2009...and the death of american roadracing...

So i am working my way through the january 2010 edition of sport rider magazine....and i find that they really covered the A.M.A season...or rather ..lack of a season,very well,and cycle and Cameron also equally cover the mess very well....

I was following the 2009 season way back in 2008 actualy.Watching the upcoming rules fade- into -then back out of focus,over and over and over,untill it seemed there would be no real decisions or clear race classes untill the start flag in 2009 at the daytona 200 season opener.
Then the fiasco at daytona and the night race ,with 600 cc bikes now being the daytona 200 entries...a car on the track and miscounted rider results

The season went way down hill from there,by the way the 2009 daytona 200 winner,was not the real winner,somthing about loose chads....

I was sitting in the last row of grandstands at laguna seca when the superbikes came out of turn eleven onto the front straight and pulled their triggers down the long dragstrip race way, and as we watched em accelerate up towards the dulop bridge as the crest topped out, a pace car was sent out into the riders moving at about 45 mph and hidden over the rise,how no one hit that car was unbelievable,those bikes actualy swerve very nicely at 180 mph....ever hear 30,000 people gasp at one time...i have.........

The A.M.A took wins away from the yoshimura teams before for parts not having accurate machine marks,#'s,colors different hues..ect......and now they let non production bikes run in superbike so that the p.o.s buells can play too...The all time A.M.A racesrecord holder quit over this -and many other things-,Honda packed up shop,others to follow,and it continues to get worse each race untill the season ended with an 1125 beating the 600's...whoopie.....what a suprise.....WWF

I can't wait for 2010 to see what new bull they invent...

I will always remember Nicky hayden ,in full ducati motogp team clothing ,jumping the pit wall at this years superbike support race in defense of his brother,he looked like he was gonna throw a punch,and ducati never publicly repremanded him that i know of, and the A.M.A officals and him standing in front of the grand stands screaming at each other for about ten mintues...WE even had some really cool and quiet savy camera guy who had zoomed in and was streaming it to the giant trackside movie screens.......oh,and attendence is down...go figure.....but tickets cost more......what a great series it has turned into....we went from being the worlds premiere national series and hotbed for motogp class start ups...to this...
What do you guys think???.....are you gonna go to any A.M.A next year....i will...it's a fiasco,it's high art,...like wwf...or nascar....screw me!!!!!

The AMA sucks. Quit being a member several years ago........wish they would go back to the the class racing like they had in the late 90's and early 2000's. Could care less anymore.

Reminds me of Nascar.

I asked a guy the other night,"why don't they just race for the purse and at the end of the season who ever had the most money was champion?" Too simple huh? Roy

In my re-reads of the history of motorcycle racing...i do understand that there has always been politics and dirty moves by promoters.....
It's one thing to read about pops yosh making a look alike frame for cooley's gs1000....or eddie and muzzy, hiding a bit of race fuel in a crank oil overflow catch can...with a siphon switch hooked up...to ensure a race finish....or kenny roberts refusing to ride for low wages, or, honda spneding 10x the other teams budgets to win daytona ...
But it's another thing to see dirty buisness and poor leadership in the A.M.A in 2009 at a level that even rank amatuers can detect......
Rember the early sportbike money cup championships....inceptor 500 series and the first seasons of the gsxr cup series.....baldwin,shwantz,polen,merkel,and many others came right outta those series....if next year produces even one up and comer ,then the heart of american racing may be beating still ,if faint.....danny eslik ...should be given a chance to compete with some real talent in a premeire series.....he showed some definite balls this season......

trianglelaguna wrote:

What do you guys think???.....are you gonna go to any A.M.A next year....i will...it's a fiasco,it's high art,...like wwf...or nascar....screw me!!!!!

No

Ahhhh ... Politics and special interest strike again. Best thing AMA can do is vote themselves out of office and allow racing purests to step in and re-write the rules where everybody has a fair chance. Only rules I would leave in place concerns safety and cheating. Yea, I lost my interest in AMA and NASCAR several years ago due to what I consider rules "tinkering" that benefited the few deep pockets teams and sponsors.

Sounds like AMA events have gone the way of the other asswipes who did in CART and American open-wheel racing with that dumbf*ck Tonie George (misspelling on purpose) I grew up in Speedway IN next to the 500 and since TG took over same as the AMA b.s.

Worst thing ever happened to this country is the 2-strokes being banned, imo, and that's when I stopped going to races, if I can't ride that race-like hardware why bother.

My RGV250cc has 60hp in stock trim weighs 285lbs and that's 20-year-old 2-stroke technology, my bike is the 1989 (Aus) model, the mid-1990s RGV250 put out 72hp in stock street form.

If 2-strokes were still produced, 20 years later surely we'd be looking at 100hp 250cc 2-strokes at 250lbs or less in street trim. :dry:

However I *do* love my 1978 kz1000 monster bike!

I thought the AMA basically gave up control of the racing i know they did in motocross. They do suck though. The rules don't make sense never have, never will.

"Worst thing ever happened to this country is the 2-strokes being banned, imo, and that's when I stopped going to races, if I can't ride that race-like hardware why bother."

You can thank the tree huggers for that. And I agree. The 250 GP class was fun to watch. A lot of young guns came up thru that class. Curis Roberts used to pilot the Erion 250 bike and even Roland Sands rode the PM Yamaha 250. Great stuff.

I will go to Daytona again. The AMA prostar series is entertaining to watch, Top fuel, funnybikes, now that is fun to watch.

yeah,
you know your 100% right kawickrice!

I also will go to the future AMA seca races,and yes it's mostly cause i could walk to the track.....
However i would probably not drive four hours and take time off from work to make a 3 day event of it and pay for a motel.To watch bungled series being ground into the earth.....


But,still,

I can say for certain that watching even bad motorcycle races ,or more correctly,unevenly managed races,is far better than watching t.v or,any other sporting event in the world ,FOR ME,and i will go to see what i may be missing,or like i said the drama of tensions ect....

the cars(pacecars) have no place in motorcycle racing and should be treated like a crimnal act....

I would probably not go if it took 1000 miles, motel and all that either. But a day trip to the track will work for me anytime. I agree with your view on the pace car, should not be there. Next year will be interesting to see how much damage control will be used.