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was restarted and anyone with access to weather information could tell that rain was moving into the Elkhart Lake area. Could they have opted for intermedi- ates, certainly? Rain tires? Well, those wouldn't have worked un- less it rained on the first lap. But apparently intermediates were available. But they opted for slicks. Why? Because it was dry enough and that gave them the best chance of winning the race. I've been around racing enough to know that if Josh Hayes is going to use slicks, Martin Cardenas is going to use them. And vice versa. The gen- eral rule of thumb is you mount the same tire that your competi- tion is mounting. It keeps you from over-thinking your way out of a race. I've seen it happen a zillion times. The guy who tries to out-think everyone else ends up with a shredded tire and no points to show for it. It works the same for the guy who thinks it's going to dry out and tries to start a wet race with slicks. So most go with the odds. And the odds say to mount what everyone else has mounted. So the race started with ev- eryone but one rider opting for slicks. That rider didn't fare well because a rain tire doesn't last on a dry racetrack, though appar- ently he pitted and reentered the race a lap behind once it started raining hard. At that point he had the best tires on the track. But his timing was all wrong. Meanwhile up front everything was hunky-dory. Hayes had a big lead over Cardenas and was walking away to victory. Then the sky opened up and, lo and be- hold, water fell from it. In buck- ets. So now we had the top Super- bike racers in the country tiptoe- ing around the four-mile Road America racetrack most likely thinking that this thing was going to be stopped. But it wasn't. Hey, rules are rules and they declared this race a "wet race." AMA of- ficials were also likely relying on getting information from the rid- ers. Some said they did, others probably wish they did. With hindsight being 20/20, it's easy for me to sit here and say that if I was running the race I wouldn't have declared it wet when it was dry. I would have sent them out on their preferred slicks with the race being called a "dry race." When, or if, it rained, I would have red-flagged it and had them come in, mount up rain tires and let 'em rip for a restarted run to the flag in really iffy condi- tions – but with the correct tires for the job. But I don't have the job of se- nior director of competition. That job is held by Dave McGrath, who in my dealings with him comes across as a good man who I don't believe would do anything to harm a fly. But in this case, I really wish he would have gone against the rulebook, which AMA Pro Racing seems perfectly ca- pable of doing when the need arises or doesn't arise. So why not this time? I've put a call in to McGrath and I hope he returns it so I can find out. My question is simple: Why not throw a red flag and stop the damn race? Nothing was going to change. There wasn't a guy out there who was charging through the field because he had the right tires on. There was a scared Josh Hayes on slicks leading a scared David Anthony on slicks, who was leading a scared Roger Lee Hayden. Again, on slicks. No positions were going to change. No one cared. This was a case of cut your losses, call it a day and let everyone go the hell home. In one piece. Finally the red flag came when Cameron Beaubier and Chris Fillmore crashed in separate inci- dents in the same portion of the track and Fillmore's bike ended up sitting smack dab in the mid- dle of the racetrack. And Jason Farrell had crashed for a second time on the day and needed at- tending to by medical personnel. So the race was ultimately red flagged anyway. Just not soon enough. I'm of the opinion that no one is ever going to be critical of a deci- sion that was made in an effort to try and keep people safe. I've seen AMA races red flagged for reasons far less obvious than this one. Stopping that Superbike race at Road America when it stopped being a race and turned into a battle of survival would have been the right thing to do. To hell with the rulebook. CN VOL. 51 ISSUE 22 JUNE 3, 2014 P123

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