Daytona family out to ruin motorcycle racing too?
Very few people get rich racing motorcycles. The hours are brutal, the physical demands are demanding, the return on investment is minimal. People race motorcycles, people work on racing motorcycles, people support motorcycle racing, because it's their passion, because they love it, because it's fun. But if Daytona didn't convince you, the evidence was stark at Fontana – this just isn't fun anymore.
The atmosphere in the AMA road-race paddock is funereal. The central topic of conversation isn't racing, but what's wrong with racing and how much worse it's going to get. Because, make no mistake, it continues to get worse.
It's one more example of the monomaniacal compulsion to change every single aspect of motorcycle racing, to take something that's unique and mold it into the shape of some other series for no good reason. The pace car – in Fontana, it was a lumbering four-door that clearly wasn't made to go around corners – should be banned. What happened when the pace car came out for the mandatory three laps in Sunday's SportBike race? The fans were treated to three less laps of racing.
The rules from now on are, there are no rules. If you screw up, we'll tell you, but we won't tell you in advance. Will we race in the rain? Don't know. We'll get back to you. Racing in the rain at Fontana is insane. The daffy curbing that makes up the chicane in turn one is lethal. Hit it in the dry and you might lose your front end. In the wet, you will crash and you will hit a wall. And that simply isn't fun. More…
09/11/08 Today it was announced that a rival motorcycle racing series has been started in the USA because people in the industry are fed up dealing with the France family's heavy-handed running of the AMA and how they are trying to turn it into dumbed down NASCAR on 2-wheels. In recent years the France family has branched out into motorcycle racing, has bought the Grand-Am, tried to NASCARize open wheel sprint car racing, and started stock car racing series in Mexico and Canada. Their aim is to solidify their monopoly stronghold on all racing in North America. In this way they can control a huge chunk of advertising dollars and funnel it toward NASCAR as they slowly kill off other forms of motorsports in an effort to eventually have NASCAR be "racing" so there is no fan confusion of what racing is – stock car racing on big high banked oval tracks.
08/22/08 The Rockstar Makita Suzuki team will appeal the disqualification of Mat Mladin from the Virginia International Raceway results, but AMA Pro Racing does not have to accept the appeal. Overnight, the team issued a press release stating they would appeal the penalty imposed after Mladin’s crankshaft was found to be illegal following his double race wins at VIR last weekend. The violations fall under the rule A3.1 a. as an “equipment violation that could potentially or effectively enhance the performance of a motorcycle used in competition." The team now has until the "third business day by 5:00 p.m." after being notified, according to the rulebook, to appeal. The team was notified on August 20, three days after the second of Mladin’s two runaway VIR wins.
08/22/08 After he spoke out against the France family run AMA motorcycle series (below) AMA Pro Racing announced today that Mat Mladin has been disqualified from the August 16-17, 2008 AMA Superbike Championship presented by Parts Unlimited round at Virginia International Raceway following the outcome of post-race technical inspections.
The crankshaft from the #6 Rockstar Makita Suzuki was sent to AMA headquarters in Pickerington, Ohio, and was compared to other production crankshafts from the same model. Upon this inspection, the crankshaft was found to be in non-compliance of the 2008 AMA Superbike Championship Rulebook.
08/19/08 Standing atop the victory rostrum on Sunday at Virginia International Raceway, Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Mat Mladin told the crowd that he’d be racing a Superbike in the U.S. next season. But where? It won’t be in the AMA Superbike Championship, run by the Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG). Instead, he’ll be one of the riders in a rival road race championship that could be announced as early as Wednesday.
“It was supposed to be announced last week before (Friday’s) DMG (Daytona Motorsports Group) announcement" not to include the Factory Superbike class, a source familiar with the new series said, adding that the series will have four classes. The plan is to adopt World Superbike rules for the premier class in 2010. A second source said that the series had the support of the parent companies of the American distributors of the Japanese brands.
DMG CEO Roger Edmondson said on Friday he wouldn't include Factory Superbike in the 2009 AMA Superbike Championship. He said there wasn't a single response to his query. The timing of Edmondson's decision and the new series announcement was coincidental. One of the sources said that the idea had been in the works for more than two years, ever since then AMA CEO Patti Dipietro dismissed AMA Pro Racing CEO Scott Hollingsworth and dissolved the AMA Pro Racing board.
“Yeah, sounds like we’re going to be racing Superbikes again, so that’s good," Mladin said after the podium celebrations. When asked where he’d be racing he was non-committal, saying, “I don’t know." American Suzuki vice president Mel Harris said on Saturday that his company wouldn’t race in the DMG-run AMA Superbike Championship.
Harris, a persistent critic of the DMG, said he had the blessing of Suzuki Japan to find an alternative series, “so at this point, we’re going to be looking at any avenue that might open up in the future and if there is another series or an alternative that we can race, we’re going to really consider that and see where that goes. But at this point we’re out of DMG’s racing." Cycle News Online
06/13/08 In this article, France Family appointee to oversee the AMA they just bought, Roger Edmondson, gets tough with the riders who refuse to race in the rain with some real strong-arm tactics.
06/12/08 Based on this article, looks like all the riders are really angry at Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG) from this and other articles saying that DMG put out a press release saying the riders would run in the rain because of safety changes. There were none. DMG is making friends everywhere it seems. Best quote by Ben Spies over the issue of racing in the rain at Mid-Ohio:
“It’s the surface that is the biggest part for the crashes, but then after you crash you don’t want to be tagging the wall," Spies said. “Yes, if there were no walls here, I would race here in the rain. But the fact is there are a bunch of walls here and I will not race in the rain. Even though, supposedly, there were all these track changes that DMG or AMA or whatever it is now, called and said and approved for racing in the rain, but they forgot to ask the riders. The facts are that nothing has been changed. So they can get on my bike and race in the rain if they [France Family and AMA leadership] want."
BTW, AutoRacing1.com hears that Suzuki will not be back if the proposed new rules stay.
05/21/08 There is a real ground swell happening against the Frances proposed changes to AMA Superbike etc. This week numerous riders have voiced concerns, including King Kenny Roberts etc. But here is a link to 6 time legend Matt Mladen.
Six-time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin used the podium at Infineon Raceway as a pulpit to blast the proposed 2009 rules package for the AMA Superbike Championship.
Just after getting beaten by team-mate Ben Spies, for the third race in a row, this time by over six seconds, and after accepting the second place trophy, Mladin addressed the crowd.
“If you guys don’t speak up, you’re going to be watching a bunch of piece of crap motorcycles ridden by second rate riders," he said, later adding, “Hopefully we’ll be back next year riding the biggest fastest bikes in America."
The Daytona Motorsports Group is expected to announce the technical regulations for the “Literbike" class quite soon.
04/22/08 A reader writes, Dear AutoRacing1.com, I can't take it anymore. The France family in Daytona thinks they can NASCARize everything. What they are doing is ruining all forms of motorsports in America. They tried it with the USAC sprint cars and failed miserably. Their NASCAR superspeedway version of the sprint car is now gone, rejected by teams and fans alike.
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| The Daytona Prototype looks as bad as an Edsel Ford and we all know what happened to them. |
| Photo by Grand-Am |
Then we have the Grand-Am Daytona prototypes, without question the most hideous looking and performing race cars on the plant. Witness the car to the right, it looks like an Edsel. It is truly hideous. Now I read where they are trying to NASCARize AMA Superbikes, rolling starts and all.
This Superbikeplanet.com article says, Suzuki have ruled the roost in AMA Superbike racing for a lot of the last few years through a combination of the best riders and the machinery that pushes the technological envelope of the rule book. Combine those two things with and a talented crew and they've had a great recipe for success.
With the Daytona MotorSports Group proposal possibly removing the 1000cc bike classes from the series and moving the emphasis away from the technology of the bikes and going in a more NASCAR-like "it's all about the entertainment" direction, Soup asked Suzuki's Mel Harris for his opinion of DMG's directions and how it affects Suzuki's racing program and their ability to "Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday." Oh, and we asked him about the meeting he had with Daytona Motorsports Group, too. More at Superbikeplanet.com
NASCAR TV ratings are down over 20% from three years ago and attendance at races is way off. Grand-Am popularity is a complete joke and now they are taking aim at motorcycle racing and the people I know who are involved are not happy about it. Fans are becoming disgusted with the people in Daytona and their arsebackwards way of thinking. I am beginning to truly believe their goal is to take over all forms of motorsports in the USA and slowly destroy it from the inside out so that only NASCAR stock cars will be left, which would enable them to control all the racing advertising dollars in the USA, i.e. a true monopoly. Jeff Teravainen