Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AUGUST 16, 2006 • C Y C L E N E W S 10 From more than 23,000 total entries, 33 AMA Amateur National Champions were crowned at the 25th anniversary AMA/Air Nautiques Amateur National Championships at Loretta Lynn's Ranch presented by Amsoil. The entries at the Area and Regional qualify- ing levels were narrowed down to 1386 final- ists - 42 per class - all of whom competed in three 20-minute motos in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, August 1-5, to determine the 2006 champions. The big winners included double-National Champion Josh Hill of Oregon, who won both the 125 A and 125 A/Pro Sport National Championships riding Yamaha YZ250Fs. Hill, who will make his professional-racing debut in Millville, Minnesota, this weekend, was awarded the coveted AMA Sports Horizon Award, which is given to the Amateur gradu- ate who shows the most promise in the Pro ranks. Other Expert-class titles were won by Florida-based Kawasaki rider Matt Boni and North Carolina's Broc Tickle on a Honda. Kawasaki's Trey Canard was perhaps the biggest surprise of the week, as the Oklahoma rider won double titles in the B class and was the only rider all week to win all six of his motos. B-class favorite Austin Stroupe won the 125 B Stock title on his Kawasaki, but a hard crash eliminated him from contention in the Modified division. Sean Borkenhagen, of California, won the 250 B Stock class. Much of the excitement of the race was generated from the Vet classes, which fea- tured a variety of ex-Pros in the ranks. Nearly all of them raced in the Over-35 class, and four-time AMA National Champion Jeff Emig, of California, won the Championship. Ohio's Tom Carson rode a Kawasaki to his first Loretta Lynn's title in the Over-45 class, age- less Yamaha rider Doug Dubach won the Over-40 class on a Yamaha, Ohio's Mike Katin successfully defended his Over-30 title on a Suzuki, and Cernic's Kawasaki's Jimmy Evans of Pennsylvania won the Over-25 class. Evans has been racing at Loretta Lynn's since 1984, and for his 1-1-1 in his class, he was awarded the AMA Vet Horizon Award. In the minicycle ranks, Suzuki's Jessy Nelson came from California to dominate the 85cc (7-11) ranks with a pair of titles. He won the AMA Sports Youth Horizon Award. Suzuki's Eli Tomac of Colorado and Honda's Justin Barcia of New York split the 85cc (12- 13) Stock and Modified titles. Texas' Blake Wharton on a Suzuki and Arkansas' Terren O'Dell on a Honda split the Senior Mini titles. Perhaps the best race of the 99 run throughout the week came in the final moto of the Women's class. Florida riders Tara Geiger and Jessica Patterson came into the moto tied on points, and seven riders battled for the lead. Patterson spent the moto bat- tling in an incredible four-rider pack, even going back and forth with 15-year old Ashley Fiolek, who rides a CR85. Patterson finally broke free and chased down Geiger, but Geiger passed Georgia's Leah Cantrell in the final foot of the track to take the moto win and the National Championship. Texan rider Matt Lemoine dominated the Four-Stroke class on his Kawasaki. Texas' Tyler Wharton and California's Michael Hall split the 125cc (12-15) Stock and Modified titles. The 65cc titles went to Adam Cianciarulo, Zach Bell, and Cooper Webb. The 51cc titles were picked up by Ryan Saubier, Sean Cantrell and Coleman Martin, and Sara Price won the 9-13 Girls championship. Texas' standout Sean Hackley won the first-ever "TMX" ride from Toyota, and he will get a factory-supported ride next year on the Motoworldracing.com/PPG Yamaha team with support from Toyota. Finally, the Golden State of California picked up the State Championship Award for the most success throughout the week in Tennessee. K eith Kizer, the man who currently owns and runs AMA ProStar Drag Racing, has been hired by AMA Pro Racing to fill the newly created position of road-race-series director, with Kizer slated to direct the AMA's Professional and Amateur road-rac- ing championships. Kizer didn't waste any time getting acquainted with the AMA Superbike pad- dock and its teams and privateers, and the native of Houston, Texas, spent the week- end at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course the weekend of August 5-6. On August 5, Kizer held a press briefing in the media center at Mid-Ohio to allow reporters to get to know him a bit better. "I've been around this sport for many years in various forms," Kizer said. "First getting started with Kevin Schwantz, and racing out of his mom and dad's shop - that's how it all started getting into Superbike. But that's about the same time I got involved with the AMA as well, so I've been around it since the mid-'80s. I just love the sport. Drag racing is sort of the redheaded stepchild of motorsports, but this is the elite of motorcycle motorsports and I'm just excited to be involved in it." Kizer's position is new, and he's not replacing Ron Barrick - AMA Pro Racing's road-racing manager. Instead, Kizer has been hired to take away some of Barrick's work at the racetrack, which should allow him to concentrate on running the races, Kizer said. "The objective is to help be the commu- nications gap between the OEMs and the AMA, you the media and the AMA, the rid- ers and the AMA, so it's more about the management of motorsports in a way that the AMA really hasn't had somebody in this position before," Kizer explained. "A lot of it is to help Ron Barrick. He's been having to do all of these jobs and now it's going to be funneled, where I can take a lot of those issues off and let Ron concentrate on Ron's job." When asked what he thought the num- ber-one issue confronting the series is right now, Kizer said that it's track safety. He also told of how he plans to make things better in that area: "There's going to be rider committees that are put together," Kizer said. "And what's going to happen is that at each race it's going to be a different set of riders, so that at each race you're not just always going to the go-to guys. Its not always [Mat] Mladin or [Tommy] Hayden. It's going to be a differ- ent group of guys that will include the priva- teers. There's obvious issues with the back- marker guys; well, maybe there's issues with them to that we need to talk to them. There will definitely be communication between everybody." During his half-hour meeting with journal- ists, the word communication came up often. "Though my role is going to be an umbrel- la role for road-racing - period - in a way I'd like to look at it as the press secretary for the president," Kizer said. "I would like to see things funneled through me. I would like you to talk to me; I want to know your opinions. I want to know the racers' opinions, I want to know the tracks' [opinions]. We all seem to talk to different people. A racer may talk to the starter and convey that, 'Hey, I've got a problem with this' and assume because he said that I've talked to AMA about that, that it is going to get resolved. I want to have a two- way communication. When a question gets asked, I want to be able to at some point come back with an answer - right, wrong or indifferent. I want to be able to have the com- munication between you and me and the rid- ers and AMA." AMA Pro Racing communications director Kerry Graeber chimed in on the safety issue. "There have been plans to put together a rider's delegation anyway," Graeber said. "We've talked to some of the riders and we're working on that. We'll be announcing that very soon. Yes, there is going to be a rider's safety delegation." Kizer said he would also like to see a schedule implemented earlier. And he'd like to have a set schedule for each of the race, preferably one that doesn't change. "I'm early at looking at this, but I would like to make it more of what I'm used to - scheduling things," Kizer said. "I would like to have a schedule; obviously TV is an issue, but even the TV guys tell me that if we can have a schedule early on in January than they can work their TV schedule around this one. They're not used to getting schedules from other sanctioning bodies that quick. NASCAR kind of rules the roost, so things may have to be adjusted, but at least we can go on with a better plan. And that also means with the team managers. I would like to sit down and have a schedule. This first year might be tough, and certainly by the next year, it will be much easier. But 30 days before Daytona, I would like to have a book- let in all the teams' hands with a schedule, parking maps, everything [so] that they can plan their entire season up front. That's pret- ty hard to do. Sometimes the tracks - we're getting a schedule from a track, and have to do an hour-by-hour schedule, it may be two weeks before the race. That's too late and nobody likes that. It's trying to learn from other disciplines. There are things that Supercross does that we could learn from them. There are things that NASCAR does. I will be at different sanctioning bodies to see the things that they do, and apply the things that I know from motosports management. We will make it better." Kizer road raced as an Amateur with WERA, though he admits that he's not a know-it-all when it comes to the road racing. "My role here is not running the race," Kizer said. "That's Ron Barrick's job. I'm here to support him and my role is more motorsports management in the back- ground. I will be dealing with you; I will be dealing with the racers. And they will con- vey to me what they want. You can suggest things to me that you see that maybe we don't see. And I can convey that to the right department at the AMA to try and fix that. I think we will have much better communi- cation with us and the racetracks. The curbing here [at Mid-Ohio] is a great exam- ple of that. The riders came out and point- ed out that the curbing here absolutely did not work. If there had been better commu- nication between the riders and AMA before they ever spent the money to pour those curbs, they could have done more curbing with the money they spent the first time and it would have been right the first time. Even now after our tour around the track, there is going to have to be more curbing changes and extensions. What they did was fabulous. It's great and it's safe, but we need to extend it, thinking more like a road racer and not like a car racer." Paul Carruthers AMA Pro Hires Kizer Keith Kizer PHOTO BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS Hill On Top At Loretta Lynn's Josh Hill was given the AMA Sports Horizon Award at Loretta Lynn's. PHOTO BY KINNEY JONES

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