What to do about the AMA

"Julian Bond" wrote in message
news:LO+31H2cUTdAFAS5@jblaptop.voidstar.com...
<font color=purple> > <a rel="nofollow" style='text-decoration: none;' href="http://www.amasuperbike.com/2004/Apr/040408a.htm</font" target="_blank">http://www.amasuperbike.com/2004/Apr/040408a.htm</font</a>>

Not a very accurate article in some respects. My critique:

"Superbike grid, which not that many years ago featured... all sorts of
assorted decent privateer bikes." Huh? I must have missed that. I recall a
few private H-D VR1000s, maybe a few Japanese private "true" SBs, and a lot
of mostly 750SS machines. And a lot of open spaces in the grid, where 750SS
teams used the track time for practice but didn't do the SB races.

"For God's sake, there aren't any privateer Ducati Superbikes anymore; they
were once the staple of the third row of the grid for literally a decade."
Huh? Must have missed that decade. I do recall Quarterley and Sadowski
racing private Ducatis for a year or two in the mid-90s, and Jimmy Adamo
before that. But the rest of this is fantasy. And since the early 90s the
third row was mostly filled with factory bikes, until the last couple years.

"The factories were offered a class like Superbike using the same bikes as
used in Superbike and they took it. We now have a class of racing which
threatens the very existence of AMA Superbike racing." True, but they kind
of had that before in 750SS, which used many of the same bikes as ran in SB.
The difference there was that some of the Japanese factories used
homologation specials not allowed in SS, and 750 SBs were heavily modified,
in order to compete with the 1000 twins (read: Ducati). Today's 1000-4 SBs
are considerably more "stock", so not much faster than the SS machines.

"Some solutions off the top of my head: propose that Superstock and
Superbike be united... or announcing the demise of Superstock" - dump maybe
the best class in the series now, the one with the most factories, factory
bikes and riders? Reduce the number of classes to three? Nope...
"or lifting of the ban on factory riders in Superstock/Superbike - a good
start, but will that be enough for Yamaha and Kawasaki to play in SB? Maybe
not, because what are the chances that they'll actually win?
"There are tub-thumpers who have a big problem with Superstock motorcycles
becoming the Superbike class. I'm not one of them. Factory Superstock
motorcycles are as fast or faster than the majority of factory Superbikes,
or show signs of being fast enough with a little more development." - I
agree to a great extent, but what about the future of SB worldwide? Dean
doesn't mention anything about WSB or GP here, and you can't talk about
what's happening in AMA SB without addressing the effects of those series.
If SB does come back, where does that leave the AMA? What about Ducati,
which can't compete in SStock?

The fact is the SB grid may be deeper today than it has been in a long time.
There were about 35 bikes on the grid at Fontana, which I believe is deeper
than SB has been in recent 750-4/1000-2 years. Two years ago Gobert
qualified on pole with a 1:25.25 (a Friday time, which would have put him
2nd this year), and the 20th qualifier had a 32.44. This year Mladin was at
24.76, the 20th qualifier was at 30.84, and the 30th was at 32.08. The first
true privateer in '02 was Jimmy Moore, who posted an 11th-quick 30.62; this
year it was Geoff May's 7th-quick 27.57. Last year, the first year of 1000s
and the FX crossovers, was similar to this year - Moore was 9th with a
28.72, the 20th qualifier was at 30.35, and it looks like on Sunday there
were 32 starters.

If you look at the past, the real problem appears to be with twins. In 1998
there were 16 factory riders, and half of them were on twins. Today there is
only one. Many of the best private SBs have been twins over the last decade,
including Pegram the early part of last year, and now there are none. So
have twins just run their course, or is this another consequence of the
shift to 1000-4s?

Why are SS machines running on slicks? Why do 1000-4 SBs use mostly stock
intake systems and only one set of internal gearing? The classes are
migrating toward each other. And remember that Supersport pole at Fontana
was a 27.31, which would have been 7th in Superstock and 6th in SB. SSport
times are plummeting, improving much faster than SB, which again raises the
question of the relevance of traditional SB today.

There are few real answers in this article, nor is there a very good
explanation of the evolution of this crisis - if there truly is one, that
is...