Tuesday Conversation: Clinton Seller

One of the top superbike racers in South Africa’s domestic series, Clinton Seller made a trip across the pond to fill in for the injured Melissa Paris at the last round of the Daytona SportBike series, held at the new New Jersey Motorsports Park facility. Seller ran as high as eighth in Race 1 before pushing too hard in a corner and losing the front, crashing out and injuring his knee. Despite that, he managed a respectable ninth in Race 2. We sat down with Seller Saturday morning to learn a little more about the friendly South African rider.

RRX: How did you get your start in racing?
Clinton Seller: My father used to race cars in South Africa, but I’ve always been around racing; I’m from a big racing family. I raced go-karts in South Africa for a couple of years, [and] my dad had a road bike and I started riding that. Then I crashed it and it cost too much to repair a road bike, so he bought me a race bike. I think I was 15 years old then, and that’s when I started racing.

And you’re currently third in the South African superbike championship?
Yeah, there’s actually a round this weekend in South Africa that I’m missing, so that could even put me little further back. I was actually leading the championship by twenty points, but I had a little bit of a crash and a breakdown and messed it up. So, I thought this was more important.

How would you describe the competition in your home series?
The guys in South Africa are quick as well, but there are a lot less guys that are as fast. Here, there are like fifteen guys that go really quickly. In South Africa, maybe there are three. The depth of the field is a lot greater here, which obviously makes it a lot harder, but it’s kind of cool because it’s pushing me as well. Also, I don’t ride an R6 in South Africa; I ride an R1.

The guys are really fast, so it’s not easy at all. I think in the race I might be able to hang with the front group if I get into it as quickly as possible. Obviously with qualifying it’s not going to be that easy. But it feels pretty cool, to be honest I’m quite excited to be here.

What are the South African tracks like?
We have a track that is pretty similar to this one, actually, so that’s quite nice. We have, I think, like nine racetracks in South Africa, so they’re pretty good. Three or four of them are up to international standards, you know, where they have MotoGP and World Superbikes and that. So the tracks are pretty good, but having not seen so many tracks here in the U.S., I’m not sure how they compare. But this track is really similar [to one at home].

In Friday qualifying for Daytona SportBike here at New Jersey Motorsports Park, you placed third before a fuel issue saw you disqualified from Superpole. What was that about?
It seems that the fuel foam left in the tank from when Melissa rode World Supersport [at Miller Motorsports Park] contaminated the fuel from here, so it ended up that we were outside of the allowed spec of the fuel.

Were you interested in trying out the AMA Pro series prior to this opportunity?
Definitely. For the last two years, I’ve been trying to come over here and race. At the end of last year I came over to the Daytona tire test with Chuck Graves—not to ride, just to sort of check it out and see what it was all about. That’s when I met Josh Hayes, and then through being friends with him for the year, he put me in contact with Mark Rozema, and that’s how I got this ride. So, it’s been a while coming.

Would you like to contend this series full-time?
Yeah, that’s kind of the goal of the weekend, is to put myself in showcase and see if I can possibly get a ride for next year.