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/1542393
CHICANEEY Bv HrxNv Rav AeRAxrs Standing Up ForTheir Rights r amie Hackins finallv had his I go*r.a geate moment. I Fo. tho.. of vou born before e- I mail Xbox. and Red Bull. vou ll I ..-"-b". that Beale was the out- 1l ,ug.anewscaster in Sidney Lumet's - brilliant 1976 social commentary "Network." As pofirayed by the great British actor Peter Finch. Beale came alive as an angry but empowered news- man who'd reached his breakinS point. It's Finch, as Beale, who delivers one of the great lines in the history of cinema, "l'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Like Beale, Hacking's breaking Point came gradually. The 2006 campaign marks his lOth year in the AMA SuPerbike Championship. Like any career, his has had its share of ups and downs; the downs becoming less and less frequent with maturity. There was a time when he fell too often for his own good. And when he fell, he'd hit things. For a long time he was lucky not to get seriously hurt, but that changed {ew years ago. ln 2004 he missed a few races after breaking his col- larbone in a practice crash at IYid-Ohio. lt was his first broken bone. But it wasn't his own iniuries that motiv-ated him- "l wasn't really close to Vincent [Haskovec]." Hacking said of the Team M4 EMGO Suzuki rider who was para- l'4onths later there was a slight glimmer of hope that the AMA miSht be coming around. During the 2004-05 winter the AMA Pro Ra.ing Board suggested then- board-member Kevin Schwanrz take a more active role in track safety. lt was a good choice, but it would be badly exe- cuted. Where did the)r send Schwanrr and I4at lYladin last year? Loudon, a track that was booted off the calendar in 2001 after years of rider-safety complainB. Since then, nothing. which drove Hacking and the others to action. "We iust do our own thing - we've iust been doing our own thing," he said. Yamaha's Eric Bostrom lent his expen- ise when California Speedway moved the wall on the back straight on the Friday night of the race weekend- Bostrom was- n't invited to the track when the changes were made. lnstead, he acted on a tip. And, after what he said was initially met with reluctance from track personnel, "they started being.eally cool." And everyone agreed that the change was for the befter and long overdue. "Whatever the case, it's three race- tracks in a row actually four - lnfineon too - that said they had no direction and no communication with anybody from the AMA," Bostrom said. Bostrom isn't entirely right. AMA road- race manager Ron Barrick talks to all the crap day, we definitely need to sit down and go over a lot of things. And they were, like,'Yeah, let's do that, We'll be more than glad to do it.' I gathered every- body up. Me, Mat ['4ladin], Jake [Zemke], Ben [Spies] and just went around the racetrack and just pointed things out and prioritized things - kind of like we did at Barber. We put one, two, three, and so to improve safety, will be immediately obvious. "\y'y'hen we go to lnfineon. you're goinS to see some improvements there that I got started," he said. "Tr-rrn one's going to be different. Turn three down in the dip - that wall's going to be gone. The corner where Vincent hit [turn five], we've got real big plans for that. They use the back- "As I get older, you see these things. When I wos Younger,l didn't even think obout walls,l didn't core." -JamieHackins lfzed in a racing incident last year at lnfineon Raceway, ironically, the most pro-active track on the AMA calendar- "l got more to know Vincent in the last cou- ple of years and to see what happened to him really hit home with me. 'ik I Eet older, you see these thinSs. When I was younger, I didn't even think about walls. I didn't care. lt's iust some- thing that has to be done. lmprovements like these need to be done, and the tracks need to quit overlooking them, and the AMA needs to wake up and see all these things. Whatever I can do - take an hour out of my time on the weekend is nothing to help somebody out." Hacking knows that AMA has a history of excluding riders from safety issues and he doesn't understand it- When agroup of riders were organized - not by the AMA - to look over Road Atlanta at the end of the 2004 season, HackinS wanted in. tracks about safety issues. He met with the California Speedway personnel during the February test and came early to the rrack to implement changes. But norhing was done before Friday night. And riders weren't asked to participate, even thouSh last year American Honda's Miguel Duhamel had goften the back stretch kink straightened out. On a bad weather day durinS a mid- March test a( lnllneon Raceway, HackinS gathered a tew of his colleaSues and met with Seneral manaSer Steve Page, and media and community relations director John Cardinale. "When we tested there, we had a bum day," he said. "l'm in pretq/ good with the track people there, lohn [Cardinale] and Steve [Page]. And lalwa;,s give a lot of stuff for the charity event. And they always come by to see what I've got, And I told them, I said, 'Look, since today's a fonh. And we'llgo from there." American Honda's Zemke and Yamaha's Bostrom credited Hacking with taking the same initiative durinS a late- March test at Barber MotorsporB Park. Bostrom said that Hacking had organ- ized a meeting with track officials at the Barber l'lotorsports Park test, prior to the race. 'Jamie got us all together and it was killer," Bostrom said at California Speedway. The riders prioritized the con- cerns and changes were made before last month's second round of the champ! onshap. "Turn one is such a huSe improve- ment," Bostrom said. "They said we have plans to redo turn I l, which is going to be expensive. They're totally suppoming us and yet everything I hear [from the AMA] is they won't do it, they won't do it." Hacking said the changes at lnfineon, which has spent millions over the years side of that for NASCAR parking. There's no reason the fence has to be there- The fence is there to separate parking from the racetrack. Well, if they moved the fence back, they can still use it as patkinS, no matter where the fence is, I don't know how soon that area will be done, but some areas will be done when we get there. "we'll go to the next track after Sears Point and we'll go to Road America and there's definitely some improvements there thar needs to be done,'' Hacking said. "l'll be definitely gathering up some guys and going through that." The riders feel empowered. Now that they know the tracks appreciate their input, they won't be stopped. Without them, the show daesn't go on, and if too many are hurt, there is no show The AMA has a very simple choice to make; they can discard their historic reluctance to engage the riders in the decisioos that affect their lives and make a difference in the quality of the racetracks, in the quality of the racing, in the qualaty of the racers lives, or they can get out of the way, The riders are not going to take it any more- Cll I I l I 06 MAY 17,2006 . CYCLE NEWS na{r('7'^ -Jarlnie t7l I I a J,/