Daytona Motorsports Group principal Roger Edmondson says there will be no Factory Superbike class in AMA Superbike racing in 2009, because the four Japanese manufacturers missed today’s deadline to commit to the class. Therefore, Edmondson says, next year’s race weekend will consist of a pair of doubleheaders two races for the 600cc Daytona Superbike class and two races for the 1000cc American Superbike class. Edmondson says he emailed the four Japanese manufacturers two weeks ago, asking them to commit by today (Friday, August 15, 2008) to the Factory Superbike class, which was based on World Superbike rules. The idea of that class, announced in response to the Japanese manufacturers’ demand for a class that more closely resembled World Superbike rules, was to create a place where the factories could run their WSB bikes, on whatever tires they wanted, with no restrictions on testing. But Edmondson says he received no response to his inquiries, so the class will not be run next season. “I emailed the four Japanese distributors who I’ve been dealing with, it seems like forever,” Edmondson says. “This was always their class if they wanted it. But there was no interest.” So next year’s program will feature the two classes, with rules structures to ensure that the race bikes will be closer in specification to the street bikes they are based on. “If you look at (Aaron) Yates’ times today at VIR, he’s 1.5 seconds off the pole position. You can’t see that from the stands,” Edmondson says. “The racing in American Superbike is going to be incredible. The equipment is amazing, the riders are amazing, and that’s what we’re going to make sure that the audience knows that these are the bikes and equipment that they can buy. They’re not going to have $80,000 forks on them. This is the stuff that they can buy.”