Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

The Yates/Fania Incident going through your head . I jumped up, and I was pretty upset, and I just felt like I needed to do something. I just kind of gave the guy a little nudge. I didn't go over there and push him or noth ing. I went through the actions of trying to kick him, but I didn't really kick him. I was kind of walking off, and he kept waving me on, like come on, come on, and he was messing with me . I got in his face, and I guess I gave him a little bump in the head , and he just kept making motions at me . He just kept antagonizing me, messing with me. I just said ''As far as him [Fania] running into him [yates] , I at one time had an FIA international license. Let me tell you the way it works: It is the responsibility of the driver or rider passing the other guy, it's his responsibility to make a clean pass. So if you run into somebody, I don't want to hear that it's just racing. It's basic racing 10I. He screw off," Suzuki to ask them what is going on here . Why do you let this behavior happen? And they throw us out. It's not right. I also had sponsors in our pit that watched all this stuff go on, and I don 't know where that 's going. They were stunned. I would say that we probably lost that sponsor." On Monday morning, Yates issued a press release that reads as follows: "Racing Yates was fullyaware that the AHA was likely to take action against him. In addition, the Fanias had pressed charges , making the incident a police matter as well . "The AMA is looking into it," Yates said. "The guy [Fania] is pressing charges, and I had to fill out an accident report or whatever with the police . I don't know what's going to happen with that. We looked at the video , and I didn't try to hurt the guy or anything . I was just going through the actions. They [the AMA] are going to do something, I'm sure . I definitely regret it. I'm embarrassed by the whole situation , but I'm racing for the win n the 49th lap of the Daytona 200 on March 6, Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates and KSW Racing's Anthony Fania collided on the entrance to the second horseshoe, the pair crashing hard and hitting the tire wall. The crash was bad, but what happened after was worse, with an angered Yates getting into a scuffle with Fania as a live Speed Channel television audience looked on, the footage showing Yates both kicking and head -butting the privateer. Inasmuch as Mat Mladin won an irnpres- O my fault, it's my fault - he hit me . Soas we were yelling at each other, that's when it started. He got really angry because I told him that he hit me and it was his fault; then he head-butted me . It just continued, and it got worse. We screamed and yelled at each other, and we came back to the pit area , and his team , the Yosh team , were in my pits screaming and yelling at my guys - obscenities, name calling and all the rest of it, and they knocked our TV monitor on the ground . It was quite a spectacle." in this thing. And I have to get taken out by some guy who can't get stopped for the turn . Sometime during the whole thing, he kind of half-assed adm itted that he got in there too hot. He said, ' I admit I got in there too hot: " While Fania Jr. was visibly upset, his father, Anthony Fania Sr., was even more so. "I'm his dad , and I've told the AHA officials that this Mr. Yates has to be punished," Fania Sr. said. "Mr. Yates has a reputation as a hotshot; quite a while ago he got punched in the jaw down at Main Street. Then there are his antics of laying on the track. Mr. Yates may be a star here, but on the outside he 's just Mr. Yates. I'm going to file criminal charges, and I'm going to go after him. The AMA gave me the indication that something will be done. I told them that whatever you "He got really angry because I told him that he hit me and it was his fault; then he head-butted me." -Anthony Fania [r, sive third Daytona 200, much of the postrace talk was of the Yates/Fania incident as the on-track fight had apparently spilled over into the pits as well. As is the case in situations like this, both sides had different versions of what happened. "It was just like the tape," Fania Jr. explained . "I was going for the horseshoe, right in the middle of the track, still on the brakes . I wasn't even fully committed, still on the brakes . I think if I wasn't there, he still wouldn't have made the corner by the impact of how hard he hit me . He collided into my left side , and when I got up and came to , he's kicking me as I'm lying on the ground. He's screaming and yelling that it' s 6 Yates down played the incident, denying that he tried to hurt Fania. "We caught up to those guys, I came out of the turn on the inside, the dogleg, and tried to shoot down there on the outside," Yates explained. "I was on the brakes and was turning it in a little bit and ran it in with the guy I was trying to go around. And he kind of stood up, and I saw that and stood up a little bit to get on the brakes , and he hit me , and we were just hooked together. I was trying to get stopped as good as I could before I got to the grass. It slammed me down , and I looked where we were gOing, and it was a wall, and I thought I was fixin' to get into that wall pretty hard and get hurt . There's a lot MARCH 17,2004 • CYCLE NEWS do to him, I really don't care. I'm not going to call them up and tell them that they should suspend him. As far as I'm concerned, do what you have to do to keep the balls in the air. I realize he 's a star. and you have to run the show. Their answer to me was, 'Why do you think we 're not going to do anything?' I told them to do what they do, but I am looking for punishment, and I'll take care of really punishing him. What should really be done is he should have his license suspended and never race again. but they are never going to do that . That's never going to happen . Byme filing criminal charges and then after that is finished, I am going to sue him. We'll see where it goes (rom there. 40th Anniversary made a mistake and made an improper pass, and then he blew up. For someone at Suzuki to grab our sponsor by the neck and throw him out of their pit... we went down there to speak to whoever is in charge at has extreme highs and extreme lows. It almost seems like there's no in-between when you race at the level that I do. For me, after racing 170 grueling miles, I realized that I had a chance to win the race. "With about eight laps to go, I came up on some lapped riders. I set up to pass, using the same racing line that I'd been using on this part of the track all day - in both the 200 and in the 600 SuperS port race. "I came through on the brakes on the outside, and in my peripheral vision I saw a rider stand his bike up. So I got on the brakes harder and stood my bike up a bit to give him some room . But I was running out of racetrack. "We went down and were sliding toward the wall, and I was honestly thinking that I was going to break both of my legs. Thankfully, the impact was softer than I'd anticipated . I got up thinking that I'd raced 49 laps with eight left to go and a secondplace finish in the Daytona 200 was down the drain. "I couldn't be lieve that this was actually happening. But I never had any intention of hurting anyone . The last thing that I want is for people to get hurt at the track . This is not the way that I wanted to look back on Daytona '04. And this is definitely not what I want the race fans to think of when they think of me. ''I'm just so sorry that the whole incident ever happened. And I'm sorry if my actions offended or disappointed anyone. " As of presstime, the AHA was looking into the incident and was expected to make an announcement on Tuesday, March 9. Suzuki vice president Mel Harris said that he would be speaking to team manager Don Sakakura about the situation upon his return . "Don had all the conversations down there, and he was on top of it," Harris said. "I have to talk to Don and Mr. Ito when they return from Daytona. " Paul Carruthers

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