Cycle News

MatMladin was in that pit lane from Loudon [in 200 I , when the factory 600cc Supersport riders boycotted] was a scene that was such a black day for our sport that I thought, "That could never happen again." But I could see it happening again at Daytona. I could see it happening again at a number of different places. And I thought that that would have been something that right then and there they would have learned from. And right now, my biggest fear is that Daytona's going to be on the schedule. And we may not even turn a wheel there in testing. And if so, we might do it two or three weeks before the race. MLAD : And the manufacturers need to stand up and say, "Boys, you've got to prove it's safe, or we don't go." PRIDMORE: There's two things you're going to have to do. You either take it off the schedule for a year or try to move it to another point in the year. I asked Jim Allen, "What would happen if the race was a month later?" He said, '~I the difference in the world." They could build tires. And the same with Michelin, PRIDMORE: The only way that's going to happen is if the head guys from Honda and all the main guys call the AMA and say, "We're not taking our riders. This is the end of it. Our riders aren't going." BOSTROM: Build tires for what? PRIDMORE: For the race. That's the problem. We shouldn't be going there, period. And I agree with you 1000 percent. We shouldn't even be turning a wheel at that place any more. MLADIN: Not without a lot of changes. I think the track's raceable with a lot of changes , for sure. We're still going to be there, we're just not doing all the banking. I still think we can do the tri-oval, the bit where the finish line is and that sort of stuff. And maybe part of the other banking. We can't do all the banking that's there today. The infield bits, it's okay; it's safe. BOSTROM: It's not really safe. Look at how hard Aaron [Yates] and [Anthony FaniaJr.] hit the hay bales. MLADIN: But with a little bit of work it's reasonably safe. It's only a matter of moving a wall not very far. And they have room. PRIDMORE: But see, the thing is, we 're going to the most dangerous track that we can think of where problems mechanically are starting to become commonplace. Every year you're seeing something. Now they 're going to take that and multiply that problem by saying, "Well, you guys can't test the re three months ahead, it might only be a month ." Which then puts all these con- straints on Dunlop and Michelin and Pirelli and all these other tire manufacturers. And they 're the ones that ultimately get the mud slung into their faces. And the AMA, in my opinion, slides right under the radar. MLADIN : And we heard this year, let's do a threepit-stop race and let's do this, and let's do that. And, yeah, the race was won with three pit stops. The minute they think we can go there and do a three-pit-stop race and race and everything's going to be okay, is the minute you're going to have to do four pit stops. Because the new softer tires are going to make us go a second and a half a lap quicker and last 14 laps. You can't stop that. You've got to fix the track , not the tires or not the bike. The bike is not the evil here. The racetrack's the evil. BOSTROM: You look at that pace-car incident three years ago. That was just from a couple of riders slowing down and the guys behind not really knowing that the riders in front of them slowed down . That's a subtle slowing down . Imagine if somebody scatters a motor and there're all those bikes. At the time the series was good, and there were a lot of bikes in that pack. There's going to be bodies and bikes and crap everywhere. MLADIN: You know the answer we get all the time, "Well, it hasn't happened yet." That's the answer I got, that there were no red flags this year. BUCKMASTER: What about the red flags we get at every other racetrack and almost every race we do? BOSTROM: And half of them are caused by the 30th through 40th guys. MLADIN: They're almost never caused by the top 20 guys. DUHAMEL: Because their lines are so awkward, their bike lays in the middle of the racing lines. MLADIN: We need support from our teams and our manufacturers to be able to do anything. Ifwe don't get their support, we can't do a thing. We're people contracted. We're disposable. PRIDMORE: Do you remember Fred Merkel in Pomona [in I 994]? "We are not riding." Here's this guy coming from World [Superbike]. He's going to straight en things out. We went into a buildingand sure enough, all the riders said, "We're not riding, we're not riding." [Rob] Muzzy said "Y u're riding, Fred. You're riding." So o we all stood there watching him ride out of the pit lane. DUHAMEL: He was the first guy going out . And he was like, "I'm not riding. These guys are with me and everything ." MLADIN: He put his contract on the line for breach of contract. PRIDMORE: It's like you almost need a contract between the manufacturers that says, okay, if we 're not going, we're not going, so that they don't need to be sitting out on Highway 10 seeing if the Honda trucks are rolling out. Who should be driving the changes? PRIDMORE: I think especially Superbike guys need to go to the manufacturers. MLADIN: It's got nothing to do with just the Superbike guys. You've been around a long time . PRIDMORE: But Superbike is the premier thing. BUCKMASTER: It doesn't matter. Rider safety doesn't need to just come from Superbike riders. DUHAMEL: Like Mat said, and just to take an example, Aaron's [Gobert] lucky to be alive. 600 Supersport [at Daytona] is where the biggest accidents happen because they want a bunched field, everybody racing, and that's what you get when one guy makes a mistake or has a problem. MLADIN: Plus everybody rides w ide open. Because if you don't you can't pass on a 600. You [Miguel] know that better than anybody. On a Superb ike you can give a bit of room, get a bit of acceleration, make something happen . On 600s, mate, around that place , they 're nose to tail. One guy goes ... BOSTROM: I've almost been serious ly injured two years in a row, just riding in the front group of the 600 Supers port race down there. DUHAMEL: The thing that's really frustrating about our sport is that we have one of the best shows in America bar none, as far as the show is concerned, including NASCAR. And I'm happy for them that it's big, and I don't want them to get mad at me. Our show is so exciting. The last few races that we had were just excep tional. Somebody needs to step up, fix the tracks, make the promoters do the right thing - promote the racing right. And it's all about money, of course. A lot of peo ple think, ~h, it's the factory guys, all about money.' Life is about money. That's why I think there's an urgency to get the riders safe first. and then get more money, and when I say more money, I'm always thinking about the privateers because they need to have better bikes, to have better ways to get to the racetrack, stay in a decent hotel, maybe stay in a hotel period. And just get tires so they don't run the same tires all weekend. And then we get the field better. And our show is going to waste. I think we have one of the best shows in Amer ica. I think it's a little bit more exciting than baseball, also. I don't understand why there're all these shows on Tv, and we're not able to get in too. These are questions that I have that I don't have any answer for. But I know that safety is something that we all know and we all know needs to get addressed. Who wants to see Mat or Jason Miguel Duhamel or Eric or myself or Ben get career-ending injuries or a fatality? Nobody wants that. And everybody's sad, and they move a wall here, and they move a wall there because it happened with Larry Schwarzbach at MidOhio [in 1992]. They moved a wall back. But it doesn't nee d to get there. And we 're really in a beautiful position now that it hasn't happened , but we are seeing it coming. And if we are seeing it coming, we 're the racers , we 're the people on the trac k, we know about it. It needs to be addressed right away.

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