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/128396
By HENNY RAY ABRAMS ThankYou, Roger Lee he savior of racing is sweating. The savior's cherubic face is flush and his hair is matted and he looks like he just outran the devil. The savior is sweating because he's just done something very foolish and gotten away with it. Which isn't far off what he did to save racing, which needed to be saved from itself. Which has been mishandled and mismanaged for too long. Which doesn't pit the best racers against one another. Thousands of race fans owe him a debt of gratitude. The impact of his decision will do more for road racing than a decade's worth of obtruding by the suits in Ohio. Today, the savior is sweating because he's just won a race. He did it the hard way. The not very wise way. The way that could have ended his career. The way it had to be done. But now that he's done it, now that he's cheated death and destruction, he's happy. How happy? "I won't kick the dog when I get home tonight, that's for sure," he said. For that, the dog's grateful. Roger Lee Hayden is saving racing from itself. The youngest of the Haydens, with the devilish smile and the curly hair and the quick wit, is an unlikely savior. Aren't they all? Rog gambled by telling his employers he had to ride a Superbike in 2006. What to do? Kawasaki knew he was flirting with rival Suzuki. They knew they could lose him. Or he could end up with nothing. They knew he was one of the ascendant stars of road racing, the increasingly rare combination of speed and personality. They like haVing him and Tommy and Rose and Earl and half of Owensboro around. They'd seen him challenge his brother Tommy for the Supersport title two years in a row. They watched as he made an improbable and desperate pass of Jason DiSalvo to win the Superstock final at Road Atlanta. A few inches offline in the disgraceful turn 12, which has less runoff than the gutters on Barbie's Dream House, and he'd have turned air bags and hay bales into pop art. And he wouldn't have walked away. "He wanted it more today, for sure," DiSalvo admitted. In the big picture, Kawasaki knew they were getting left behind. They've been getting beaten up for not racing Superbikes. They knew they had a new ZX-IO for '06. So they decided to go Superbike racing - or at least that's what everyone believes. (Officially, no decision's been made.) So when the Superbikes line up for March's Daytona 44.2S, Kawasaki will join T Suzuki and Honda and Ducati, and only Yamaha will be left out of the big dance. And don't think they're happy about it. Instead of the show, Yamaha will spend the year beating itself in Formula Xtreme and taking the heat for it, the way Honda has for two years. They thought they were doing the right thing by joining FX. "Win on Sunday, sell on Monday" is the rule at Daytona. The lure of the Diluted 200. Then a funny thing happened. American Honda, the team that's won every race in the two-year history of the little FX class, walked away with its 20-race win streak and two titles, leaving it to Erion Honda. "Now they tell us," was the lament from Yamaha. So why did Honda leave? Beginning with Doug Polen's 1993 Superbike title and right through Mat Mladin's sixth in 2005, only two riders have won the Superbike crown while contesting a second class. As American Honda's Jake Zemke told me at VIR, "There's a guy running around here with that number-one plate, and he's awfully tough to beat, and it's really hard to go and beat a guy like that riding two bikes, two classes." American Honda knows how hard it is to turn a street bike into a racer. They'd done it with the CBR600RR in Formula Xtreme in 2004 and again in 2005. In 2005, they added the burden of converting the CBR I OOORR. Early in the winter word came from on high that they were on their own. No more going to Japan to build bikes out of HRC parts. There was a little grumbling, then they took up the challenge. They worked with what they had. They bought some parts from H RC. They farmed some out. They made some of their own. They started behind most of the field and finished there. It was to be expected. They were racing and testing on the same weekend and splitting time between two classes. Sure, they made progress, but meanwhile, Mladin was setting lap records, taking pole positions and winning races. And getting stronger with each race. And winning his sixth championship in seven years. Not since 1994 has Honda gone a full year without winning a Superbike race. The CBR I OOORR can be made into a competitive race bike, and it was, but it took time and manpower and money. And everything that crew chiefs Merlyn Plumlee and AI Ludington learned will carry over to the improved 2006 CBR. And they won't be four months behind at the Daytona tire test in December. And the riders and teams will be able to concentrate on one motorcycle 100 percent of the time. Which is what Mladin does and the Ducatis do. And everyone in Superbike should be able to do. It would have been better if the AMA Pro Racing Board had eliminated one of the 1000cc classes. Everyone would be in the show. But the board abdicated its responsibility by settling for the stagnant quo. Bikes and teams everywhere. The possibility of an even more fragmented paddock in 2006. The grumbling had already begun at Road Atlanta. At the factory level, Superbike will be strengthened by two to nine, just more than half the number in 1998, the last year Tommy Hayden rode a Kawasaki Superbike. Superstock will pit Yamaha's trio, assuming Eric Bostrom signs, against Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates, with satellite efforts from Erion Honda, Attack Kawasaki, and a number of Suzukisupported teams. FX will be Yamaha's exclusive domain outside of Daytona and possibly Laguna Seca, where American Honda may jump in if the program includes Xtreme. And with Yamaha's departure from Supersport, the gutted class will be down to the Kawasakis vs. Yosh's Ben Spies and the new GSX-R600. The class with the most talent will again be Superbike. As it should be. As it once was. With everyone else in, Yamaha will return in 2007. With Eric Bostrom, with Jason DiSalvo, with Jamie Hacking. And everyone will be there, and the confusion over why there are two big-bike classes will be lessened, though not completely, and even the AMA's meddling won't be able to screw it up. Which puts what Roger Lee started into even greater perspective - and makes him an even more unlikely savior. For that we have to thank Roger Lee, savior of racing. And his dog thanks him, too. eN CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 21,2005 103