It’s the most exclusive club in motorcycle racing. It has just four members. It is called the Grand Slam.

To get in the club a rider has to win in every form of what used to make up the old Grand National Championship: Mile, TT, Half-Mile, Short Track and Roadrace.

Current members of the Grand Slam are: Dick Mann, Kenny Roberts, Bubba Shobert and Doug Chandler. Three-time Superbike champion Chandler was the newest addition to the club--and that was thirty-five years ago.

The late Dick Mann was the first rider to do the grand slam and even today is arguably the most versatile racer in that very exclusive club. Not only did Mann win all of the different classes to get the Grand Slam, he also won early motocross races and competed at the top level in Trials events. Of course King Kenny Roberts is the most flamboyant of the quartet: he completed the Grand Slam in one season, and astoundingly did the exact same thing the next season. He did the Grand Slam twice. In 24 months.

A club with only four members means that there are plane loads of racing legends who never made it into the Grand Slam. Jay Springsteen, Mert Lawwill, Gene Romero, Eddie Lawson, Chris Carr, Wayne Rainey, Scott Parker, and Gary Nixon are some of the reams of riders who are champions, all, but not in the Grand Slam club. Hell, Kenny Coolbeth won the dirt track national championship three times and he never even won a TT race.

Given the state of American racing today, most believed that seeing another racer join the Grand Slam Club in the modern era was about as likely as a Woolly Mammoth showing up in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
As JD Beach tore through the final laps of last weekend’s Black Hills Half-Mile, the Grand Slam was all he could think about. With two laps to go, Beach wasn’t focused on the victory lap, the celebration, or even reciting his sponsors.

His mind was locked on one thing: the Grand Slam.

“I watched ‘On Any Sunday’ when I was five years old and I think that’s when I first became aware of it,” Beach said of the near-mythical club of elite American racers.

“I was thinking, well, if this happens, if I win this, then all that is left is a Mile win. It seemed surreal.”
Beach, like many, thought that the tragic death of Nick Hayden permanently closed the door on any new members of the Grand Slam Club. Hayden put in 100% effort to win all the races that a Grand Slam entails but he had to leave America for MotoGP before he could do it.

Beach needs a Mile win to get into the Grand Slam Club.

How did he get here? In short: stoic acceptance of trying circumstances. He started his career as an amateur racer in the Pacific North West and then came under the tutelage of Danny Walker and Chris Carr at the American Supercamp. From there his journey was racing whatever he could for fifteen years, from Red Bull Rookie Cup bikes to Yamaha Supersport bikes to an Attack Superbike then a full-time ride with Estenson Racing Yamaha in AFT dirt track.

His 2024 plan was to only race in Superbike. And he was, until Dallas Daniels broke his leg. Then he was back in dirt track for Estenson filling in for Daniels.

It’s been a long journey from the amateur program at the Castle Rock TT to being one win away from the Grand Slam.


It hasn’t been glamorous, not by a long shot. Crashing on Casey Stoner’s couch between races and long-arming across the country in a van isn’t exactly a champagne breakfast. Many chase the dream, few succeed, and countless grid-filling racers are broken by the relentless regimen of training, traveling, and scrambling for sponsors. Some successful racers eventually choose to step away from the grind, opting instead for a steady job—like making cabinets for $40 an hour.

Staying focused in that arduous journey he scored wins in TT, Superbike and short track. Dallas Daniels breaking his leg in a practice crash a month ago meant, Beach, who inferred in the paddock at the Austin MotoGP race in April that he was not going to race dirt track at all in 2024, was back on the Yamaha dirt track bike and winning.

“At that time I did tell you that,” Beach says with a laugh. “I did not plan on racing any dirt track this year so this has all been unplanned. It’s just kind of surreal.”

In 2002 Beach saw Nicky Hayden put in a WFO effort to try and win the dirt track races needed to put him in the Grand Slam--while he raced a factory Superbike for Honda.

“I saw Nicky doing dirt tracks in ’02 when he was also racing for the Superbike title. I think it was only then I realized how hard it is to get wins in all those different classes. So for this to all come together ... just wow.”

What’s it mean? Lets ask the heart and soul of American dirt track racing, Dave Despain. “Nearly 40 years ago, the division of Grand National motorcycle racing into separate championships profoundly changed the definition of the "Grand Slam."  If J.D. Beach can win a mile race, he will rank among that distinguished handful who won in all five of the disciplines that once comprised the championship.  If he never wins a mile, he will rank among the most talented, versatile and popular riders ever to try.  So with due respect to those who accomplished either version of the "slam" I say, "Go Jiggy Dog!"

And from somebody who has been racing against Beach his entire life, racer Sammy Halbert says, “I honestly get chills thinking that JD has a shot at the Grand Slam. It’s incredible that he is in the position that he is in because racing is so specialized now that it’s very difficult to switch from dirt track to roadrace. I love roadrace, love to do it but I’d never be able to win a Superbike race. JD has a very significant and versatile skill set. He’s probably the best TT rider in the world now--you could put him anywhere and he could win. So it’s very deserving. His strengths? I don’t know JD very well but I know that he is focused. I think his life is racing and outside of racing ... it’s just his dogs. I think every decision he has to make is centered around racing. It has been his whole life.”

JD Beach’s dad, Gary, says of his son and the Slam:

“I think he first heard of the Grand Slam from when he would go ride bicycles with Nicky. They would go off and ride bicycles and they would talk as they rode. Nicky’d be talking about the Grand Slam and how it wasn’t enough to do just the dirt track Grand Slam but the real Grand Slam, with a Superbike win. I don’t know but I think that’s where it all started.”

“I tell you he’s been a dream as a son. He was a good kid from the get-go. He has always been very self-reliant. It was just him and me. I was working full-time, nights and then doing his bikes when I wasn’t at work. So he got up for school by himself, made breakfast, fed the dogs, did the laundry. He made dinner, cleaned the house and kept the whole house running. Every day. He was just a dream for a son. ”

How old was JD when he was this self-sufficient, Gary?

“He was nine.”

Beach needs a Mile win to become the fifth member of the Grand Slam Club. There are a pair of Springfield Mile races at the end of the month.

Is the Estenson Racing Yamaha now strong enough to win the Springfield Mile? American champion Brad Baker, the only American to beat Marc Marquez in a race, says it is. “The Estenson bike is stout. It can win any race on the AFT calendar.”

Halbert agrees. “They have developed that Yamaha into a weapon. That team does not let off; I rode for them in 2017 and since then they have just been relentless in building the Yamaha into a bike that is just as versatile as JD is really. It’s the best bike out there. I rode a Yamaha and raced against JD last weekend so I think I know how good that bike is right now.

It’s 2024 and we are witnessing history. This is not lost on multi-time American Flat Track champion Chris Carr:

“After all these years since Nicky came close, JD fills in for his old team and earns a chance for a Grand National era Grand Slam? I hope MotoAmerica doesn’t have a race on Labor Day!”