By John Ulrich The long-awaited 2014 AMA Pro Road Racing rules have been released and actually loosen restrictions on electronics. The new rules allow ride-by-wire capability to be added to bikes that don’t come with the feature as standard equipment, as long as the existing $18,000 per-bike price cap for electronics isn’t exceeded. The new rules also eliminate spare bikes in Daytona SportBike and SuperSport. The move to a “single-bike” rule brings AMA Pro SportBike and SuperSport–but not Superbike–in line with every FIM class except MotoGP and with the majority of National Superbike Series in other countries, including Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Spain. The rules also ease the Superbike qualifying cutoff from 107% of pole time to 108% of pole time, and ease the Daytona SportBike qualifying cutoff from 109% of pole time to 110% of pole time. The rules also change the grid configuration from four bikes per row to three bikes per row with stagger between positions on each row increased from three feet to 10 feet, and increase the time penalty for moving on the grid prior to the red lights going out from five seconds to 10 seconds. And while Superbikes will continue to run white number plates with black numbers, Daytona SportBikes will run red plates (Pantone 186C) with white numbers and SuperSport machines will run green number plates (Pantone 348C) with white numbers in 2014. The minimum weight for four-cylinder Superbikes has been increased from 370 pounds to 380 pounds effective in 2014–it stays at 370 for twin-cylinder Superbikes–and wheels will have to be made of aluminum starting in 2015. Superbike cam rules revert to where they were in 2012 and earlier; valve duration can be changed but valve lift must remain as stock. The rules had been changed to unlimited duration and lift for 2013, increasing costs, reducing engine durability and increasing top speeds recorded by AMA Pro speed traps to well over 200 mph at Daytona. In Daytona SportBike and in SuperSport, electronics will be subject to a $5000 total system price cap for 2014 and are limited to homologated, approved “Kit” ECUs with a maximum of seven sensors monitoring Lambda, rpm, water temperature, throttle position, front suspension stroke, rear suspension stroke and lap time; plus a homologated, approved data acquisition dashboard; plus an approved commercially available piggyback controller like those made by DynoJet or Bazzaz. Radiator ducting will be allowed, and minimum weight has been increased from 355 pounds to 360 pounds for four-cylinder machines and reduced from 375 to 370 pounds for twin-cylinder machines, with three-cylinder minimum weight remaining 360 pounds. More, from a competition release issued by AMA Pro Racing: 2014 GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Redline Rules To: GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Community From: AMA Pro Competition Date: November 7, 2013 Subject: 2014 GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Redline Rules The 2014 GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Redline Rules have been posted to the Competitor Information section of AMAProRacing.com. The 2014 Redline Rules document includes the licensing, technical and procedural sections of the 2014 rulebook, with deletions from the 2013 rulebook in strike-through font and all additions and modifications noted in red for additional clarification. A direct link to the file follows: 2014 GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Redline Rules (http://amaproracing.cdn.racersites.com/assets/AMAPro-RR-2014-Rulebook-Redline-Release.pdf?utm_source=COMP+-+RR+-+Redline+Rulebook&utm_campaign=Email+-+Comp+-+RR+%232013-10&utm_medium=email) If you are unable to open PDFs on AMA Pro Racing’s website, please do the following: If you are using Google Chrome, please try another web browser. There is a known compatibility problem with Chrome’s built-in PDF viewer and PDFs created with certain versions of Adobe Acrobat. Ensure that you have the latest version of Adobe Reader installed. Visit http://get.adobe.com/reader/ for installation instructions. Visit the Competitor Information section of AMA Pro Racing’s website Right click on the link for the file you would like to view and click “Save As…” or “Save link as…” Browse to the file and double-click to open it in Adobe Reader AMA Pro Racing Competition Department