FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: Since the end of the AMA season, I have seen opinions expressed (from numerous sources) that Roger Edmondson needs to, in some form, “apologize” to the Japanese factories and get their money back into this series. Presumably he would also need to change the rules back to allow extreme modifications that only the big factories have the technical ability and financial resources to provide. If we want to know what would happen with Japanese factory money and rules that allow them extreme modifications, we don’t need to guess or speculate – we’ve got 20 years of history to look at. The AMA isn’t World Superbike. There is limited money and limited interest in this smaller, national series. We can’t expect to have 20 top riders all working with highly professional and well-funded teams any time soon. If the factories come back and have the rules they want, we will get something similar to what we’ve seen over the past 20 years – a few top riders on factory teams spread between classes with certain factories focusing on certain classes and 80 % of the field working with far less money and poorer equipment than the elite teams and riders. That doesn’t make for good racing. That ends up being a marketing gimmick for Japanese motorcycles and, because of that, fans have lost interest over the years. In fact, if you want to understand why attendance was sparse in AMA racing, I think you can put some blame with the uncertainty related to DMG, some blame has to be with the economy, but the single, largest reason there weren’t many fans at AMA races this year is because there haven’t many fans at AMA races over the past 10 years. That seems to be a point that is forgotten by those who advocate going back to the old ways. What has AMA offered over the past years? Since 2008, two Hondas have won Superbike titles and the remaining ten titles have gone to Suzuki. Is that compelling racing? Roadracing World published an excellent comparison (presumably based on data supplied from the AMA) that showed the racing this year was dramatically closer than in 2008. It may take a while, but as fans start to realize the results are no longer pre-determined, I believe they will come back. And THAT’S the way to bring factory money back into this series. Don’t beg for their participation and offer them control of the series in return for that participation. Instead develop a series that offers fans interesting competion. More fans will bring more money and interest and professional participation and, eventually, the factories will have no choice but to participate to showcase their bikes. And with factories as participants, rather than owners, alongside professional, private teams such as Jordan Motorsports, Richie Morris etc. the series is no longer dependent on a group of 4 factories . . . and no longer subject to the whims of a couple of those factories coming or going. And moving on to a different but related topic, I have heard it stated that WSBK rules are required so that manufacturers can perform R & D and develop better street-bikes. There’s some validity to that, but there are also some big problems. Current state-of-art race components are so expensive that we will never see them in street-bikes, particularly when the racing rules allow factories to use those exotic parts when they’re racing and use the cheap stuff on the street versions. If we really want to see improved street bikes as a result of racing, we should force manufacturers to race what they sell and then they will have no choice but to include better medium price range components on their street-bikes. Besides, they still have WSBK and labs in which to perform R&D. So, while DMG has, unquestionably, stumbled and given those averse to change plenty of ammunition to use to call it a failure, I applaud the broad goals of their new structure and hope they will be able to connect the dots from theory to reality. Gary Hoover Mount Laurel, New Jersey