Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

CHICANEEY BY HENNY Rrv AanNYls SUF€, Come and Play f I told you that a guy who used to do oil changes in RZ350s at Kenny Robefts' Yamaha in Modesto could pit the tlvo biSgest matorcycle com- panies in the world against each other you'd think I was nuts, right? Wron8. With the recent departure of Al'4A Pro Racing CEO Scott HollinSsworth. l4errill Vanderslice, the AMA director of compe- tition and former Robens' shop employ- ee. is at the vortex ofthe storm surround- ing the leSality of the mutable Buell XBRR. lt was his name on the quotes insisting that the XBRR is le8al. That the XBRR has been homologated to comPete in rhe Formula Xtreme chamPionshiP. beginning with the Daytona 200, was one o{ the reasons American Honda cited in a press release for the withdrawal of vice president Ray Blank from both the Al'4A Board of Trustees and the AMA Pro Racing Board. (The AH press release was issued on Saturday morning, after the Friday Night Massacre of the AMA Pro Racing Board by Al''lA CEO Patty DiPietro, which makes the AH withdrawal from AMA PR more a case of - You can't fire me, lquit... you know. a day late.) The Honda news trumped what was already an eventful weekend for AMA Pro Racing. A series of press releases on Friday night detailed plans for the reorganization of Pro Racing, while leav- in8 too many other questions unan- swered. The new racing department will be more accountable to the AMA board of trustees. The days of the all-powerful czar of AMA Pro Racing are gone, replaced - one hapes - by a knowledge- able administrator with a strong racin8 baclground, rather than a toady with a calculator. Who that will be, and what staff will run the various racing series, wasn't addressed in the flurry of releases, Nor was the relevance ofadvisory boards of the various disciplines. lnstead, we were introduced to a bloated bureaucra- cy meitnt to ensure that the manufactur- ers who hemorrhaSe fortunes at race_ tracks nationwide don't set too uPPity. The mechanism is the make-up of the new rules-making committees. Each committee - there will be one each for road race, Supercross/motocross, flat track, Supermoto, and hillclimb - will include a representative from any manu- tacturer with a homologated motorcycle, along with an equal numbei plus one, to be appointed by the AMA president iust to counteract the possibility of the OEM's having too much power. How does that add up? The approved list of motorcycles for the three classes in the 2005 Supermoto ChampionshiP included Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Aprilia, KTM. Husqvarna, ATK, Gas Gas, Husaberg. TM, Vor, Venemati. Service Honda, and Buell. The total comes to 15, plus the 16 AMA counterweiShts. That's bigger than most Supermoto fields. Hell, that's biSeer than most Supermoto crowds. The various other commiftees will likely have l3- 15 members. All in all, you could conceivably have as many as 90 people doinS the work of what was eight- ls that agood thing? Maybe, but only ifthe rules-making committees are stocked with people who attend the races, and not L.A. suits. The goal is to have more direct communication between the pad- dock and the AMA board of trustees. Crew chiefs should represent the OEI''ls than a little rich. lt was Honda who bene- fited most by the downsizing of the class from 1000s to 600s; though they won the first four FX l000cc titles, Suzuki swept the next three. And it was Honda who was ready for the inauSural FX Daytona 200last year, after havinSwon the FX title the previous year. And now they've large- ly abandoned the class at the factory level, mothballing the FX CBRs after Daytona and allowing Erion Honda to fty the flag. So why are their knickers so twisted? ls Honda worried that they might get beaten by a Buell? Of all the thinSs that keep American Honda race boss Chuck f'liller up at night, I'm guessing that's not one of them. At the Da),tona test, Miller gave voice to what everyone else was thinking; with Yamaha ioininS the party, Honda's got to bring their A game. He didn't mention Buell, but maybe that's because he, and everyone else, knows so little about it. Yamaha will likely protest the Buell, and I'm guessing Honda will, as well. The protest will be disallovr'ed by the AMA, since they homologated it, Then it will go to an independent three-man appeals board, probably motorcycle dealers, to determine its leSitima+ lf they say it's illegal, the ramifications will be widespread. The flrst losers will be any of the cus- tomers buying one of the 50 XBRfu, assuming the factory allotment of eight bikes - two per rider - comes out ol those 50. A thumbs down by the apPeals board would present the AMA with the extra- ordinary circumstance of having okayed a purpose-buih race bike that has no home in AMA racing. lt will mean that Buell's years of development and production will have gotten them a whole lot of museum pieces, which would not Please Harley- Davidson. What they should do is announce a production model based on the XBRR. sort of a reverse-engineered street- bike with 120, instead of 150, horsepower, At l340cc, the XBRR is too big for Superbike. Maybe the ASBA would w€lcome it in Thunderbike, though I doubt former MotoGP rider Jeremy McWilliams envisioned himself racing at Summit Point and not Laguna Seca. Then again. their rules are and as many as possible should come from the paddock. ln road racing, you won't find people more knowledgeable than Dunlop's Jim Allen or Ohlins'Jon Cornwell or Arai's Bruce Porter, The At'1A Pro Racing Board was never representative. American Honda was the only company with a senior-management member on the board. The notion that other board members in the employ of manufacturers were the equal of a vice president is laughable. Former CEO Hollingsworth said in a luly 2004 round- table discussion that the role of OEMs was under review. But in the final 18 months of his reign, he did nothing to make the AMA PR board more inclusive ln announcinS Ray Blank's resiSnation, the AH press release stated that "Recent issues, including the departure of dedicat- ed individuals from Al4A Pro Racin8," i.e., Hollingsworth, "and its inability to stand by its own rulebook with regard to recent Formula Xtreme considerations, have been panicularly alarming." The irony of Honda complaininS about the Formula Xtreme gene Pool is more Buell had tested the previous week at Daytona and, though everyone wa5 sworn to secrecy, the test was leakier than a cheesecloth condom. Word was that the XBRR wasn't breaking any endurance records- Breaking - yes, endurance records - no. Texas World Speedway was the site ofmore recent secretive testing. ls Dick Cheney the team manager? Everyone agrees that the Buell XBRR is good for the class, Those same people also believe that it shouldn't have been homglogated, but they don't blame Buell. This was an AMA decision made a long time ago, under the reign of former CEO Hollingsworth. with Hollingsworth gone, it's left to Vanderslice to carry the torch that could easily burn him. Buell would have made sure they were playing by the rules, and the rule states that for air- cooled wvins, "engine modifications are unlimited.'' Buell took this to mean that you could melt the cases and re-form them into a new bottom end, complete with new crank and most of the other engine parts as well - an extreme inter- pretation that the AIYA bouSht into. cYcLE NEWS . MARCH 1,2006 lo7 clearer than the AMAS, stating that "frame, cyli.der heads, and engine cases, must be from the same Production motorcycle." Though they also say they will maintain a list of "nonstandard" motorcycles and reserve the right to "re- facto" the list at any time. There is an emerging body of opinion that the AMA should change the rules, They should admit their mistake and state that the XBRR is in, reSardless of the fact that it bears no resemblance to anything you can buy in a Buell dealership. There would be a burst of outrage followed by the realization that they'd done the right thing, and finally, resignation. lt won't haP- pen. They're not that smart. They're not even as smart as ASB,A. Had the AMA included the ASBI{s lan- guage that the approved bike list is mal- leable, they'd have saved themselves a heap of trouble, maybe kept Honda on the board of rustees, maybe kept Harley Irom worrying that they'd invested in a doomed proiect, and maybe kePt l4errill Vanderslice from wondering whether Kenny Roberts still has a job for him- Cf,l ;:r r.: :--\ ft

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