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/128374
By GU£SJ' £DIJ'ORIAL STEVE MCLAUGHLIN No Farce uch international language from a true-blue American like Henny Ray Abrams, using a little French (farce) and Spanish (cajanes) to pitch a bitch about something he obviously doesn't understand. What's your problem with Scott Hollingsworth? Hollingsworth came from banking and/or financial packaging, if I understood him correctly the one and only time we met. Hollingsworth's primary job was to fix the financial hemorrhaging of Paradama, the AMA:s professional racing arm for racing. As for marketing or motorsports experience, he had none until he went to work for the AMA (better known as paid-on-the-job training). In all fairness, there isn't a college or business school for motorsports marketing - like you self-sanctified journalists can get your training. Those manufacturers (U .S. importers for the Japanese) who you point out don't seem to realize having four companies race in two different classes for 1000 and 600cc machines isn't the best for marketing the sport are the same folks who are primarily responsible for hiring Hollingsworth and retaining the AMA staff that Hollingsworth, with little or no previous knowledge of the sport of motorcycle racing, would have to rely on. When Daytona International Speedway was built, the AMA would not race there because of tradition. The AMA stayed on the beach and brought J.e. Agajanian to Florida to promote the AMA race, so the France family held the first-ever FIM U.S. Grand Prix in 1961 - after which the AMA deemed the circuit to be just fine. It was the legendary Trippe/Cox promoting duo who brought Superbike to the AMA at Laguna Seca in 1974, and the Speedway that made Superbike the U.S. Championship when it switched the 200 to Superbike from Formula One in the 1980s. The AMA does not invent classes or even structures that work best for the events; the marketplace or promoters do that. What waS wrong at Daytona? The Superbike race was on the final day and shortened for safety reasons. Period! Of course, at these times some of the top riders and journalists (maybe even Henny Ray?) referred to it as "Stupidbike," or "diesel dogs," to quote one of America's greatest racers, King Kenny Roberts - who last I heard was racing four-strokes, a.k.a diesel dogs, in the now-four-stroke-dominated MotoGP. Two years ago, when the switch was made to 1000cc Superbikes, the Speedway put forth its reservations about tire problems and the safety problems with 200 mph speeds. As anyone who has followed NASCAR knows, NASCAR has done a lot of work to keep its speeds below 200. Why do you think that is? Just for the fun of making rules' No, it's S because of safety - the same reason Mr. Ecclestone and Co. have been creating go-kart tracks for Fl. It's to reduce longduration high-speed running, as 200 mph spells big trouble safetywise. Cars have just a little more protection than we bikers do, so why are the top car series so worried about 200 mph while, in Henny Ray's apparent view, we shouldn't be? Duh! As to no more tire problems... maybe somebody should venture out of the pressroom or the top team hospitality units and stop listening to wishful think- mph in a recent 8arcelona test day when his rear Dunlop failed - so what's this about there being no more problems with tires blowing up? Henny Ray talks down how "the Speedway got its coveted 72 starters." Why? Daytona is a large circuit, and a small field is really small after 200 miles. (During most of the 1970s, the starting grids were over 100.) After years of watching the race get smaller, the Speedway took action and guess what they got - a bigger Ing. According to (other) press reports, Jamie Hacking chunked a rear Dunlop in the Superstock race at Daytona. Jason Pridmore and Aaron Yates complained big-time about the loss of traction at the end of the race. Sadly, Dunlop's problems continued at the recent Barber team tests. You can be sure Dunlop's doing their best, but these are Iimitedproduction racing tires. They prove difficult at the best of times. What about the Kingdom of MotoGP? Roberto Rolfo's Ducati spit him off at 200 starting field. Or do you think MotoGP is cool with its limited starters? They have limited fields because that's all that's out there in the rider and team pool. As for the complaints about dealing with moving chicanes, that's called racing' As a promoter, I watched the Superbike race and the 200 from the grandstands and the infield, and then 1 drove to the beach between the two events to see if any of the "Lifestyle Bikers" came to see the 200. Well, for the first time in years, the spectators were coming in off the beach and the crowd in the stands had its first increase in almost a decade. No one was leaving the track after the coveted Superbike race in disgust over the change in racing format they were still coming in to see the 200. Now let's not forget the always quotable Mr. Mladin, with his comments about minibikes and knuckleheads. Mladin is a source of continuous criticism of American racetracks in general, and it seems there isn't much Mladin likes about American racing except the paycheck. And he's here due to the fact that he has turned down the big money to race in MotoGP or World Superbike! Hey, what do they pay riders in Australia, where he comes from? Maybe he would prefer to go home and race on the one operational MotoGP circuit in Australia. Which brings us to your totally incorrect assumptions of what top NASCAR drivers would say and do if the Nextel Cup raced on a different day because the Speedway or NASCAR officials said so. Unlike us motorcycle racing people, the NASCAR boys know how lucky they are to be making a great living doing what they love - racing. Not to mention they get fined pretty heavy for bad-mouthing the sport, the sanctioning body, the tracks, etc., similar to F1 and the other big-time sports. Funny, we don't have these rules, so I guess we aren't so big-time. But it does sound like the loudest voices are paid enough they could afford NASCAR-type fines. Something to think about. Finally, the times they are a changing, Henny Ray, so why don't you come to the party instead of continuously trying to damage the sport, like riders and journos did in the 1970s and '80s when we changed to Superbike. See the future and try to shape it in a positive way. Hope and pray the people who gave the world NASCAR, the AMA its biggest and longestheld sponsor (RJ Reynolds), and probably the TV we currently have, will try to put the sport on the right course. For sure they have an undisputable track record that can't be said for the AMA or even the American motorcycle industry. Its time to let people whose business is racing turn motorcycle racing into a business. Of course, in motorsports journalism, there is always room for the attack and the stand-against change. Your choice. McLaughlin is a twa-time Daytona winner, the "founder" of the World Superbike Series, a promoter of I a European Gronds Prix (Czech, German, Austrian, Hungarian), creator and organizer of the German Pro Superbike Series, and the producer and director of aver 300 motorcycfe road racing shows. He currently promotes internotional eN truck racing... Editor CYCLE NEWS • APRIL 20,2005 95