Led by patriarch and team owner Tryg "Pops" Westby, Westby Racing competes in the MotoAmerica AMA/FIM North American Road Racing Championship.Officially, the team was formed in 2006, but the genesis of Westby Racing began long before that. Westby Racing patriarch Tryg Westby was an AMA Superbike racer back in the 1980s, when he raced at tracks from Loudon on the East Coast to Sears Point on the West Coast.

 

Tryg’s son Dane was born on February 13, 1987, and with Tryg’s love of motorcycles genetically imprinted in Dane, it wasn’t long before father introduced son to the sport, in the form of a diminutive Yamaha PW50.Dane won his first race, on that same Yamaha PW50, at the age of 7. It was the Gold Rush Cross Country Race in Hallett, OK. When he turned 16, he began road racing as an amateur. In 2005, in his first year as an Expert road racer, Dane recorded 25 podium finishes out of the 30 races in which he competed.

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Westby Racing was officially founded in 2006, when Dane competed in WERA (Western-Eastern Racing Association), winning the SV650 Cup Championship in his rookie season.

In 2007, Dane won three WERA Championships, four AMA Sports National Championships, and he was also nominated for the AMA Horizon Award. In addition, 2007 was the year that current team manager Chuck Giacchetto started working with Tryg and Dane.

2014 was Yamalube’s and Westby Racing’s first year together as a team and, riding the gold-liveried #00 Yamaha YZF-R6, Dane finished the AMA Pro Daytona SportBike season in third place, scored a double win at Barber Motorsports Park, and won by 16 seconds in the pouring rain at New Jersey Motorsports Park to round out a memorable year for the team.

In 2015, MotoAmerica dawned as a new spirit of optimism overtook the road racing paddock, as well as Yamalube/Westby Racing. Yamaha introduced a new YZF-R1 that was eligible for two MotoAmerica race classes--Superbike and Superstock 1000. After several years of success on middleweight bikes, Dane and Yamalube/Westby Racing decided to strike while the iron was hot and campaign an R1 in Superstock 1000.

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With the brand-new bike’s racing bodywork still in gray primer, the team participated in the official MotoAmerica preseason test at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, TX. Following a day and a half of dialing in the new machine, Dane and the team found their sweet spot. Suddenly, the #00 Yamalube/Westby Racing R1 shot up the timing and scoring charts to post the fastest Superstock 1000 laptime of the test. Dane returned triumphantly to the team’s pitbox, and joined the celebration with smiles, high-fives, and hugs all-around.

 

2015 was poised to become the best year ever for Dane, for Tryg, and for the entire Yamalube/Westby Racing team. And, when Dane passed away on March 23, the team was devastated.

 

But, Westby Racing continues on, in Dane’s spirit and with the collective enthusiasm of a group of special people brought together by a love of motorcycles and motorcycle road racing.