Good luck..

http://superbikeplanet.com/2008/Sep/080910ussb.htm
http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=34127

 

From the outside looking in, I hope this wins and the DMG stuff falls
on its face. The US is the world's biggest economy, biggest sports
bike market and has a great legacy of providing world championship
class riders. To see that reduced to spec ECUs, engine restrictors,
power-to-weight ratio limits, etc, would be a real shame.

 

It's just a press release, but one has to be quite pleased with the
structure of the organization, from a separate sanctioning body to a
separate series promoter to a promoter's group to a riders' group.
They're trying to establish right away that it's going to be an
inclusive operation and not a dictatorship of any kind, which is what
any reasonable person would have liked to have seen when the AMA
decided to get out of racing.

If it all works out, really a great thing for professional racing, in
this country and overall. And I hope DMG succeeds at whatever it is
they're trying to do as well, because this country could use a real
national championship for club racing, and one where riders can
perhaps make some decent money and develop before they try racing at a
professional level. And it's not like I want to see Daytona gone from
racing, it just shouldn't be used in a top-level championship anymore,
especially if the specific needs of that track distort the rest of the
championship, as they have in the AMA.

Of course, it may be that we'll only see twins running there, as we
probably won't see any of the Japanese OEMs rushing to have their
bikes homologated. And Pirelli can rethink their bid on the tire job,
it's not like they have to worry about any bidding competition from
Dunlop now, or Michelin for that matter...

 

Not off to a roaring start, huh?
http://www.cyclenews.com/ShowStory.asp?HeadlineID=12945

A soon as Kaw comes forward your *BIGTIME RACING* will be down to what,
5 SB's on the grid???

 

Hey, better than none, I say. Anyway, Yamaha was always the weak
sister, less committed to SB than any other OEM and quite willing to
race "on the cheap" in SS. And he sounds like a guy who just realized
he might have proposed to the wrong girl, not exactly a rousing
endorsement. We'll see how all this plays out over time, of course,
but I doubt that they would go forward with this without Kawi on
board, even if that was conditional. And their guy has been making a
lot of noise about racing SBs in '09 and against the other OEMs - he'd
look damned silly if they went the club route...

 

Yeah, but we've known that for a while. What is likely now is that
there will be a full schedule in the west, which wasn't looking all
that likely before this.

My guess is that Willow is almost certainly going to be on the USSB
schedule, given that Fontana is owned by France and they're going to
want to run an event in SoCal.

To me you vote with your wallet, and I can't see myself putting any
money in the pockets of anyone who is associated with DMG, after the
way this has all gone down over the last six months. My attitude is,
you want to see winning penalized for the sake of the show, go see
DMG. You want to see riders expected to race in the rain at Sears and
Mid-Ohio, go see DMG. Etc. I'm seriously considering skipping Laguna
later this month because of what has come down this year, and I
haven't missed a bike race weekend at Laguna in 24 years.

WSS is AMA FX motors in AMA SSp chassis. Sort of.

It will be interesting to see what rules package they use for SSp, and
what other classes they run. I think a FIM SSt class for novices and a
WSS class for the pros would be good. One of the keys will be cross-
overs from DSB, and I hope the two series will be reasonably mindfiul
of that instead of conducting a war - that's really what will decide
if this is bad for racing in the US or not.

Ulrich has already totally sided with DMG and announced some time ago
his team will run in DSB. It's really dispicable how blatant his bias
is at RRW now, he doesn't even seem to pretend to be practicing
journalism anymore...

My guess would be that the first event you can put in the USSB column
is the GP at Laguna, as DMG has apparently bailed on that one. There's
apparently a contract that binds DMG to run at Miller one more year,
but now that USSB is apparently a reality, my guess is that it's DMG
who will be enforcing that contract. But if Wilson can get out he
likely will, they don't seem thrilled with DMG.

 

Prediction time.
- MIC and USSB will run FIM Superbike, SuperSports and Superstock rules.
Sooner rather than later. And it's not too late to just do that for 2009

- It'll split into being a USSB series, Daytona, and a couple of Moto-ST
races. DGM won't fade away but they'll end up with basically just
Daytona. And Daytona will become even more marginalised than before.

- The whole of the MIC series will be on Speed. The only DGM race on
Speed will be Daytona.

- It really doesn't matter if there are official factory teams or not,
just as long as there are well funded, competitive teams. You may well
see the factories officially distance themselves from their main teams.
Monster Energy Kawasaki continue to race, but Kawasaki USA don't. Makita
Suzuki not American Suzuki. Joe Rocket Honda, not American Honda. Yamaha
pull out but ????? Yamaha keep racing.

In the UK you race BSB. In America, USSB races you!

 

Okay, prediction time. No, not next year, the previously-agreed new
rules are my pick.

Eh, I think they'll make a big show of it next year, their coming out
party. Beyond that, I'll guess DMG will get their southern affiliates,
the ISC tracks, and the guys who will appreciate the "always race in
the rain... unless it's one of our bowls, that is..." position -
Homestead, Fontana, Road Atlanta, Barber, Mid-Ohio, Sears, plus New
Jersey. USSB will run at Laguna, Miller (maybe with WSB, maybe not),
Elkhart, plus Willow, Brainerd, there will be a few tracks that will
run both - Barber, maybe Miller, New Jersey, Sears. Something like
that.

None is more likely, I do think these guys will get some sort of cable
(non-pay) TV package, but it seems like they'd already moved beyond
SPEED. But that might get ratcheted back some now that they have
actual competition.

The three factories that will likely do USSB will run official factory
teams, plus support teams like they run now. None of them will do any
DMG racing, period. The bigger non-factory teams now doing support
classes will focus on DMG, if the loss of factory support isn't
critical, although they might also race USSB if the money is there.
The rest will be driven by money even more than that, so MIC needs to
realize that that will have to fight a purse war with DMG to some
extent. There will be a few teams that won't even consider running
USSB - M4/EMGO, because of the position that Ulrich has taken, Pegram,
etc. Jordan is the big question, and Suzuki could insure that they run
USSB by guaranteeing them factory superbikes. I can't believe Mike
really wants to race in DSB.

Doesn't make sense to me - factory teams are factory teams, and the
only way they aren't is if they're contract teams like Erion and
Attack. They either exist outside of the OEM or they don't. I think
it's more likely that Yamaha might stop and run it all under Graves,
if they want to take a wait-and-see attitude about which is their real
future.

What will really matter is the definition of the classes, the dates on
the schedule, and how aggressive either series is about conducting an
actual war. I would hope that there is some effort to make sure there
aren't conflicting dates, and that the USSB support classes allow some
DSB and ASB bikes, which is quite likely. Of course they might be at
some minor disadvantage running homologated parts only.

What will be interesting is if the USSB OEMs try to stop their bikes
being homologated for DMG, and how hard DMG tries to make that
difficult - will DMG decide they don't want crossovers, so make the
USSB OEMs come begging or there won't be any? Will Ducati, having
chosen pro-Euro DMG, do nothing in USSB, will USSB effectively ban
them through the rules? In the announcement they talked about 1000cc+
twins, so that's unlikely.

My guess is that if there is a real shooting war, it will be of DMG's
doing, just as it's really their fault that we're at this point in the
first place. As Tom loves to say, these guys aren't afraid of full-
contact racing, and they don't take prisoners. That's really a shame,
because a peaceful truce and passive separation would be a much better
thing for racing right now. But, as with their forebears in 1861, DMG
will have their Ft. Sumter, and probably sooner rather than later...

 

Seems like my BSB-WSB focus is blinding me to the situation in the USA,
again. What I'm talking about is the kind of situation we have with
Airwaves-Ducati, Sterilgarda-Ducati, Rizla-Suzuki, Alstare-Suzuki, HM
Plant-Honda, Ten Kate-Honda, Rob Mac-Yamaha, Yamaha Italia. If say,
Yamaha America don't want to be seen to be siding with MIC or DGM, then
they could support and help private teams so they can race by proxy.
I've never really understood why the top Honda team *has* to be owned by
American Honda. It may be funded and get technical support from Japan
via the local importer but does it have to be owned by them? And
especially in this new situation?

 

If you look at the AMA OEM teams, they used to be separate contract
teams - Muzzy Kawasaki, V&H Yamaha, Yosh Suzuki, Commonwealth Honda,
FBF Ducati. But for various reasons they all went in-house, in some
cases because of cost, in some cxases because of closer re;lationships
with the race shops in Japan. But at the end of the day the OEMs were
paying for it, because there isn't huge outside sponsorship in bike
racing here, and they use racing to promote their products. Doesn't
take any deep thinking to understand why Honda might want to run their
bikes in their colors rather than in the colors of Camel cigarettes.

WSB isn't factory today because of the split with FGSport several
years ago and not because it's the best, preferred system. BSB seems
to be because the OEMs don't see it worth investing what it would
take, there are healthy race teams with shops and outside sponsorship
there, whatever.

I can see Yamaha doing something like you suggest there, though. For
instance, they could run Graves in DMG and eventually run a factory
team in USSB. That might be something that DMG would prefer, since
they're taking such an anti-factory attitude. Although they certainly
wouldn't prefer that Yamaha runs in USSB at all. It's possible that
Kawasaki might do something similar with Attack as well, if they
really are interested in running in DSB, which isn't obvious (note
that the Kawi contingency ad reported by RRW said the "AMA US
Superbike Championship", and what that means now is terribly unclear.
That assumes the ad means anything at all, which I doubt.) But running
both series would be expensive, and these aren't the big spenders over
here.

 

You might want to adjust your spin rate just a tad..

http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=34138

For additional reaction to WednesdayÕs announcement of a proposed
MIC-organized United States Super Bike series that will compete
directly with AMA Pro Racing's series in 2009 Roadracingworld.com
contacted Steve Page, President and General Manager of Infineon
Raceway, which has hosted AMA National motorcycle road races since 1977.

Roadracingworld.com: Generally, what are your thoughts on the
announcement of the USSB Superbike racing series that is going to
compete with the Daytona Motorsports Group(DMG)/AMA Pro Racing series?

Page: Well, I will be very frank with you. ThereÕs nothing to react to.
ThereÕs nothing there. It was a press release with no information.
ThereÕs no schedule, thereÕs no tracks, thereÕs no manufacturers,
thereÕs no riders. This has been a charade that is getting very
tiresome.


Pretty much says it all, tiresome...

 

]Not entirely accurate - they didn't run an AMA event 1990-92. But RRW
is hardly concerned with accuracy when it comes to this topic.]

Yeah, exactly, after six months of working at it, you'd think DMG
would have put together more than that. Oh, were you talking about
USSB?

But do continue to keep us updated on the latest on Ulrich's anti-OEM,
pro-DMG campaign...

 

I agree, I think we all agree, that this whole thing is tiresome.

That said (from the article):

-------------------------------------
RW.com: Roger Edmondson said he has some written commitments for his
2009 schedule. He didn’t say who. Are you one of those who has committed
to his series?

Page: I will tell you that we have committed to Roger that if he is able
to accumulate commitments from enough tracks to make a creditable
schedule that we will commit to him. But that commitment is based on
Roger’s assurance that there will be an on-going effort to bring a full
contingent of manufacturers into the sport. But that is a provisional
commitment. We’re not going to jump alone. But we’ve also told Roger
that if we can bring a collection of tracks into the program that we’re
prepared to go with him.
-------------------------------------

This guy hasn't committed to anybody. There's nothing here that says if
MIC (somehow) shows up with all the right pieces in place, that he
wouldn't jump over to them.

But the assertion that this is a play to simply muddy the waters and try
to get DMG back to the table may well have some merit, but I really
think it is simply too late for that, so in that sense it doesn't make
much sense.

If it's a pure race of seeing who can get a series setup first for who,
then you'd like to think that DMG has an advantage and will bring it all
together first, thus locking someplace like Sears up. DMG needs to
convince the tracks and promoters that they're not going to be leaving
money on the table by passing on MIC. The only reason the tracks and
promoters care about the factories is that they bring cash money with
them to the event.

Both DMG and the factories have a lot of money to throw around to pay
off promoters and tracks. With the new series, it's going to be a buyers
market. On the one side you can see DMG with a large grid with "no
one" in it (save, perhaps, EMGO and Graves) vs MICs smaller grid with
"everyone else" (Yosh, Am Hon, Kawasaki, Erion, Attack and, perhaps,
Jordan -- who knows if they can convince Ducati to come play, not likely
at this late date). Smaller grid, but maybe no back markers.

One thing we have right now is a plethora of riders and few seats.

It is in the factories interest, it seems, at this point, to throw money
at this problem, because it's all about momentum and justification. This
includes "incentives" to the support teams to follow the factories. One
of these series needs to establish itself as the "premiere" series. MIC
is on track to become in sync with WSB, faster, than DMG is, so from a
technical perspective, MIC is "more premiere" than what DMG is offering.

The factories view US racing as a marketing (and development) expense,
which is why they want control over the series. It's their medium,
they're paying for it, they want to get their message out.

DMG views racing as entertainment. In that sense, they're "pro-rider",
and "pro-consumer". Give the riders what they want (a steady income),
and the consumers what they want (a motor sport event with oohs and ahs,
wait, I mean "close racing").

In both cases, the racing itself is somewhat secondary to the overall
premise. It's a means to an end. The factories are willing to substitute
"race quality", or perhaps, championship/series quality, for marketing.
While DMG is willing to sacrifice race quality (by enforcing equity and
limiting competition) for entertainment.

In the factory series, the factories originally had to compete against
each other to get top marketing opportunities, thus the drive for tech
and good riders. Ye Old Win on Sunday, bla bla bla.

But now, with DMG, the factories are going to be somewhat obligated to
create a better show. DMGs "wrestling" is going to be more interesting
to the casual fan than MICs "wrestling". Like NASCAR vs F1. I don't
watch F1 because what I have seen of it is uninteresting from a
spectacle point of view. I can see if I were new to the sport and just
saw what we have in Superbike today, how having what's implied by DMG
would be more interesting to watch, being unaware of the backstory of it
all.

The casual fan isn't interested in what Spies did in the first race at
Road Atlanta, slicing through the pack like a man possessed "for second
place". Reminds me of, I guess, the last WSB race at Laguna where Haga
qualified 16th because of a crummy Super Pole, but his fans cheered him
on through every position he made up.

The casual fan misses that. I'm sure F1 is filled with similar drama
that the casual fan misses. NASCAR, however, is manufactured drama. Each
race a ticking time bomb where many fans go for the bloodsport aspect of
it. Any novice will be interested in the loud cars spinning across the
track in a cloud of smoke and debris. "Oooh". "Aahh".

The biggest problem both series will have is simply that they can't buy
fans. MIC will have the advantage of the enthusiast community (however
large that is -- considering the underwhelming marketing most AMA races
have had in the past, it may well be a large segment).

DMG will have the advantage of branding, and perhaps better TV, and,
possibly, "a better show".

But neither team wins if no one comes to watch, and both will have very
bad years next year with a divided base.

Simply put, for the next year or two (assuming both series come to
fruition), the races will literally have to be subsidized.

I'd like to think that next year will be a riders year. That some of the
riders can actually run both series. Don't know how practical that will
be, but it's a nice thought. DMG money and purses will lure riders to
the DMG series. Perhaps competition and prestige may attract them to
MICs series. I think it would be great if riders can do both. It will be
ugly if you hear about riders running DMG so they can fund their rides
in the MIC. The "I want to be in MIC, with the best riders and best
equipment, but I can only afford to ride in DMG".

There's a real chance of that happening I think, for the privateers.

Hopefully '09 will be a do over, that it will be a complete CF and folks
will come to their heads and come together in '10.

We'll just have to wait and see.

Regards,

Will Hartung

 

Yup. Still think there's good reasons for all the national SBK
championships to run WSB rules. The only local variance that makes any
sense is whether the local championship chooses to run a spec tyre or
not. Same for Supersports and Superstock. I also think that there should
be a world homologation and the national rules shouldn't overload that
with local requirements on sales. So if a 1098R is homologated for WSB,
BSB shouldn't then demand 1000 unit sales in the UK as well.

 

Well, what it might well come down to, for Suzuki and Honda anyway, is
either do what they can to support a series that might become what
they want, or not race at all. I don't get the feeling that racing in
DMG's series as they conceptualize it was ever a viable option for
them. So if they can help build a series fronted by MIC or just get
DMG to see reason or drag them down sufficiently that they collapse
ands something else comes of that, it hardly matters. And I really
doubt they're the only ones, the whole DMG concept has gone over like
a lead balloon with a lot of the industry, with the notable exceptions
of some of the better non-factory teams (mostly M4/EMGO and Pegram),
and the lesser factories (principally Ducati, but also KTM and Buell,
possibly BMW), and maybe a tire company or two who think they can beat
out Dunlop without having to do so on the track (Michelin, Pirelli).
If fact that's the general profile here, the guys who like DMG are the
losers in the AMA, the people who couldn't get it done under open
competition. And the people who simply believe in the mythology, that
they have the Midas Touch and will make everyone a lot of money.

In more ways than one - they know that the majority of fans show up to
see factory SBs and factory stars, they don't show up to see
privateers who can't afford to build a fast motorcycle, and they
probably never will. That's why NASB never took off, and DSB probably
won't either.

I think the real opportunity will be for thr true privateers, who may
be able to do both series and make some real money for a change. And
who is against that? As long as they are fast enough to be out there,
that is.

Well, right now there really aren't any seats. I guess Yamaha has all
but said they're doing DSB and ASB, so there are four rides, I guess.
But that assumes there is a series, and we don't even know that yet.
But if both series can make a go of it, there will be a lot of rides,
they just might not pay so well.

I really question how much they really want to control it. They want
it to serve basic functions, and DMG doesn't do that, but that doesn't
mean they really want to run it. That there was so much friction
between the Japanese factories and two ended up doing the SS thing and
two the SB thing a few years ago shows they don't necessarily want the
same thing, and that Yamaha has chosen to do DMG backstops that.

What they are is pro-DMG, which means they want something that fills
their wallets, including at the ISC-owned tracks. They think they know
the winning formula after NASCAR somehow exploded on the populace, and
they're running out that playbook writ small. And if it succeeds
reasonably and increases their monopoly power over racing in this
country, all the better for them. This is business, it's not personal.
Well, until it comes down to Rog Ed, of course.

I think you overrate what value bike racing might have to the casual
fan. WSB has very close racing, for the most part, and it's hard to
predict who might win on any given weekend. But is WSB taking off with
new fans, or casual fans? I don't know that it is, I think all they're
doing is perhaps recapturing some of the fans they lost to MotoGP a
few years ago. And that in part because of all the problems GP has had
the last two years. And realize that there probably were more fans out
there today in the rain on a Friday than there were on a beautiful
Sunday at Miller back in June. WSB simply doesn't sell as well as
MotoGP, even with all the close racing.

Nor will the casual fan be interested in close racing between Larry
Pegram, Geoff May, Blake Young and Jake Holden. Close racing isn't the
Holy Grail, it takes much more than that, it takes something to relate
to, it takes personalities, it takes a story. Now, if you give DMG 30
years, like it took NASCAR...

Who the hell knows what appeals to those fans, I don't really have a
clue. But I have to think it's more than close racing and crashes.

Well, we know what DMG will look like, for the most part, and I
haven't seen any magic in that yet. But they are trying something kind
of new, and it's unlikely to be dominated by the Japanese factories,
so is that enough? Pro Blunder never was very compelling, and it was
something like that. USSB will be the conventional production classes,
but we don't know much more than that - will they do something
different that has some longer-term growth promise? Seems a bit
unlikely, at least at first.

I do think MIC will have to draw the privateers in, which means
they'll have to create some financial benefit for them. How they do
that, I don't know. But I also think DMG will have problems making its
series as lucrative as they put on, if the Japanese (mostly) don't
homologate, Dunlop doesn't bid on the tires, other aftermarket
companies pass on homologation and the cost of that as well. It's hard
to overestimate how much it cost DMG not to be willing to compromize
sufficiently with the OEMs to keep them on board.

I don't know, there's clearly a lot of bitterness out there and I just
don't see DMG bending enough to make peace with the OEMs. So maybe
there's a series war for years, maybe some of the OEMs just don't race
or do so on a much-reduced level, who knows. The only way I see DMG
winning this thing is if their series takes off and the OEMs simply
can't afford to not be involved. But that sure as hell won't happen in
'09, or '10, or '11...

That we will.

 

The question is, why? WSB has their own financial interests, and their
rules reflect that. Their treatment of Ducati historically is a prime
example. If there was an international body like the FIM that had
total control over the rules and all the national series had input,
then maybe. But let the Flamminis decide what the rules are in this
country? That's crazy. And there are legitimate reasons for national
variations.

I think 1994 was a prime case. The AMA had a rule that allowed Harley
and Ferracci to build a bike that qualified with only 50 machines
required. When Ducati won 4 of the first 5 races, the AMA stepped in
and equalized the weight between twins and fours, something WSB didn't
do until 1996. That worked, and the championship came down to the
final laps of the final race. So would the AMA have been better off
with no Harleys, no Ferracci 955s, and twins with a weight advantage?
I kinda doubt it.

Really the only reason to run the same rules is to make it more cost-
efficient for the OEMs who run in multiple championships. If the
various series recognize that issue and take it into consideration,
then what would be the purpose of further restrictions?

 

And to encourage the better wild cards to enter from the local national
championship when the circus comes to their country. Of course Pirelli
WSB and non-Pirelli teams messes that up.

Sure there are some local issues that require local changes to the laws.
But the vast majority of the rules fit everywhere which allows teams and
suppliers to develop a single set of solutions. And in these days of
aftermarket electronics especially that would really help. At least then
you can buy a swingarm from KR, an electronics package from Pectel, and
so on to go with the Ohlins and Brembos. And gearboxes, cams and on and
on.

Having a single homologation benefits the OEMs trying to get into the
game as well. If BMW, KTM and Aprilia homologate once worldwide, there
would be more of a chance that they could support teams in BSB, US,
Germany, Spain, Italy even before the bikes are actually available in
those countries.

 

Extremely dubious at best. What third parties are put out by the
differences in SBs in the AMA, BSB and WSB today? The chssis aren't
materially different, if at all. The differences are mostly inside the
cases, and to a great extent the only cross-fertilization goes on in
the factory race shops.

Okay, I'll grant you that one, in theory. Except that the US only got
it's round back this year, the tire deal killed any chance at factory
wildcards, and next year we well may not have any SBs here at all.
Japan hasn't had a WSB round in years. Many European champiuonships
don't include a true SB class. So that leaves the UK.

I think you're grossly overstating the differences between the rules.
Whose bike it is and who built it matters much more than what the SB
rules are, as do the tires, and the tracks, and almost everything
else.

I think the one area that needs to be in sync is electronics, because
I can see that ending up a real mess if some people start trying to
limit that stuff.

 

Right now pretty much everyone worldwide is using the same chassis
stuff. The bits that are difficult and would benefit from common rules
are gearboxes, cams and electronics. On electronics, there's now 3 or 4
suppliers worldwide plus Honda. I think I'm right in saying that Yamaha,
Suzuki and Kawasaki are using third party electronics where the teams
are using traction control while some Honda teams are using the factory
kit and others (notably Ten Kate) using 3rd party bits.

 

Just a threat, is how I see it.