Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

~ AMA Road Racing Roundtable: Part I Henny Ray Abrams gathered a group of AMA road racers together for a roundtable discussion on the current state of affairs in racing. This is part one of that discussion. By HENNY RAy ABRAMS PHOTOS BY BRIAN J. NELSON afety. It's the overwhelming concern of the best riders in the AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship . Over the course of a 90minute roundtable discussion with five top riders , the discussion repeatedly returned to safety. Racetracks are doing little to redress obvious safety issue s , and the riders want someone held accountable . That someone, ultimately, is AMA Pro Racing. The idea behind the roundtable was to give the riders a voice, a forum to discuss what was right and what was wrong with road racing in America. They all make comfortable livings (three are non-Americans who've made the decision to pursue the ir livelihoods in the United States). But it was agreed that when they brought up a problem, they had to offer a solution. Easier said than done . Choosing riders wasn't easy. The one rider I felt had to be included was four-time AMASuperbike Champ ion Mat Mladin of the Yoshimura Suzuki team . I had an idea who the ot her s shou ld be . When I asked a team manager who he thought shou ld be included and he came up with the same names I had, I knew I was on the right track . Joining Mladin were American Honda's Miguel Duhamel , Ducati Austin's Eric Bostrom, Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster, and Star Racing School's Jason Pridmore. With the exception of Bostrom, who 's 27 years old, S 42 JUNE 9, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS they're all over 30, which means they have vast experience. All but Buckmaster have raced at the world level, Mladinand Duhamel in 500 GP and World Superbike, Bostrom in World Superbike , Pridmore in World Endurance . Little of what they 've said is new. Little is revolutionary. The problem, they agree, is that their voices aren't heard . "We all agree that nobody listens," Mladin said at the end of the conversation. "We're not taken seriously. We're looked at as whingers and whiners. " "Who makes decisions on our safety?" Eric Bostrom asked. "Nobody does." The discussion took place at Pikes Peak International Raceway the day before the two-day race weekend. Most of the transcript will run verbatim, though there has been some editing. Half will run this week, half next week. What's the number-one issue facing road racing? MLADIN: Track safety is the number-one issue. DUHAMEL: Every year we go faster, and we're all for going faster. But the walls that used to be there safe a few years ago aren't so safe when you're going 20 mph faster. They need to take that into account that the status quo that was established just three years ago, two years ago, needs to be reviewed because every year tires go faster, bikes go faster. A lot of racetracks they don't expect to maybe have problems, or they addressed it two years ago. They might have to address 40th Anniversary it again this year because we've got 1000s, and they're going faster. MLADIN: I think it shows that the FIM wouldn't approve one single motorcycle racetrack for MotoGP. I think that says enough about the safety. I think there are a lot of different issues with safety that you can bring up, but you're talking about a GP at Laguna now, and they're talking about all the work they have to do just to get a GP. Laguna's apparently a great track . Yeah, sure it's great fun to ride around, but it's not fun when you look at all the walls around there. Why don't the tracks get fixed? DUHAMEL: Youneed somebody to be able to make them fix them. It's like a kid who doesn't want to clean his room. You say go clean his room , and you don't get on him, and you don't clean his room; he won't do it. BOSTROM: Perfect analogy. PRIDMORE: I'd never raced at Birmingham until I raced there last week. I went around the first few laps, and I thought, "This place isn't as safe as what I thought it was going to be." It's a lot different when you get on race bikes. I did a school there, and I didn't think I could see a GP there. But when I rode it at speed , I realized, "Wow, there's barriers you could make it too easily." And they really made an effort to try to make it safe. Something I hear a lot - Mat and I talked about it a lot we can't race at halfthe tracks in the rain, so why do we race there in the dry? MLADIN: And some of the ones we don't race in the rain and some of the ones that we still do , like MidOh io, that 's the perfect example . That back straight , you've got all those silicone strips down the back straight, on 200 mph motorbikes. The walls there that we seen riders hit last year, you hit them in the dry,

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