Today's installment...

Today's installment...

> * w w w .roadracingworld . com /news/article/?article2147

The first concrete change has happened, and we didn't even have to wait
until next year. So what's going on there? The AMA website didn't have
the Elkhart schedule up yet, but last year's may be instructive.
Saturday afternoon consisted of SStock qualifying, SSport qualifying, SB
race 1 and the FX race, plus a sidecar heat race. Now we have a 3-3.5
hour endurance race in the middle of that. Obviously one of the moves
will be to move the FX race to Sunday, it's going to evolve into next
year's feature class after all. But that hardly frees up enough time, so
what next? Maybe the SS classes get cut back to only one session each,
they're on the way out after all. Or maybe SStock with its hated 1000s
will be dropped altogether? NASBike's weekend concept was to give
Moto-ShiT two hours of practice on Friday afternoon, and there has to be
at least a warmup if not qualifying on Saturday morning.

Now for the kicker - what if they're dropping the first SB race, what if
they've decided it's never too early to start killing off that loser of
a class? If so, how would you feel if you'd already bought your Saturday
ticket?

Now for some real meaty fluff:

> * w w w .superbikeplanet . com /2008/Apr/080423-dmg-view.htm

After opening up with a high hard one Evan resorts to straight softballs
the rest of the way, but there are a few little gems lurking in there:

"I think there were sort of three things on the plate going in. There
was MotoST, which is established. There was Daytona Superbike, which has
been discussed within the confines of Grand-Am, and with Roger and
Daytona International Speedway for quite some time, that kind of format,
and with some of the track owners. And then there was the idea that
probably some kind of liter bike would be necessary, because liter bike
sales are very important."

So it seems DMG had already planned this DSB thing, no doubt to replace
AMA FX at Daytona. If you believe Suzuki's Mel Harris (and I do), they
had absolutely nothing more when they arrived in LA two weeks ago.
Here's also what they said about the 200: "The switch to the venue for
the Daytona AMA races, and the switch to Formula Xtreme with the
600-based Formula Xtreme class. I think the people at Daytona
International Speedway have a very clear message that nobody likes their
new track, and nobody likes their feature class. That was meant to be
appealing to everybody, and it was a universally disliked pair of
decisions." Yep, people wanted to see SBs and not just three Honda
factory 600s. So the answer - don't raise the bridge, lower the river!

Anyway, this suggests that the purchase of the AMA really had nothing to
do with buying a preexisting series to modify and run, rather it had to
do with eliminating competition, acquiring track dates, and getting
publicity - they were already intending to run what they want to run
before the AMA ever decided to bail on the whole thing.

"Well, the problem there, no matter what you say, it sounds like you're
bashing Yoshimura and Suzuki. I don't blame them for being sensitive. We
were laughing in tech on Friday, because when we teched the second-tier
Xtreme guys, I think I've got this right, there was a Ducati twin, a
Triumph triple, and a Kawasaki inline four. Now, understand, this was
the other group. But that's literally what we'd like to see for Daytona
Superbike."

So do they mean three different configurations from three different
OEMs, or do they mean Euro bikes outnumbering the Japanese two-to-one?

"So this is a group of people who probably have a lot in common with the
people who read your - well, we are people who read your website. We're
not the same people, but we're absolutely involved. We're enthusiasts.
And we take it seriously that this needs to be done right. It's a
responsibility, and to take it and sink it just because we have some
crazy idea that might float, is totally foreign. And that's probably why
the liter bike happened, is to work to the middle. To show them that we
want to be accommodating. Yes. Accommodating. Find some common ground.
Give some concessions and compromises. A good marriage is full of
compromises."

So letting SB back in, but making it a support class, requiring each
factory to field four to six machines, taking away the purse, and giving
it two more years until the gas chamber is like "a good marriage"?
Sounds more like a trial separation to me. And why didn't Evan jump in
to inform them that the real readers of Soup voted against their baby
89% to 11%?

Re: Today's installment...

Mark N wrote:
>> * w w w .roadracingworld . com /news/article/?article2147
>
> The first concrete change has happened, and we didn't even have to wait
> until next year. So what's going on there? The AMA website didn't have
> the Elkhart schedule up yet, but last year's may be instructive.
> Saturday afternoon consisted of SStock qualifying, SSport qualifying, SB
> race 1 and the FX race, plus a sidecar heat race. Now we have a 3-3.5
> hour endurance race in the middle of that. Obviously one of the moves
> will be to move the FX race to Sunday, it's going to evolve into next
> year's feature class after all. But that hardly frees up enough time, so
> what next? Maybe the SS classes get cut back to only one session each,
> they're on the way out after all. Or maybe SStock with its hated 1000s
> will be dropped altogether? NASBike's weekend concept was to give
> Moto-ShiT two hours of practice on Friday afternoon, and there has to be
> at least a warmup if not qualifying on Saturday morning.

Yea I was curious how they were going to find 6 hours in a 30 hour schedule.

> Now for the kicker - what if they're dropping the first SB race, what if
> they've decided it's never too early to start killing off that loser of
> a class? If so, how would you feel if you'd already bought your Saturday
> ticket?

I have one better, is Speed going to run the race? Or a 1hr highlight
show, or whatever.

> So it seems DMG had already planned this DSB thing, no doubt to replace
> AMA FX at Daytona. If you believe Suzuki's Mel Harris (and I do), they
> had absolutely nothing more when they arrived in LA two weeks ago.
> Here's also what they said about the 200: "The switch to the venue for
> the Daytona AMA races, and the switch to Formula Xtreme with the
> 600-based Formula Xtreme class. I think the people at Daytona
> International Speedway have a very clear message that nobody likes their
> new track, and nobody likes their feature class. That was meant to be
> appealing to everybody, and it was a universally disliked pair of
> decisions." Yep, people wanted to see SBs and not just three Honda
> factory 600s. So the answer - don't raise the bridge, lower the river!

Another puzzler. Are they going have a single spec tire for the entire
series, or does Daytona get a "special" tire?

> Anyway, this suggests that the purchase of the AMA really had nothing to
> do with buying a preexisting series to modify and run, rather it had to
> do with eliminating competition, acquiring track dates, and getting
> publicity - they were already intending to run what they want to run
> before the AMA ever decided to bail on the whole thing.

They certainly grasped the opportunity to try and get the top teams in
to their series. What better way to get good riders in your series than
to take the tracks and leave them no other real option?

I don't know enough about the politics of what series can use which
tracks and who has control, etc. But it's clear there is some effect to
that where Series A says "Well if you let Series B come, we won't
show.". But, it wasn't a hostile take over or anything. AMA sold it to
them, and I haven't heard one way or the other whether the AMA folks are
disappointed at whats happening or not. Not that it really matters.

Regards,

Will Hartung

Re: Today's installment...

Will Hartung wrote:
> Mark N wrote:

>> Anyway, this suggests that the purchase of the AMA really had nothing
>> to do with buying a preexisting series to modify and run, rather it
>> had to do with eliminating competition, acquiring track dates, and
>> getting publicity - they were already intending to run what they want
>> to run before the AMA ever decided to bail on the whole thing.
>
> They certainly grasped the opportunity to try and get the top teams in
> to their series. What better way to get good riders in your series than
> to take the tracks and leave them no other real option?

I'm not so sure that's a material part of their math. Of what we see at
the track my guess would be that what they wanted most are the bigger,
sponsored non-factory teams, that's what they need to build around. If
they can build the team component and get some money flowing into the
series, riders will follow - riders will go wherever there are rides,
wherever there is a good paycheck. Right now they just need to keep the
factories happy enough that they'll show up and continue to support some
of those bigger teams. In a couple years when things are somewhat
established, they can afford to finish the job, squeeze the factories
out. If the factories have no viable alternative, then they won't be
racing, and we will be left with motorcycle "entertainment".

> I don't know enough about the politics of what series can use which
> tracks and who has control, etc. But it's clear there is some effect to
> that where Series A says "Well if you let Series B come, we won't
> show.". But, it wasn't a hostile take over or anything. AMA sold it to
> them, and I haven't heard one way or the other whether the AMA folks are
> disappointed at whats happening or not. Not that it really matters.

Well, look at Sears Point, which is owned by Nascar billionaire Bruton
Smith. He owns Charotte, Atlanta, Bristol, Vegas, Texas and Loudon, and
Nascar runs at all of those tracks. The Sears schedule includes as its
biggest event a Nascar race. Is Bruton going to risk rocking the boat
with the Frances by running an outlaw factory bike series?

Look at Laguna, which is restricted to only a few major events per year.
In addition to the two bike races they run a Grand Am race, which is of
course a France property. They strike me as much more likely to rock the
boat, especially if what DMG does is viewed as hurting their GP race.
And my guess would be that DMG will pull the finale from Laguna after
this year, assuming there is no contract on that. I can't imagine that
the series will end up at anywhere but Daytona.

So I think it's a track-by-track situation, but a new series would have
a fairly tough time getting a full schedule on good, safe tracks out of
the box, I would guess. Unless NASBike is viewed as a disaster in
another couple years, in which case the promoters might well line up
behind a better draw. That would take all the factories committing to
that, of course, and something to draw in the better private teams as well.

As for the AMA, I can't imagine Dingman ever admitting he made a
mistake, if it works out that way. That's hardly the legacy he wants.
Don't know if you saw the Ray Blank interview at Soup yesterday, but
it's funny how much time they spend on the AMA. Setting aside Dean's AMA
criticism addiction problem and having to go cold turkey now (I wonder
if he and HR Abrams are on the same 12-step program as our Tom?), Blank
certain pulls no punches on blaming the AMA for putting them in this
mess. And I rather enjoyed his characterization of Moto-ShiT:

"I somehow don't think that, given the option, the customer is going to
decide on the smaller displacement bike. Nor do I think that they're
going to choose the MotoST format. If a customer has an opportunity to
see high-performance sport bikes at their speed and their movement on
the track, versus MotoST, I think we're going to have the same problem
that we had back in the days of Battle of the Twins. Makes you feel that
it's time to get a beer. If the race is three hours long, I would think
that that would be a great opportunity for Anheuser-Busch, one long beer
break for the crowd."

And we have the first suggestion of the OEM's looking elsewhere, a big,
fat hint to any potential partners:

"Is there the possibility of a promoter, or a promoter group, whatever,
that might come up and say, "We understand that you OEMs don't have a
part in this new vision of AMA racing. We understand that there's no
place there. We see this alternative for you. Would you like to play
here?" I think that if a savvy promoter came to the OEMs with an
alternative, and it had all the elements that are necessary—which are
venue, administration, promotion, et cetera, et cetera, the OEMs could
say, "Well, I don't really have a place in this other game." Really,
when I look at the DMG proposal, I don't have to do anything any more,
do I? What do I have to do? I have to make 600cc bikes and sell them to
people who will then make them into Daytona Superbikes, I guess. I'm not
going to do it. If a promoter came and said, "How about this and this
and this and this?" I might say, "Yeah, I'll play." And then maybe
somebody else would do the same thing."

The dice may be rolling already...