Sunday, July 27, 2008

Smart money says new AMA Pro Racing will get it right

The entire professional road racing community has been up in arms since DMG (now officially AMA Pro Racing) began making their presence felt. The complaints have been long, loud, and many. A person less magnanimous than me might even call it incessant whining. But I won't do that. I understand what all the furor is about. The road racers were, more or less, happy with the status quo, and DMG have begun shaking that up — not always in a positive direction. But in MX and Flat Track the situation is different.

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Mike Kidd chosen to lead AMA Pro Flat Track

AMA Pro Racing (the new AMA Pro Racing) announced Thursday that long-time, old school flat track racer, former AMA Grand National Champion, race promoter, Motorcycle Hall of Fame member, and Texan Mike Kidd has been chosen to head the redevelopment of the national flat track program. This is good news. Kidd has been around the block more than once and knows the flat track business. He's also seen the ups and downs of race promoting, being one of the first to bring racing to the small arenas in the mid-'80s.

I love flat track — watching those big Harley XR750s pitched completely sideways at 100mph in a mile race is awesome. The old AMA's apathy toward flat track was exceeded only by their apathy toward outdoor MX. Flat track is a genuinely American form of competition and deserves much better. I've read that AMA Pro Racing's Roger Edmondson is a big flat track fan, and this move to bring in Kidd is encouraging.

Kidd has done some very innovative things in his promotional career, but it seemed he never really had the big bucks behind him that he needed - even though he had the backing of Clear Channel for a while. It just didn't work. But now that he's got the backing of a group with both money and a love of the sport things could be very different. I hope so.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Long live the two-stroke Part Deux: FUD in the marketplace

Two-stroke technology is not banned. Never was. Yet this myth continues to run rampant over the internet. Two-stroke technology is changing, getting cleaner, but this is a story about how purposeful misdirection and a campaign of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt created a myth, killed development of a promising technology for over a decade, and changed the face of a sport.

Let's assume that a large, multi-national corporation (for simplicity we'll use a fictitious entity called Company H) manufactures everything from inexpensive lawn mowers and power generators to motorcycles and $40,000 SUVs. Every item in their massive product line is powered by a four-stroke motor. Every item, that is, except a small group of dirt bikes. The company has enormous investments and intellectual property in the development, marketing, and sales of four-stroke-driven products.

Company H is aware that certain proprietary methods, techniques, or technologies for lowering two-stroke emissions are either available or under development, some by their primary competitors. But Company H doesn't own any of the intellectual property (patents) associated with this improvement. Further, two-stroke engines do not fit the company's financial model — costing extra for development (since they can't leverage their vast institutional knowledge of four-strokes) — while generating lower margins in sales and service parts.

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

AMA approves sale to Daytona Motorsports Group

Here's the press release from the AMA regarding final approval of the Pro Racing/DMG deal. I'm sure the road race community is up in arms over this, and I feel for them. The changes underway there have created a lot of friction with the riders, factories, and race track owners. There's a lot of bluster going on now between all sides. As Dave Despain said in his Wind Tunnel editorial a couple of Sundays ago, a lot of this is posturing for negotiation, so let's get to negotiating guys and get it worked out.

But the NPG have been busting their butts in a way that has not been seen since...

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Friday, May 30, 2008

Residents and Greenies fight new track in Seattle

This Seattle Times news story tells the tale of another local battle to prevent legal riding areas. MXGP of Kirkland, WA have a 467-acre tract in rural Washington state, about an hour from Seattle. The promoters want to use 75 acres to build a multi-track MX facility and have gone to great lengths to address noise and environmental issues. Of course, there is no such thing as addressing all the issues where EcoNazis are concerned.

No doubt, this is the future all all riding facilities - new or old - and we had better get our act together on the federal, state, and local levels and begin a coordinated effort across the country to keep our right to ride intact. [Found via Blogandt]

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Finally! D.C. says we'll get our answer this week.

In this week's Racer Head Davey Coombs said the Big News we've all been waiting for - what's going to happen to the AMA Toyota Motocross Championshps - will likely be announced before Hangtown next weekend. To quote DC:

Needless to say, there are going to be a few confused people out there, but the vast majority of motocross fans and industry folks will just be glad to put this all behind them and start focusing on the racing and the future.

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