Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

By CHICANERY HENNY RAY ABRAMS The Roundtable t had never been don e, as far as I knew. The idea was to gat he r the managers from the major road race te ams for a rou ndta ble discussion. We wo uld solve the racing world's problems in a day, which wou ld free up a lot of the time that we spend bitching to one another at the racetrack. That idea spawned another: W hy not gather the rid ers? T he re sult is e lsewhere in this I issue . It was a rare privilege, opportunity and honor to be able to host this discussion . For whatever faults it has, Cycle News has always been a place where riders know they'll be treated fairly, where what comes out of their mouths is what will appear in print . The five riders we approached all agreed without reservation . On ly later did a few, but not all, ask that I clean up their language. Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin and American Hond a's Miguel Duhamel do minated the co nversatio n w ith Ducat i Austin's Eric Bostro m, Yamaha's Damon Buckmaste r, and STAR Motorcycle Schoo l's Jason Pridmore also co ntributing. There was a brief discussio n about whether an AMAoffi cial should have been invited. I thought not for a few reasons. First is that the on es w ho run the races have little powe r. The pow e r is in the hands of the Pro Racing Board and CEO Scott Hollingswo rth, wh o has agree d to an inte rview with Cycle News. Secondly, I thought it would turn from a discussion into an atta ck, wh ich none of us wa nted. W hat I wanted, and w hat the riders wanted, was that their voices be heard . Except for the occas ional interview, their on ly printed comments are abou t qualifying and racing. Years of listening to the ir one that administers road racing. Safety, in a word, has got to be impro ved, and it's AMA Pro Racing's job to do it. Two tracks, in particular, came under withering criticism. The first is Daytona Inte rnational Speedway. Daytona has bee n unsafe at spee d for some time. The damage the track has done to riders grows yearly. In res pon se to a column I wrote following Daytona 2004 , AMA Pro Racing director of communications Kerry Grae ber pointed out that there were no red flags this year. True, but it igno res Bryan Cassell. Cassell were not warmly received. I'm guessing, of course, because, as proud as it was of its proposed meeting, Pro Racing is equa lly reticent about the meeting itself. Equally worrisome is the lack of tire testing . Last year Dunlop tested four times betw een August and the March race, eac h time building new, improved tire s. It paid off. Despite Spies' and DiSalvo's testing failures , the race was free of major problems. This year Dunlop and Michelin and Pirelli may on ly get o ne chance to test, in late January; to o late to react and build new tires with any confi- runs hard up against the side of the track, the margin of error nil. In the dry, it's a pro blem. It the wet, it's lethal. The argument that noth ing's happened so it must be safe, doesn't hold. Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates was trapped under his Suzuki when he fell in the slow up and down lefthand loop just after the back stra ight. The back stra ight is laced with track sealant that turns to grease in the rain. The gravel trap at the end of the back straight is built in such a way that , not only do you get air time w hen you come off the track , but your bike is ce rtain to tumble into its "Mid-Ohio is a deathtrap. It's horrible. Full stop. The surface the way that it is, how easy it is to crash there, with the walls so close. It's a deathtrap. With the surface being better, it's even worse." concern s convinced us that it was time we shared those co ncerns . It was not an attempt to bash the AMA. as some might think. Duhamel points out repeatedly all the good work the AMA does on behalf of motorcyclists. Whether in the fields of riders ' rights or kee ping riding tr ails open at a sta te level or fighting in Washington, D.C., or the new "Justice for All " program that shines the light on drivers w ho aren 't adequately punished for injuring or killing motorcyclists. But that's a different AMA than the 118 • Mat Mladin was a 2B-year-o ld Floridian who was killed during the Octob e r Champion ship Cup Se ries weekend at Daytona. It ignores the gr ievous injuries to Ben Spies when the rear Dunlop o n his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 blew out at ove r 180 mph during an Octobe r test. It ignores a similar incide nt w ith Yamaha's Jason DiSalvo , the New Yorker lucky to wa lk away. It ignores that Aaron Gobe rt still isn't 100 pe rce nt fro m his near-death crash in 2002 . It ignores the possibility of a catast ro phic incident, w hich is w hat safety is all about. If there were an assurance that noth ing bad wo uld ever happen, that tires wouldn't ex plo de, that e ngines wouldn't leak oil, that riders wo uldn't plow into o ne another, you could race anywhere - Wat kins Gle n, Long Beach, eve n Loudon . What troubles the riders more tha n anything else is the lost opportunity. Dayto na will be closed for ove r five mon ths starting in early July, more than e noug h time to make substantive changes . AMA Pro Racing anno unced on April 12 that it wou ld be meeting with officials of Dayton a Internat io nal Spee dway. Since then, not hing. W hy is that? My guess is t hat the conversa tion was one -sided, on Daytona's side: "What can you do for us? We'd like bigger grids, 60 to 80 motorcycles, like the old days." My guess is that the dramatic track pro posals various riders have forw ard ed JUNE 9, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS dence. In part tw o of the inte rview, wh ich will run next week, Eric Bostrom reveals more prob lems w ith his tires than previou sly known. "I can say now, that betw een testing and the race we chunked mo re tires tha n I can count on bot h my hands: ' he said. That fro m Michelin, a co mpany that has dominate d Grand Prix and World Super bikes for ove r a deca de. The ride rs all und erstand and agree that they have to race Daytona. They're awa re how impo rtan t it is as a sales too l. But they also agree that, as configured , it's horribly unsafe for not on ly 1000cc motorcycles , but 600 s as we ll. "I was chunking fron ts on my [750cc) Supers port bike," Pridmore said of his 2003 prob le ms. "You can't come back to Dunlop and go 'W hat's wrong with the tires?' I didn't even stay arou nd and watc h that race . You know w hy: Physically, I'm sick to my stomach watchi ng the 200. I cannot watch it." The second-most criticized facility was the Mid-Oh io Sports Car Course. "Mid-O hio is a deathtrap:' Mladinsaid. "It's hor rible. Full stop. T he surface the way that it is, how easy it is to crash there, with the walls so close. It's a death trap. With the surface being better, it's even worse." Trackside barriers are too close in too many places, most notab ly in the far righthand corner in the back. The guardrail 40th Anniversary com ponent parts . What's troubling to the riders is that they believe the track makes mone y on moto rcycle racing. T he educated guess is that the AMA weekend is its most prof. itable, especia lly since it no longer hosts a Champ Car race . Even when it did, its ex pe nses were so muc h higher that motorcycles were better for the bottom line. There have been changes - the most drastic being to the front straight after Larry Schwarzbach was killed the day afte r winning the 600cc Supers port race . But that was in 1992, and motorcycles have only gott en faste r. Even the curbing is tattered and dirty. Rep aving solves the prob lem of an irregular track surface - the con crete patc hes in many of the corners but it creates others. The walls are that much close r, the back straight that much faste r. "I'm afraid for the AMA, to be honest wit h you: ' Duhamel said. "Because we're bringing up situations about safety. And I think it's just a matter of time before somebody gets hurt and somebody do esn't just go home and cry; he goes and gets himself a rea lly good lawye r. If they think Roger [Edmondson) hurt, this guy might really take our series away. If you look at it in that light, we're actua lly trying to do them a favor right now by improv ing the racetracks and improving everyth ing." eN But do they know that?

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