Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

CHICANERY The Buell, The Fuel And The Fool Yes they were, in all their boneheaded glor,, and unable to tell two red bikes apart in the showcase event on the AMA calendar. With a rider down in NASCAR Four and out of view of race control, AMA road race manager Ron Barrick was instructed to pull the pace car in front of the race leader. He thought he did, but he didn't. Barrick pulled out in front of Yamaha's Eric Bostrom and American Honda's Miguel Duhamel, the fourth and lifth placed riders, thinkinS Duhamel wzs his teammate Jake Zemke. Oops The fans were confused: The scoring towers showed American Honda's Zemke leading Erion Honda's Josh Hayes. Now what? The proper procedu.e, as Barrick had outlined in the riders' meeting, was to wave the riders forward until he got to first place. That didn't happen. Why? Barrick, amaz- ingly, was alone in the car. Why? A shortage of person- nel. he said. Honda and Yamaha spend millions on racing, much of it to win the Daytona 200. They spent the winter extensively testing. They enlist the help of their respective factories. They prepare for every even- tualiry. And the AMAcan't find a single warm body with a functioning right arm to wave riders forward? Vvhat about the passengers who were in the pace car during the parade lap? Who makes that decision? Who decides that they can get away with one person in the car when they know full well that that person is incapable of fol- lowing proper procedure? lf Barrick didn't make that decision, he should have protested. He should have stood up and said, "lt's my race, it's my ass on the line. I don't care what you have to do, I don't care if you have to dra8 someone kicking and screaming from the bar in the hospi- tality suite, but I have to have someone riding shotgun." How qualified do you have to be to wave? How strinSent is that test? I'm SuessinS they could have found a home- coming queen with a free weekend. But Barrick isn't demonstrative - it's not part of his makeup - and some criti- cize his perceived lack of urgency in resolving track clean-up issues after red- flag situations, when that may not be the case. ln general, the paddock supports him, though rome say he doesn't do near- ly enough to consistently include riders in track-safety issues. That said, whoever made the decision to allow Barrick to ride solo should be lired, unless he already has been: This was the last road race for director of compe- tition Merrill Vanderslice, who "resigned" in February And why was Barrick sitting in a car on the back straight in the first place? Shouldn't the race director be able to made based on lap times- But it's a specious argument. Racing is r-r npred ictable. Who knows what would've happened if Duhamel and Bostrom had gotten a whiffofthe leaders? Duhamel is a one-of-a-kind hard-case nutter, plain and simple, a race-grizzled veteran with a very high threshold of pain and an unbreakable will. He throws away a l2-second lead. He goes upside down. He lands on his head. He runs lor the bike and picks it up and thinks he s still in the race, which he is, but it won't be easy. The right side of his faceshield was knocked loose and his windscreen was gone. What's that feel like on 3l-degree banking at 170-plus? Duhamel's lap times rose after his crash, but his last lap was among his fastest. Give him a whiff of the nowhere to go. Yates clipped Robens, then Yates' teammate lamie Hacking nailed him. Fortunately Yates w"asn't seri- ously huft, but he was dazed. Daytona lnternational Speedway is not a world-class motorcycle-racing facility. It's not even Road America. Tracks homologated for HotoGP and World Superbike, and Road America, have full- course, closed-circuit video systems. They can see the entire track at a glance. When Fania fell in turn four, they could have known there was do danger - ifthey could have seen him. They couldn't. But there is a firetruck parked above the tun- nel turn with a clear view in both direc- tions. Did anyone think to contact them? The answer that it was chaotic is unac- cepmble. Chaotic is turn one. Chaotic is entering a corner 30 mph faster than a lapper who's tried more lines than Tony "Scarface" l'4ontana. AMA Pro Racing has under- gone an upheaml in recent weeks. A new regime has swept in, forming committees like mud pies and throwing them at the problems. Good start. How about a committee to investigate how not to screw up the big race? This was the third maior controveEy for the AMA in the run-up to Daytona. First was their decision to homolo- gate the Buell XBRR, even though the motor bears only a passing resemblance to the streetbike and the framdgas tank was altered to allow for more capacity, as the rules allow. son of. The rules say that the frame can't be changed, but the gas tank can, so the AMA - read Merrill Vanderslice - went with the gas tank part of the rule. The expecred protest never came, possi- bly because none of the Buells finished. But the Buell showed surprising speed in the hands of Jeremy Mcwillaams, so the controversy won't go away. Next came the decision to penalize Makita Suzuki's Ricky Carmichael for ille- gal fuel- lt's an antjquated rule that should have been changed with the advent of four-strokes. but it wasn't. To compound rhe error, the AMA hid behind the Fll'4 in reversing its own decision, a move that prompted Kawasaki to tear up the rule- book. Now the pace-car debacle- The Buell, the fuel, and the fool. What's next? GN see the entire racetrack, as well as TV monitors, and not just the dashboard of an Accord? Barrick should be in the tower and will in the future, I suspect, if he keeps his iob. Given the state of flux in Al''lA Pro Racing, and the fact that someone needs to oversee all of Pro Racing, it wouldn't be surprising to see a chanSe in his status. After the race, Barrick should have taken a bullet. He should have said, "l made a mistake. lt's my fault. I'm human. I pulled out in front of the wrong rider- Once I did that. there wa5 no easy solu- tion. lt won't happen again-" lnstead he said the mistake didn't affect the order of the race, a judgment he podium and he's as voracious as a fat gu/ at a Mongolian buffet. Bostrom's brakes faded early in the race and he had to back off. But his last lap was his fastest and that was while playing Russian roulette with half-throttle no-hopers. The pace car should be abolished. Barrick as much as admitted so. The last time it was used, in 2001 , was even more ofa disaster. The asthmatic Pontiac Aztec. or lAsspack'as Larry Pegram called it, pulled out on the back straight ri8ht as the riders were coming off the West Banking full-stick in fourth gear. What followed wasn't pretty. Erion Honda's Kurtis Robefts locked up the brakes and Yoshirnura Suzuki's Aaron Yates had CYCLE NEWS . MARCH 22, 2006 I I I Bv Htrr.rv Rrv AgRArYls uestion: How many AMA officials does it take to screw up the Daytona 200? Answer: The AMA was there? HEY OR ( 1.. t. a

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