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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127747
road racing and supercross. Yet the
Grand National Championship Series
still doesn't have a series sponsoL To
what extent are you involved in finding a sponsor, and why don't you think
you've found one yet?
I'm not involved in it too much really. I
try to deal with some contacts, but it's
tough doing all the races and trying to
be out there looking for a sponsor. I
don't know if I should say this, but I
think that the real rea on behind the
sponsor thing is that as good as our past
big sponsor was for us, they hurt us
too. There were a lot of companies that
wanted to get involved at the time, but
there were too many restrictions by that
sponsor. It was just an unworkable situation. That may have turned a lot of
people off.
Do you think that it would benefit the
series more to have two or three smaller sponsors rather than having one
huge sponsor?
Absolutely. I think it would be easier to
get three $100,000 sponsors than one
$500,000 sponsor. And there are some
possibilities we're working on at this
time:
Some of the automobile sanctioning
bodies like the NHRA and NASCAR
are very active in promotion as well as
being the governing body. They own
and promote a lot of their own race
tracks. Obviously, it would be impossible for the Grand National Series to
own its facilities, but along the lines of
promotion, are there things that you
see in auto racing that the AMA could
learn from?
Well, I think that we basically have a lot
of loyalty to our regular promoters.
There's no way that I would kick one of
our promoters out - for example, knoe}:
the lllinois Motorcycle Dealers Association out of the Springfield MiI~ so that it
could be an AMA-promoted race. I have
loyalty to them, because they've worked
with me. I've raised the purses, and
they've gone along with it. For SO many
years it was stagnant. So I don't see that
(AMA-promoted races) as becoming an
issue.
The word is that you're going to try
and get $5000 more per race in purse
money next year. Is there any truth to
that?
It will be $4000. Right now our minimum purses are $31,000 for the short
tracks, TIs and half miles, and $36,000
for the miles. In 1996 it will be $40,000
for the miles and $35,000 for everything
else. All the promoters know that
already.
The Grand ational series doesn't
appear to be h.urting for a choice of
venues. Do you see the number of promoters willing to have a Grand National engaging in a bidding War for a date
on the schedule and thus maybe driving the purses up even further?
Well, Steve Morehead's race (Rossburg
Half Mile) for example has opened up a
bunch of different avenues now,
because of that ($42,000) purse. I really
think that we will be able to get more
money without too much trouble in the
future. If this show is good - and based
on their presales I think it's going to be,
I think that we could see even more
money next year. With the banking on
the track, I think that this race (Rossburg) is really going to separate the men
from the boys. Once momentum takes
over, I think that we're going to see 14to 16-second lap times. We're going to
have to start the guys on the bottom of
the track because of the banking or else
they'll be tipping over on the outside.
Five riders crossed the finish line
together at the Du Quoin Mile this
year ahd there was quite a controversy
over who had finished in the second
through fifth spots. What happened,
and what have you done to ensure that
the situation does not reoccur?
Chris Carr was the first one who
brought it up that he felt he was scored
wrong. Our finish-line camera had fallen over in a windstorm and had been
broken, so we didn't have it there. I contacted the TNN people, and once they
said that they had footage, I agreed to
look at it, because I didn't know what
they had or how they had shot it. Once I
saw the footage, I felt comfortable that I
could make a decision from it. Based on
that, I changed the finish order.
Some of the riders asked to see the
footage, and you told them that they
couldn't, so they took it upon themselves to go see the TNN people and
view the tape. They agreed with your
decision, but they said that they had to
see it for themselves. Based upon what
happened, have you changed the policy on whether or not a rider who officially questions a call at the line can
see the videotaped footage?
The reason I said that was that in the
past when I was a tech inspector, anytime there was a finish-line call, the referee and manager did not allow the riders to view the tape. I went along with
that same policy. Now, if a rider places
an inquiry into the finish, and it's a clear
change of position, I have told the rider
reps that there will be a change. That
rider can see the tape, but we aren't
going to have everybody in the pits
looking at it. My decision is still final,
because it (the call) may not be as clear
as it was in Du Quoin.
For Indy, I asked them to paint the
concrete wall at the finish line. Also,
there's a sound stage with a canopy on
the infield by the line. We have to lower
the canopy that covers it so that the fans
can see the back straight, but I asked
them to mount some lights on the
framework to light up the start/ finish
area. And our camera was back.
Even with the camera in place, there
were questions about the operation of
the unit itself. What have you done to
make the camera work better?
We had been experimenting with it in
the last couple races where we've had
poor lighting conditions, and we sped
up the shutter speed of the camera. Now
we can clearly see the riders' numbers
as they cross the finish line. We're at a
1/2000 shutter speed. The amount of
Iig"t that we can have in the start/finish
area is the real critical thing.
Many of the riders have commented
that the tracks in the series have been
better than ever this year. But we've
also run into problems with the track
conditions at Denver and most recently
at Mechanicsburg. The riders mentioned that they receive fines for not
obeying the rules, but what about the
promoters? Is there any kind of policy
in place to keep these situations from
happening again? How do you go
about working with a promoter to
ensure the quality of the race tracks?
There is nothing in the contract between
the AMA and the promoter to ensure
that, or to issue fines. Possibly in 1996
there will be. I can't say for sure. In the
case of Denver, Gene Romero is the one
who takes care of all of Chris Agajanian's tracks. I called him numerous
times ahE!ad of time to go over track
preparation - not that I claim to know
everything that there is to know about
track preparation and the different
kinds of dirt. Gene told me that he had
opened it up deeper than they probably
ever had before, which would explain
the rocks. But I think that ground is just
worn out, and unless they bring new
clay in there, I don't think that they will
ever have a good track. No amount of
equipment can change it.
As far as Williams Grove