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/1542345
SCOOTERMANIA ScriptingThe lllegal Fuel Saga ollywood's best screen- writers cou ldn't have scripted the extraordi- nary events of the last two weeks on the 2006 Amp'd Mobile Supercross GP and AmP'd Mobile AMA Supercross Series trail. Too bad that Supercross, the movie, wasn't another year away in development. .lust imagine if the true-to-life occurrences that the teams, ride.s and fans have been experiencing lately could have been the basis for the scriPt? Supercross could haYe been a diamond of a screen gem rather than the poop stain on the silver screen such as it was. Anyway, I've always wanted to try my hand at screenwriting because ever/ writer worth his or her salt walks around inwardly believing that he has at least one good movie floating around in the old noggin somewhere.5o here goes, and stop me if you've heard this idea before: First, our hero, l''lakita Suzuki's Ricky Carmichael suffers a potential catastro- phe when he crashes out of his heat race at the St. Louis Supercross. Carmichael makes the main, only to bow out early when his shock spring break. At this point, the title chase could effectively be over for Carmichael, but then something even more shocking than the shock- sprin8 thing happens to the series' king of bling. when Team Kawasaki's James Stewart crashes and stalls his Kawasaki, losing a lap and all but ensurinS a victor), for Team Yamaha's Chad Reed, who takes over the series points lead. And then, iust when you think that the plot can't thicken any further, it gets turned into lead, Cut to Sheriff AMAs announcement that Carmichael has been sent uP the river, penalized 25 points after tests on a fuel sample taken from his motorcycle after the San Diego Supercross revealed that it was not in compliance with the 0.005 grams per liter fuel spec in theAMA rulebook, ln fact, Carmichael's fuel sam- ple is way out of compliance by the stan- dard's standard, measuring 0.018 - more than three times the legal limit. Grams, liters, kilos - it sounds like a dope thing. Now fade or.rt on Carmichael's hopes for a fifth career AMA SuPercross title An innocent victim, Carmichael is now unfairly branded as an outcast, a loser. Boy, if only there was some way for our hero to overcome - one small light at the end of that dark tunnel by which he could worm his way out and live to flght another day ... Enter the FIM to the sound of bugles belting out a tune that is somethin8 on the order of the charge of the cavalry or maybe the theme from the Olympics. Oh yes, the FlM, the great United Nations of sanctioninS bodies, a leadership that is about as respected in motocross and Supercross in America as America itself is in the rest of the world right now. The FIM charSes in on its white horse and announces that it will not penalize our hero trcause Sherifl AMA wasn't doing his job right. He wasn't enforcing the law properly. Nevermind that the FIM is the one responsible for imposing a law which makes about as much sense on American soil a5 forcing American riders to carry their passpgrts during interstate travel, a law that has already been the death of several other characters in the past, such as Reed, former Team Yamaha man David Vuillemin, privateer Tyson Hadsell, and those dynamic Team Green hornets Stewart and Michael Byrne- lt doesn't matter. The FIM won't prosecute Carmichael, and if they won't do it, then Sheriff AMA sure as hell ain't gonna do it either Like a DA without clear-cut evi- dence, unless your name is Mike Goodwin, the case is dropped. Blame it on the sherirl the one who didn't make law in the first place but who did his damndest to enforce the law. But it ain't the sherifl's fault either. Flashback to 2001, when the sherill's bosses at AMA Pro Racing decide that they would be better off findin8 a new promotional crew to run the show. From their perspective, their current business partnerc are beaoming unruly - demand- in8 too much and paying too liftle. So, AMA Pro Racing announces that it is cut- tinS the cord with the current promoter, A power play ensues: threats, lies, video- tape. The stadiums are locked down and, in an effort to protect its investment, the promotional group enlists a new Pawn, the FlM, which in turn agrees to do some- thing that it has never done before; sanc- tion an entire series on the North American continent. Under the specter of this and several other potentially damag- ing blows, AMA Pro Racin8 and the pro- motional partner make a back-alley deal to patch things up. The only trouble is that now the FIM is involved, and the FIM ain't goin8 anywhere. Concessions are made, among them is a new two-tiered championship - on the surface it'5 sepa- rate but equal - an agreement by which all parties will sr-rpposedly be well served. There are, however, a few minor incon- veniences. a few FIM rules that need to be abided b/, such as this seemingly insignificant one about running unleaded fuel. But, hey, it's a small price to pay, right? AMA Pro even Eoes so far as to extend the rule to its non-Fll'4 involved outdoor motocross series because that will make it easier on the teams and rac- ers, those poor children who have been victimized by the Supercross custody bat- tle. No one realzes that the real victim- ization has yet to begin, Flash forward to 2004: Team Yamaha gets nailed first and is also the first to immediately call bullshit on the fuel rule, and fuel supplier VP Racing verbally backs the blue crew. Yamaha even invests thou- sands in an aftempt to clear its gaod name, even going so far as to supply Sheriff AMA with evidence that this fuel rule and the Al.4As testing methods are so far out of whack that even the EPA doesn't conduct its own fuel testin8 in the same manner. Little thin8s, such as rhe EPAs admonition to nevel neveT, eve4 ever, put a fuel sam- ple in a Slass container, and to always allow for a 0.0M up-or-down variance in the test results, That way any lead-based con- taminants, such as dirt, Srease, trace motor oil or chain lube, which could very easily enter the luel durinS handlinS, could be easily accounted for. But the AMA doesn't buy it. ln fact, it goes so far as to look the other way, and when Kawasaki gets nailed a year later, claiming that the lead solder in the bot- tom of its fuel cans was the culprit, the AMA still doesn't buy it. Ultimately, though no real harm is done to Reed - save the embarrassment of not being able to clinch his first career AMA Supercross title in front of his parents, who have flown around the world to America from Australia ius( for the occasion. Reed wins his Supercross title anyway. No harm is done to Stewart, who misses enough races that he is not a factor in the outdoor title chase. Byrne? He's not so lucky. Not only does he drop from fifth to sixth in the out- door title. but in the process he loses both bonus buck and a guaranteed re- upping of his contract with Kawasaki, Ad lib here: Byrne does ultimately re-si8n, but maybe for not as much as he was making before. Hmmm. Byme is the real loser now but nobody cares. 5o then comes Carmichael, who gets punished for doing nothing wrong by a rule that does nothing right but is enforced by a sanctioning body that never wanted the damn rule in the first place though it is still contractually obliSated to enforce and apparently upholds that rule differently than the people who made the rule in the first place. (Pause to take a breath here-) Everybody knows it's craP, and finally the FIM and the AMA realize - under the weiSht of a collapsing chamPi- onship battle - that it is crap, and they take action. Carmichael is set free, Yamaha and Kawasaki are exonerated, but only after their Slrys were sent to the chair, so what good does it do them? lnwardty, they're happy, because nobody would want to win a championship this way. Of course, outwardly, they .ontinue to hurl insults at the sanctionin8 body - only they insult the wrong one, And nobody has the balls to take a shot at the entity responsible for inviting this disease stateside in the first place. So what's the aftermath? Oh yeah, the fin€. There is the matter of that $20.000 flne that somehow symbolically suggests that wrong was done by Carmichael, even if nobody - not even Carmichael - can be punished for it. Suzuki probably laughs while signing over the check. With millions invest€d in the championshiP chase, do you really think that the big yel- low company is going to cry over a $20,000 fine, one that would put a guy like JefI Dement, Erick Valleio or Clark Stiles rQht out of business? Fade to The End, quickly. as the audi- ence comes to the revelation that this fuel thing is nobody's fault. And everybody's fault. A5 the end c.edits roll, we see a sport that is left with a black eye from a punch that nobody threw. ls your head spinning like you iust sat through the Eloir witch Project five times? ls this all just a bunch of crap? ls truth stranger than fiction? Whatever you think, iust remember that old sayinS: You can't make this stuff up. C CYCLE NEWS . MARCH 15,2006 79 Bv Scorr Roussrau