie, and perseverance. Ashley poses on her Buell Thunderbolt that she races and rides on the street at Arizona Bike Week. Do you have a story to share? Please send it to us, but follow these submission guidelines.
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