The current professional road racing rules battle pitting Honda and Suzuki against DMG has been fought in public (in the form of press releases and statements to reporters) as well as behind the scenes. Among the arguments used to support status-quo AMA road racing rules is that manufacturers use U.S. racing to develop Supersport motorcycles and that tire companies use racing to develop tires later fitted on stock motorcycles sold to the public. Those claims attracted the attention of a long-time U.S. motorcycle industry insider who who offered to share his insight with Roadracing World. The catch is, the executive would only speak on the condition that he not be identified by name. Because Roadracing World knows and has dealt with the insider directly for nearly 20 years, and because his view from inside the Japanese motorcycle industry is a valuable addition to the debate over professional road racing’s future under the control of DMG, we agreed to that condition. Our source says that ‘factory’ racing in the U.S. is a misnomer to begin with. “There’s not a unified position between the manufacturers. And you can’t even call it a ‘factory’ position unless you’re talking about Harley. These are distributors; they represent the brand. There’s always a certain level of conflict between the (U.S.) distributors and the factories (in Japan). Each entity (factory and U.S. distributor) kind of thinks they’re the center of the universe.” According to the source, the manufacturers’ claims that racing in the U.S. is necessary for product development is complete marketing hogwash. “The whole R&D process is so complex that when American distributors say, we’ve gotta do this for product development, that is such a load. Some of the data flows back, but as part of a formal process no way. It’s all about racing to market and sell bikes literbikes. “What’s behind this discord is that the manufacturers have lost control, and they’ve lost control to a company that’s got a whole lot of money and knows how to run a racing series. I wonder if they’re trying to screw up Roger (Edmondson)’s efforts so much that they can come back in and run things the way they want. The manufacturers have developed the literbikes for a retail market. If you know you have to have racing success to sell those bikes, and now someone comes in and isn’t as interested in racing them because of the tracks, well, you’re going to have problems.” Racing, to the Japanese companies, is a marketing effort which is linked to the literbikes. And that is where much of the problem lies the companies have placed the marketing efforts on bikes that were not well-suited for U.S. racing. “When the manufacturers decided to climb that mountain and race those bikes, it was because that’s where the American market was going, even though they knew that the tracks in the U.S. were not up to the standards of the European tracks. They knew that the bikes would be problems on U.S. tracks. “The U.S. distributors have been pushing to get Japan to develop bikes that work on point-and-shoot, stop-and-go U.S. tracks. The Japanese aren’t typically all that interested in doing that, because it’s not necessary for success on the tracks in Europe and elsewhere. You’ve gotta do well at the world level. “So you’ve got companies where the (U.S. arm) has been pushing for a literbike that works on U.S. tracks, and then DMG comes in and says it’s not as interested in literbikes, and the (U.S. arm) starts to go, uh-oh. The U.S. people, personally, are heavily invested, as far as their integrity, their credibility, their relationship with Japan, in the literbikes.” Can the Japanese companies successfully bail out of racing in the U.S.? There’s a significant risk, our source said. “I think they’d have a hard time selling that to the public. Maybe if you sit it out for a year, you say the market’s not good, we’re coming back strong next year, your market will wait. But you really run the risk of alienating a lot of your public. If they’re nothing to cheer for locally, they’ll watch MotoGP, World Superbike “¦” If Suzuki pulls out, the other manufacturers may see an opportunity to get their bikes atop the podium in Superbike for the first time in years. And in a broader sense, if DMG does create a racing product that attracts widespread attention, the manufacturers who are participating will reap benefits far beyond those who don’t benefits that are even greater than the ones the companies involved in racing currently enjoy. Making a racer the marketing focus, rather than the bike, makes a lot of sense, the source said. “Look at Valentino Rossi he can win on anything. Look at Ricky Carmichael he’s had a successful career with three different manufacturers. That’s how entertainment is tied to sports marketing. Those guys are a brand onto themselves and they help the manufacturers reach audiences. If the manufacturers can accept a position as important but not dominant when it comes to marketing, it can benefit them.” DMG’s involvement in U.S. racing may be controversial, but it is necessary if the sport is to attain anything like the level of prominence it enjoys in Europe, the source said. “The fact is that the track promoters have to have a reason to invest in their tracks, to make them safe enough to bring European-level equipment here,” the source said. “And that’s what a company like DMG can do create a series that helps the promoters. That’s the only way to bring European-level racing to the United States. You can’t run MotoGP bikes on (the majority of) these tracks.”