no comment necessary..

 Food for thought...

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article%263

 T3 wrote:

Pretty decent commentary, and from a guy who has been known to have a
major bug up his ass on the AMA for years, plus just got laid off the
board. And he uses capital letters almost as often as you use cliches
and exclamation points!

 Mark N wrote:

Hmm, grammar and punctuation, the last resort of a loser of Usenet
arguments, ok, I'll take that as a W.
And hey, I'm willing to give them 6 months now that they're under new
management, we'll see if there's any change by the last mid-Ohio round....

 T3 wrote:

I do want to make one more comment about something Ulrich mentions here.
He talks about the rulebook that makes no sense, and selective
rulemaking or interpretation. And he specifically cites the Buell FX
situation. But is that something the AMA should really be taking all
this heat about?

The scenario was that Buell apparently came to the AMA with an intent to
build race-ready bikes for the FX class. Now FX is a class that the AMA
has taken a lot of heat over the last couple years, because it didn't
initially have a lot of participation, because only one factory has been
taking part and has dominated the racing, but mostly because Daytona
wanted a 600 class in the 200 after all the tire problems with the big
bikes, and that has gone over like the proverbial turd in the punchbowl.
  The AMA also took heat for initially allowing overbored 250s into the
class definition, then pulling them a few months later. My guess is they
did that because the factories indicated that they had no interest in
featuring their official teams in a class where they would be racing
against two-strokes. And some of the heat came from the overall revised
class structure, which eliminated all the two-strokes and most of the
non-fours, leaving a series composed almost entirely of Japanese 600 and
1000 four cylinder machines. FX became the poster child for that.

So Buell comes to the AMA with intent to add another factory to the FX
class, and add another factory and engine configuration to the series.
Is this bad? Certainly not. The frame for the bike would be a production
frame, so that doesn't present any issue with the rules. What do the
rules say about this? First, in the specifics for the class it says, "FX
motorcycles are based on four-stroke street motorcycles", and allows
air-cooled twins of 850cc-1350cc. The bikes have to comply with the
general equipment standards, which say the bikes must be homologated,
approved bikes will be listed by the AMA, and for FX it says, "FX is
restricted to motorcycles (engines and frames) produced for US street
use and available in the US through retail dealers". There is nothing
else that I see in that section which is material to the issue.

In the FX specific rules on engine modifications, for air-cooled twins
it simply says, "engine modifications are unlimited."  For all other
configurations there is a long list of specific allowed modifications.
Then there are rules which apply to all motorcycles: frame displaying
the VIN, adding and removal of brackets, etc,. adding gusseting, use of
stock swingarms and allowed modifications (but an exception is made for
1000-1350cc air-cooled twins - "are unlimited"), total freedom on
bodywork, and fuel tanks must be stock - except on air-cooled twins.

These are, I believe, the rules that have been in place during the
class' two-year history, not modified in any way for Buell. What they
say to me is that if you start with a stock frame for an air-cooled
twin, you can build an air-cooled twin racer that uses nothing but that
frame. Buell read it that way, but apparently with the exception that
they would also start with the stock cases, then melt them down and
reconfigure. They ran this by the AMA to make sure they were reading the
rules correctly, and were told they were. So they built it.

When the word got out, the screaming started. But where did it come
from? From the two factories intending to race in the class, Honda and
Yamaha. I haven't heard any other FX participants complaining (other
than the usual generic anti-AMA shit). These are also the parties who
were rumored to be protesting the Daytona FX race no matter the results.
And, Tom, they are also the parties who you say have had too much power
and influence within the AMA in recent times, to the detriment of the
series.

I don't see where the Buell is in violation of these rules. I also don't
see where these rules are unacceptably unclear, although I can certainly
see where someone might not like what they say or allow. It seems like
the issue is that certain parties made assumptions about the rules after
a cursory review, and then were unhappy when those assumptions proved to
be incorrect. And I don't see how the AMA made their decisions here a
secret. Until the bike was officially homologated, the AMA had no
requirement to post it. The AMA didn't need to nor shouldn't have
publicized their discussions with Buell about the conceptual legality of
the bike when they were approached.

Seems to me that the AMA doesn't deserved to be criticized so heavily
for the way they've handled this. If the rule is the issue, then the
other factories should have been protesting that back when it was
published in '03 or '04. But they apparently didn't, so they should shut
up. If they really think the bike isn't legal, then they should protest,
and then live with the inevitable outcome.

The AMA didn't bend the rules for Buell/Harley here. They wrote a rule
that was clearly designed to give that factory the ability to enter the
class with what they were building and with some opportunity to be
reasonably competitive. A good or bad thing, that's a subjective call,
but having more bikes and factories in the class seems better than fewer.

Anyway, at the same time that Ulrich is saying we should give the new
guys a break and look to the future, he's also taking the opportunity to
dredge up the past, air animosity over historical issues with the AMA,
and taking a few thinly-veiled shots of his own. Kind of a mixed message
there...

 Mark N wrote:

The group gripe on the Buell were the cases, they are more like XR's
than XBR's, but the rule says unlimited engine mods, I believe the
problem from Yam and Honda were more about how it was ok'd by Proracing,
not the fact that it was ok'd. They didn't see it coming until it was at
the dealer show and then all hell broke lose and some I've talked to of
late are convinced that one issue was the straw that started the
dominoes falling at Proracing. As we all know the Japs don't like
surprises, especially when they have spent so much money building bikes
(and relationships) they believed were going to decide the 200 and FX.
In retrospect, they may have overreacted somewhat...

I'm pretty sure they would have had it been a "little" more successful,
to do so now would only give Buell a bunch of free advertising...

I don't agree, if racing in this country is going to grow and move
forward it can no longer be business as usual at Proracing. The need to
address the old problems and ways are paramount, do so and then move on.
Some also have said this new set-up is a complete recipe for disaster,
rule by committee, instead of rule by one iron fisted guy/gal, time will
tell...