Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

By HENNY RAY ABRAMS •• T he debacle that infested the Pro Honda Oils 600cc Supersport race at New Hampshire International Speedway last week was the most embarrassing, disgraceful episode since, well, last year's Loudon debacle. In the words of Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom, the 600cc Supersport championship leader, "Everyone lost. I'm as disappointed as anybody, but the crowd lost, the organization lost. It was bad." Worse, even, than last year. So why go back? Rain late in the morning dissolved Sunday's schedule. Track personnel did a commendable job of readying the road course before the start of the 600cc race. The race was called to the line and the AMA regulars were unmoved. They wanted more than a parade lap and a sighting lap; they wanted a 10-minute practice session. The argument was that they were going to be racing on an unfamiliar surface and wanted a few laps at speed. The AMA refused, the dozen Loudon locals took their spots on the grid, many of their mechanics whipping the crowd into a frenzy. The AMA regulars, many of whom are factory racers, were lustily booed and harassed. Meanwhile, AMA officials . were besieged, and the owner of NHIS, Bob Bahre, was livid because, for the second year in a row, he watched helplessly as the inmates ran the asylum. "Who's in charge here?" he asked AMA road race manager Ron Barrick, "You or them?" he said, pointing to the rebellious riders. It was a rhetorical question. Bahre is the prototypical New Englander - crustier than a week-old baguette. In the movie version, he'd be played by Burgess Meredith. Bahre speaks his mind, often to his own detriment. Meeting with AMA officials on Sunday morning, he made a remark about the riders being "prima donnas," while one of very best of those prima donnas was sitting nearby. Wisecracks like that, once widely circulated, do nothing to endear him to the inmates, or the prima donnas. Bahre saved NHIS from the disrepair it fell into by the late '80s. The track had become run-down, the facilities Third World class. The previous owner's idea of capital improvements was that every 10 years he'd rotate the zip-ties holding the toilet seats on, whether they needed it or not. Bahre and his son, Gary, made massive improvements, re-doing the oval, adding grandstands, sprucing up the grounds, building garages, generally turning old Loudon into a first-rate facility - for cars. For motorcycles, it's less welcoming. The team manager of one of the Japanese factories once told me his company had spent more money on broken bikes 100 JULY 4, 2001 • cue • e and bodies at Loudon than at all the other tracks combined. By the late '90s, it was clear the track needed another upgrade for motorcycles. The pavement was coming apart on the road course and the run-off areas, such as they were, needed to be enlarged. Between the 1999 and 2000 seasons, a number of improvements were made, but it still wasn't enough for many riders. Never would be. The AMA has designated four of the 11 tracks in the AMAjChevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship as dry-weather tracks: Daytona, Brainerd, Pike's Peak and Sears Point. Loudon was on the fence. Last year the Superbike riders decided they couldn't ride in the rain, and they didn't. This year, the AMA's Barrick said, as late as the week prior to Loudon, that no decision had been made about the track's wet-worthiness. There'd been a sealant applied to the road course arid Barrick wanted to withhold judgment, and hoped the riders would keep an open mind before deciding the track's fate. It was a non-starter for two reasons. Firstly, the Bahres claim they weren't told until just prior to the race weekend that this-was the case. Certainly the riders weren't: The decision wasn't made until Barrick and a number of riders inspected the track on Thursday. More importantly, to the riders, a wet track isn't the issue. The issue is the lack of run-off, wet or dry, and the lack of progress. "It just wasn't there," said Kawasaki's Doug Chandler, a voice of reason and one of the few racers to have ridden on both the old and new layouts. "They resealed the oval, but there wasn't anything done to the rest of it." The resealing, and laser leveling of the oval to a near uniform height, was seen as a reaction to the deaths of two NASCAR drivers in the past few years. "How many riders are going to have to die before they do something?" more than one rider asked. Team Oliver YamahajStickerSolution.com's Rich Oliver, a four-time winner here who had one of the most miserable weekends of his stellar career, said, "I love the tradition of this track, I love the people, I love the people behind it, but the bikes are going too fast for this surface. Any size bike. Plus, you've got things like the track disintegrating and potholes. It's just not necessary." (It must be said that not all riders dislike the track, but it is the prevailing sentiment.) Even Barrick wondered aloud, "What's changed? If it couldn't work last year, why would it magically work this year?" Bob Bahre took offense to those comments, specifically the word 'magically,' and told Barrick so. It nevws CHICANERY wasn't the last time the two would have words. After the calamity at the 600cc Supersport start, Bahre said: "We've done everything they've asked. We've bent over backwards. The AMA is not running the show, in my opinion. If you go with NASCAR, the drivers do as they're told. In my opinion, they have to get somebody stronger than [Ron] Barrick. That's my opinion." Bahre makes the point that the AMA didn't ask for any changes for this year. The AMA would likely dispute that. Whether it was requested or not, there was certainly a significant amount of Air Fence added. In fact, according to someone with knowledge of the issue, the 1.6-mile, 12-turn Loudon road course uses more Air Fence than the four-mile, 14-turn Road America course. Not that it matters. Last year's fiasco played out under the team awnings on the pit straight, where Barrick, who often tries too hard to be conciliate to all parties, held a tribal council, along with Bahre, the riders, and whomever else would venture an opinion. In the end, the fans were voted off the island and the race was held Monday. This year was less civilized. The tribal council was held in the open, with Barrick and AMA Director of Competition Merrill Vanderslice holding court, and holding off the hordes of dissenters; everyone from the Bahres to riders to team members to other interested loudmouths. In the end, the 600cc race was run with none of the AMA regulars and won by local Scott Greenwood. Greenwood wasn't an imposter. He'd qualified sixth and would have been a top-10 finisher. But he had no competition on this track and spent more time looking over his shoulder than "The Fugitive." "I support the AMA guys and I support their whole point of view," Greenwood said. "They're Superbike riders and it's their job and their living, they've got to do what they've got to do. But, on the other token, we're here, I spent a lot of money to be here this weekend, I wanted to go out and ride." Knowing that weather delays are a possibility, and given the last two years, probability, why does the AMA keep going back? The answer seems to be tradition. This was the 78th running of the Loudon Classic, though records for races in the area only date back to 1940, plus time off for WWlI, which would make this 2018. With the benefit of hindsight, we can agree that not going back in 2002 was a good idea. The race meeting, like Daytona, draws huge crowds to the area, Weirs Beach and Laconia to the north, and a lesser portion to the track. Given the complications of the past two years, it could take some time to rebuild fan faith. The decision on where. races are held falls to AMA Pro Racing CEO Scott Hollingsworth and the Pro Racing Board. How does a track that engenders this much hostility continue to receive a sanction? "Ultimately it is up to me and the [AMA Pro Racing] board as to whether we put an event on the calendar or not," Hollingsworth said. "And that decision has not been made for any particular event for next year, unless we have a contract already." Hollingsworth said that he and the board take input from a variety of sources, including the operations and track committees, and the teams. They look at each venue's track design and safety concerns. They look at it from a business and television point of view. "There's a lot of determining factors to go into whether to put one in or take one off, so we'll take input from all of those sources," he said. As for Loudon, specifically, Hollingsworth was aware of the problems, but was withholding judgment. "There'll be dialogue with Loudon's management over the course of the next several months, and we'll determine collectively what's in the long-term best interest of series." The first indication of whether Loudon will return will be when the tentative schedule is published in late August or September. Unless the Bahres are willing to make a good-faith effort to improve the track for motorcycles, motorcycles that have outgrown the circuit, there should be no 79th Loudon Classic. But before cutting them off, they should be given a chance to prove how serious they are.lhey need to hire an established track designer. someone like Alan Jones, to offer a new design for the track. Even if it takes two or three years, the riders will be placated. It worked at Sears Point, where a huge cash infusion has ensured it's impending status as both a first-rate facility and road course, and it could happen at Loudon, if the will is there. Given the amount of time it takes to design a layout and implement them, especially given the harsh New England winters, it's difficult to see how any wholesale changes could be in place next year. There was a time when the AMA needed tracks more than the tracks needed the AMA. Those days are coming to an end. The boom in racetrack construction gives the AMA more and more options. If Loudon goes away, someone newer, bigger, better and more willing, will take its cn spot. It's up to them.

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