Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

.INTERVIEW AMRT President Malcolm Hill hen some of the major AMA ro a d racing te a m owners met at Dayton a in 1992 with their new gro up, American Mo torcycle Racing Teams Association (AMRT), they b ro u ght in Kenny Roberts and some representatives from International Racing Teams Association (IRTA), a gro u p that had started in a similar way a few years earlier in G rand Prix racing, for advice. This was perceived by many, includi ng those in cha rge a t th e AMA, as the beginning of Wor ld War 1Il. AMRT was going to try to take over road racing in th e U .S. - ou t with th e AMA, in with AMRT, they thought. And yo u couldn' t really blam e them . But things are no t a lw ays as th ey Originally, it seemed tha t yo u were being so mew h at stonewalled b y the AMA. The AMA wo uld not officially recognize AMRT as a group - really until last year. . The position was that they would no t talk to unions. They would talk to teams on an individual basis, but not a s a group . T here are ti mes wh en that ' s approp ria te, but there are also times when the team owners want to be heard as a gro up. They felt tha t their collective opinion should be heard. I think th e change really occurred w hen To m Mueller (the p re sident of AMA Pro Ra ci n g ) came on b oa rd . I don't thin k he had the history and the precon ceived notions of what we we re, or what we had set out to do . Since Tom has been at the AMA, it. has been more of an ope n-minded process. I was invit ed to a Board of Tru stees meeting last over th e last few years th at that's not what we're all abo ut. O riginally, there were more than jus t the top su p erbik e teams in volved. Is Dunlop still in vol ved, and will others be joi n in g or will it be limited to the s u p erbi k e tea ms? And wasn' t T ea m Suzu ki En d u ra n ce a member at on e po int. Yes, Dunlop is s till involved . At this time, Micheli n is ge tting back involved wit h su perbike racing so we're hopeful that they will see a value the re and want to get involved . I think we're ge tting to a poi nt now th at we seriously have to look at ad di ng n ew me mbe rs to th e association. Origina lly, it was a situation w here it was a new group and we we re n' t rea lly u sed to o r co mfo rtable wo rking with each other. I th ink now we are, and it' s a cons tructive process. Initially, my feelin g was that, the more the number one priority right now . I think we 're at a point right now where it would be a nice p roblem to ha ve to worry about. Ma rketing at every level is importa nt. For some companies it makes sense to be a series spo nso r, for others it makes more sense to be invo lved wit h a team. Righ t now, we don' t have the luxury of choice, so to speak. Ma rketing is pa ramount to th is sport' s growth. One p roblem I see is that the teams are in the racing business. They don't have th e time or the resou rces that it takes to go out and develop and nurtu re an d attract a sponsor from outsi de the industry. It's not just a matt er of se ndi ng out proposals and waiting for the pho ne to ring. You have to develop relationships wi th individuals over time, and get them out to the events. They have to becom e comforta ble with the product. Right now the teams are geared towards doin g th a t. seem, and now AM RT seems to be an ally of the AMA and 'no t the prot agoni st th ey were once viewed as. What does th e associa tio n h ave planned for the fu tu re? Wh ere do they stand now ? They were all questions th at needed to be as ked of AMRT Pres iden t Mal colm Hill. How i s AMRT diffe rent now than what it was in the beginning? Ori ginally, whe n it was formed, a lot of peo ple thou ght AMRT was hellbent on ta king ov er su perbike r a cing in th is country, or that we were goi ng to use th e group to bring abo ut change in a heavy-handed or threatening manner. I think we've dem onst rat ed th at this is no t ou r purpose, or our behavi or. When it was first form ed there was a kee n sense of frustration exis ting fro m th e various team owners toward th e series - for a variety of reasons. This was also durin g a period of tim e when the ma nufactu re rs were ge tting in vo lved aga in wi th the spo rt - Honda via Com monwealth, Yamaha w it h Vance, Ferracci brought in Ducati. Suddenl y, there wer e a lot of resources being committed to the series. We combined that environm ent with the ob servation that on th e su rface there was seemingly no strategic plan for taking th e sp ort to the n ext level. The team owners felt that th ere was too mu ch at stake. . AMRT was formed, as a common platform, for the major su perbike teams a n d a lso to try a nd h elp in fl uence a d irecti on toward progress of the series and professionalism within the spo rt. su mme r, and I tried to co nvi nce the m that we we re not wh at so me people had origina lly classified us as. I tol d them that we wer e her e to help an d tha t it wo u ld behoove everybody, if the AMA used AMRT in a constructive fashio n rath er than have a combative men tality on an ongo ing basis. On the surface, it ap pears that there is a much more openminded pos ition toward AMRT an d the d ialogu e has been much more constructive. I can see in the future, that we will b e work in g cl o se ly wit h th em (t he AMA) on pr ograms that we're working on. When AMRT first started, a lot of people figured it was another IRT A (International Racing Teams Association). Do you think this had a lot to do with people thinking you'd be somewhat antagonistic? In one of the fi rst meetings, Kenny Roberts actually got up and spoke. . I think when we origina lly met in Daytona in 1992, there were a lot of analogies given between AMRT .and IRTA. Fran kly, at that time, we ourselves were prob abl y guil ty of that. Keep in m in d that it was a new group. At the time we rea lly d idn' t know wh er e it would go and what would happen . O ver tim e, we' ve d ecided that worki ng in a co nstructi ve manner with the existing players - the prom ote rs and the sanctioning bod y - is the best way to go for everybod y. So yes, wit h respect to the comp ari son to IRTA. that was p ro bably a fa ir co m p arison at the tim e . But as I indica ted ea rlie r, I think we've proven people that yo u put in, the more op portun ity the re was for d istraction . I think now that we are operating in a constructive ma n ner an d so smooth ly th at we need to start lookin g seriously at adding more tea ms to the associa tio n. I think the prerequisites are that they have to be a superbike team and that they enhance the ros ter of the association. Let's just say that in the ini tial group ther e were indivi d uals who w an ted to go to wa r rig ht away with the AMA and I th ink they b ecame fr ustra te d b e cau se we didn' t take that pa th. How involved are the manufacturers right now, and do you see them becoming more involved? Right no w, it's a team owner association, but it makes sense to h a ve th e ma nufact urers involved as well. Not necessarily on every issue, beca use not every issu e wou ld pertain to the a ma nufacturer level. Ce rtainly, to an extent tha t the cost thing, for exa m p le, th ese are d ecision s th at can d ir ectl y im pact the man u facturers. It would just ma ke sense, th at they would be involve d in the process which addresses a topic like that. I would hope that they w ould see a value in AMRT. It's also on the promotional level as well as w e begin to do more things. Would AMRT like the series to have a sponsor, or does it put more value on team sponsors? Would having company X sponsor the series prevent company Y from wanting to sponsor a team? Absolutely, we'd love to have a se ries sponsor, because marketin g sho u ld be Ho pefu lly, the AMA w ill be doing a lot mo re of that. I'm not sure how much of a strate gic ap proach has been placed on pr ocuring. sponsors for the series, and I wo uld hop e that more thou ght be given to that. In regards to cutting costs, wasn't there talk of doing away with Thursday practice sessions? . We' ve addressed tha t w ith th e AMA, but again their problem is that they have a number of constituencies to listen to. Pro mo ters tell them that from a revenue s ta n d point , Thu rs d ay ' S p ractices a re important. In 1993, we h ad an agreement amongst the team owners not to particip at e in Thursd ay' s practice sessions . It adds 20 percent to the cos t of running an eve nt. Again, as costs continue to increase, this is a relatively ea sy w ay to cu t costs. We'll be add ressing that after Daytona. . There was a similar agreement between the teams not to use the endurance race for additional track lime. Yet, some teams continued to do it in 1994. I think that' s unfortun at e . I think it detracts in a couple of ways. It weakens the en d u rance clas s and it dilutes the superbike class. I think it will be of less importance if the endu rane e race is run on Saturday, but again it's still so mething that's a cost issue. The problem is the re are riders th at fig u re th e more track time the better; and you have team owners that feel the same. The AMA is add ress ing that in a cou ple of ways this year. For one, yo u can't compete in the By Paul Carruthers W

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