How does motivation relate to the experience of flow?

Previous academic studies of the Sport Motivation Scale and Flow State Scales have used only one of these scales with their respondents. This study sets out to use both scales on the same respondents and therefore to discover if these scales are correlated and if so, how they are correlated. This one shot study was undertaken using licensed participants in motorcycle road racing in Australia as the survey group and the written questionnaire was returned by 370 racers. Result analysis showed statistically significant correlations between Flow State Scale-2 and Sport Motivation Scale indicating that a racer who is intrinsically motivated would be highly more likely to experience flow than an amotivated athlete. With flow producing very pleasing effects on the motorcycle racer, these flow effects may help racers to remain engaged and returning to the sport.