Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128335
CHICANERY By HENNY RAY ABRAMS Be Careful What You Wish For rds o f advice to tho se wish ing to change the venerable Dayt ona 20 0 fro m a Super bike ra ce to Formula Xtreme: That scheme - destined to join New Coke , "Jo a nie Loves C hachi ," and invading Iraq wit hout an ex it plan in the pant heon of bad ideas was floating .like a bloate d corpse around the pits of Mid-Ohio. Whose idea was it? No one - not the AMA and not Dayto na Inte rnational Speedway - wanted to claim full paternity of the red-headed stepson, and for good reason. It was a collaboration, a tw o- headed tes t-t ube baby destined to end up in a home for the realitychallenged. T he first question that springs to mind is, Why? T he first answer wou ld be safety. Ride r opinion on the safety of the Speedway is unanimous. It has to be change d, and the Speedway is like ly do ingso . Construction has started on a tunnel under NASCAR turns one and two and a revamp o f the infield road course is in the works. What will likely emerge is a roadco urse that cuts out the west banking. Riders will come through the infield, make a right somewhere near the dogleg, head toward what is now turn six, then back up that straight toward the second horseshoe, and past , and funnel o nto the back stretch. Elim inating the west banking would reduce the heat-ge ne rating g-for ces on the tires, though not by half. T he east banking will not be changed, nor will the chicane, with the highest tire te mperatures still being reached on the run from the chicane to the checkered flag. The lighte r and slower Form ula Xt reme bikes haven't shown the same tire -wear prob lems as Superbikes , convincing some they shou ld substitute for the premier class at 126 America's premier race . Between the possible new configuration and the reduced capacity, it' s V irtually certain there wo uld be less tire problems, given recent experience. It must be said that Dunlop, the company which has had the mos t rece nt Daytona pro blems, suffered no significant fail ures during Bike Week. Michelin did, tho ugh they claim it may have bee n a puncture and the tires neve r lost integrity. Before moving o n to why it's such a bad idea, a word abo ut Supe rbikes. T hey'll be a support race , maybe on Saturday morning, maybe on Thursday, a plan favored by Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin. "I cou ld be home on Friday," he said. fo r safety." So who would want Formu la Xtreme? The answer begins and ends with Honda. With a year 's headstart on the field, and a proven champions hip w inner, they 'd be guaran teed the w in t hat Mladin has de nied them too many t imes recently. Who wouldn't want FX? Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki. None of th ose brands would build the mlni-Super bikes, with expensive one-time-use qu ickchange gea r, for one race . Honda is rightfully proud of the ir mach inery, but the cost is out of reach for anyone but Big Red. With the other factories on the sidelines, Ho nda cou ld lap up to the last Honda ...tw ice. The Speedway is known to like big class because it provides the worst cost/reward ratio in racing. Building a supertrick 600 to race the Honda factory with out any chance of winning for the $ 1700 winner's share of the purse is a certain way to expedite poverty. Not only can you not win, you won't come very close . Following the Dayto na race , very few have gott en a sniff of the winners. Closest was Valvoline EMGO Suzuki's Vince nt Haskovec, B.21 seco nds out of seco nd at Braine rd. Often, the gap to the first nonfactory bike is 20 seconds. Erion Honda's Alex Gobert was the third Honda and still 24.3 seconds back at Infineon Raceway. With none of the other factories supporting the class, and very little interest The length wo uld probably be in the 19-1 range, similar to one stint in the ap S7-lap Superbike race and just more than the lOOK Supersport race . Mladin and his team rea lized that his tires wouldn't work very efficiently for 19 laps, so they went shorte r and won the race in a rom p. Forcing Superbikes to go 19 laps on o ne set of tires is a bad idea. "So what's the diffe rence?" Mladin asks. "That' s no help fields. Nostalgiafor the days of BO Yamaha TZ-750's has them wondering, 'Why not again?'Th e answer can be found in the FX fields. At Daytona there were 17 starters and 16 finishe rs, a fifth the size of their dream field. The largest FX field of 3 I came at Laguna Seca. Two weeks later, it was back to 23 at Mid-Ohi o. Privateers have shied away from the from the privatee rs, how do you get to a big number of riders? Change the rules. AMA rules state that "Moto rcycles entered in Supersport are not permitted in Fo rmula Xtreme." Loo k for that to change. It's the only way to build what's clearly a failure as a class in the short te rm. If you can't fill the class under the rules, change the rules to fit the class. AI/GI/ST4 2004 • C YC LE NEWS 40th Anniversary eN