On September 3 it was announced that the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), based in Pickerington, Ohio, had re-acquired the rights to professional motorcycle road racing in America from Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG, dba AMA Pro Racing of Daytona Beach, Florida) and as the U.S. affiliate of the FIM would sanction a new professional road racing series promoted and managed by a new group called MotoAmerica.

MotoAmerica, is an affiliate of the KRAVE Group, and KRAVE represents the initials of its four partners: Terry Karges, Wayne Rainey, Chuck Aksland and Richard Varner. Varner, according to information released by KRAVE, is a motorcycle manufacturer, energy sector entrepreneur, philanthropist and businessman. Karges, is a former motorsports marketing executive and team owner who spent 17 years at Roush Performance until he was named Executive Director of the Peterson Museum. Rainey is a former AMA Superbike Champion, a three-time 500cc GP World Champion, an AMA Hall of Famer and a MotoGP Legend. And Aksland is a former racer, a former Team Manager at King Kenny Roberts’ Team Roberts, a rider manager and until recently was the Vice President of Motor Sport Operations at Circuit of The Americas.

Aksland is at New Jersey Motorsports Park this weekend to attend the final round of the AMA Pro Superbike Championship, and on Friday he sat down to give Roadracingworld.com an exclusive interview. The interview will be published in three installments over the next three days. The second part of the interview covers the how the schedule of the MotoAmerica AMA/FIM North American Road Racing Championship.

Roadracing World: Where do you guys stand as far as the 2015 schedule goes?

Chuck Aksland: “Basically, we’ve been on the job since last Wednesday when the press release went out, so a week and two days. The first couple of days were a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing was we got a lot of positive feedback, but we couldn’t put our phones down for about two days and couldn’t move forward with anything.

“I have a list of most of the relevant tracks in the United States. I’ve made contact with about 90% of them. Most of them are enthused about doing something with us.

“We have some different options for promoters that we’re working on, and that’s going to take a little bit of time. Hopefully, we’ll get commitments on dates and be able to release a tentative schedule sometime in the near future. That’s task number one – where are going to race? And then it’s what are we going to race?

“We have our first MotoAmerica Rules Commission meeting next week, Wednesday and Thursday [September 17-18]. We have some parties involved in that. So we’re going to sit down and see what’s on the table as far as the classes and where the rules should go and so forth.”

RW: As far as the schedule goes, can you provide any specifics like number of rounds and any places we will or will not be going back to?

Aksland: “We’ve kind of stated from the onset that it would be a minimum of seven rounds. I think it will fall somewhere between seven and 10. Our preference is to go to racetracks where interruptions due to weather would be minimalized. Obviously, that’s not going to work for every track and there will be some exceptions made, but our long-term goal would be when you go to a race you go there to race rain or shine. That’s a difficult thing to do here in the States, but that’s a long-term goal we would like to work towards.”

RW: With your relationship with Dorna, people would assume that you are going to race at Circuit of The Americas, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Are you planning to race during Dorna’s events at those tracks?

Aksland: “I can’t say for sure, but I would say they are likely. There’s still some discussions to be had with the promoters and arrangements to be made, but I think it would be likely that we would have support events with the Grands Prix and also with the World Superbike race. I wouldn’t see our full slate of races running in conjunction with the Grand Prix events just because of a matter of time, but the goal would be to have our premier events run alongside them.”

RW: What about having an event at Daytona International Speedway?

Aksland: “We’re in negotiations with Daytona as well. Obviously, their goal is to run Superbikes [in the Daytona 200], so we’re working with them and talking with the OEMs about logistically what’s involved in that, what are the concerns, what are the concerns for Dunlop, so on and so forth.

“We believe Daytona is an important part of the history of road racing, obviously, and we would like to help that regain its place where it used to be when Wayne and Kevin [Schwantz] and Eddie [Lawson] and Kenny [Roberts] and all those guys came over to run. Hopefully, our relationship could be that to where we could build that event with them and help it progress.”

Tomorrow, Part Three will cover The Class Structure and TV Package.