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/128337
AMA Pro Racing Roundtable: Part I THE OTHER SIDE: PART I There are two sides to every story. Here's what the honchos from AMA Pro Racing think about various aspects of the AMA Superbike Series the Pikes Peak round of the AMAChevrolet Superbike Series, contributing editor Henny Ray Abrams convened a roundtable discussion with flve of the most respected riders n the paddock • Mat Mladin , Miguel Duhamel, Damon Buckmaster, Jason Pridmore and Eric Bostrom. Much of the conversation was critical of AMA Pro Racing. The natural progression was to give AMAPro Racing a chance to not only respond, but to offer their vision of the future. The day after the Mid-Ohio round of the AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship, Abrams and I met with the staff of AMA Pro Racing in a conference room of the immaculate Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum in Pickerington, Ohio, to discuss road racing. Ifyou spend enough time in the paddock of an AMA road race, you tend to hear a lot. Riders, team owners , crew chiefs , mechanics, truck drivers ... they all have views on how the series is run and how they believe it should be run . What's right with it, what's wrong with it. There are a lot of people try ing to make a living in that paddock, and there is a wide range of o pinions from tho se peo ple. A 26 AUGUST 18, 200 4 • C Y CLE NEWS Many 01 the questions and topics 01 discussion were obtained from the hours 01 conversations we've had with those in the series, those who don't necessarily get the chance to question AMA Pro Racing directly. This is part one of our two-part conversation. Part two will run next week. The transcript has been edited lor length, but no salient points have been taken out. AMA Pro Racing's chief executive officer Scott Hollingsworth led the discussion . He was joined by vice president/director 01 competition Merrill Vanderslice, road racing manager Ron Barrick, vice president 01 commercial development John Farris, vice president/director 01 communications Kerry Graeber, vice president Andy Leisner, and director 01 timing and scoring Ken Rogers. W hen will t he fina l technical regu lations be o ut, and w hen will a rule bo o k be in the hands of the manufacturers? HOLLINGSWORTH: This has been a process we 've followed lor the past couple 01 years, so it's pretty routine . We put it out lor public comment. That starts today. There's a 30-day comment period , so we 'll take 40th Anniversary input from any credential holder at this point. We'll gather those comments, supp ly them to the board . At the end 0 1 the 30-day comment period, the board will make a vote on final rules. And what we typicallydo - perhaps Kerry [Graeber] or Merrill [Vanderslice] or Ron [Barrick] probably has the details better than I do - but at that point we can notify our competitors of the rules that are to be changed , and then rule boo ks are put into production, and they come out in a lairly rout ine fashion in October or so . T his year they were o ut in December, HOLLINGSWORTH: Probably mailed out in December, but everyone had been notified earlier than that as to what the specific rule changes were going to be . So that's the typical process we use. But the peo ple we talk t o sa id un ti l they have the book in t heir hands, they're not confident they can actually make these changes. T he question is, w hy ca n't the r ules be a nnounced sooner? HOLLINGSWORTH: It's a difficult process of compiling everyone's input and trying to make a fair set of rules. It's easy if you're establish ing the entire regulation