S
ince common sense
doesn't always seem that
common anymore, I'm go-
ing to go out on a limb here and
give a bit of advice to those mak-
ing the calls at motorcycle races
regarding anything that has to do
with the safety of those racing
the motorcycles: Pretend your
son/daughter is one of those in
the race. If you follow that simple
rule, I'm pretty sure you'll stop a
race held in a rainstorm when all
your kids are using slicks on their
Superbikes. And it doesn't really
matter what you told them: Kids
will be kids.
Let me preface all of this by
saying I wasn't at Road America.
But I did watch the race on Fans-
ChoiceTV, which is somewhat
of a misnomer because it was
actually on my computer screen
and not my TV. Perhaps Fans-
ChoiceLapTop doesn't have the
same appeal.
Either way, I witnessed a de-
bacle at the end of the second
of two AMA Superbike races in
Wisconsin. The final pictures I
saw from the feed were of Josh
Hayes circulating the track in a
rainstorm behind an ambulance
on his cool-down lap, which in
this case was aptly named be-
cause Hayes was furious that
he'd just completed a handful of
laps in the pouring rain on a Su-
perbike fitted with slick tires. And
I don't blame him. Hell, the con-
ditions were so bad they moved
the podium "celebration" into the
pressroom.
But let's back up for a min-
ute. After the first red flag, which
came out because there was a
light rain falling on certain parts
of the track and the field was
mounted on slicks, the re-start
was declared a wet race. That
meant it wouldn't be stopped if it
rained. Thus it was up to the rid-
ers and their teams to fit whatever
tires they wanted in a race that
theoretically wouldn't be stopped
for bad weather. The track wasn't
completely dry when the race
BY PAUL CARRUTHERS
CN
III CARRUTHERS SAYS
RULEBOOK BE DAMNED
P122
