'The Best Lap'

“Anybody who does this and says they’re not afraid is probably lying.” 

Yet for Kyle Fox, spending his weekends reaching speeds up to 165 mph on his 2019 Yamaha R6—leaning deep into corners, surrounded by the whine of 20-30 engines on a racetrack—is too much fun to quit. “Way, way too much fun,” he says. “You cannot come away from a weekend without a smile on your face and thinking that that’s the best thing you can do, possibly in your life.” 

He says it’s more than the adrenaline rush: “It’s a level of concentration that you don’t get anywhere else in life. Every decision is critical. They’re millisecond decisions, and they can make the difference between taking a corner great or tumbling through the grass.” 

Fox just started his first year as a pro Supersport racer with MotoAmerica, after six years racing with the amateur Central Motorcycle Roadracing Association (CMRA). Last year, he earned the No. 1 plate in the middleweight category. “That’s probably as good as I can do within CMRA,” he says. 

He never set out to go pro, however. “My goal was to ride the best tracks in the U.S.,” he says. “And it just so happened that, after asking everybody what they thought the best tracks were and figuring out what I liked, MotoAmerica races the best tracks.”  

When Fox told the head of his GT office he would be racing professionally this year, she asked how the firm could help. He jokingly responded, “Well, you can sponsor me.” She instantly agreed, and the GTLaw Racing team was born. “It really is a great feeling having the GT logo on my leathers, on my bike,” he says. “It’s a team of one right now, but it’s still a team.” 

Racing is “surprisingly similar” to his law practice, he adds: The preparation for both involves “a thousand little details that all have to be right. But then, when you’re actually in the negotiation or on the track, you have to forget about all the little details and just focus on the big picture.” 

At age 51, Fox’s first MotoAmerica race took place in early May. On his second lap, he hit a bump that caused him to crash. Fox lost his spleen and suffered head trauma that kept him out of work for a few weeks. Still, he anticipates returning to the circuit as soon as he’s able. “I qualified, which was a huge win, and the first lap, I passed four bikes,” Fox says. “It was the best lap I’ve ever ridden in my life.”