What To Do About Superbike The debate is on over the question of what to do with AMA Superbike rules for 2009, specifically whether or not to slow down the bikes, and how. The same debate has taken place in other countries around the world, with the result that National Championships in Japan, Germany, Spain, Australia, Canada and Britain have all moved closer to Superstock rules. It’s something that the FIM is considering as well, as Roadracingworld.com discovered in an short interview that took place with FIM President Vito Ippolito in his office in Caracas, Venezuela prior to the start of the 2007 racing season. Roadracing World: There seems to be a lot of interest in having unified rules for Superbike racing around the world. But World Superbike allows a much higher technical specification than, for example, AMA Superbike and other National Championships. The problem that the AMA and other National Federations face is that the bikes are getting too fast for many of the racetracks, so they want to slow the bikes down. There is now some discussion about moving the National Federation specifications closer to Superstock instead of Superbike. What do you see as the future structure of Superbike racing in the world? Vito Ippolito: The question is very interesting because one of the problems is to harmonize the rules. But there are course various people involved, the federations, promoters, the factories, teams, and so on. And the job of the FIM in the immediate future will be to arrange meetings with all the persons involved in this matter. In principal, the main goal of the FIM is to maintain a structure so that this kind of bike is very close to production, series production. This is the main goal. And we hope to convince everybody that we are in the same ship and that we have to go in the same direction together. RW: In the U.S. we don’t have a class in the AMA National Series for the up and coming riders, and every class last season had full factory teams in it. Is this a problem in other parts of the world also? VI: This is an important problem, because I think all over the world, all the federation must create classes for beginners. This is a main goal also for the FIM, to convince some federations; in some countries like Spain, Italy, Germany and England, they have a good activity for beginners. One of the reasons these countries, especially Italy, Spain, Japan, have the best riders in road racing is because they have good programs for beginners, very good programs. In the case of a small federation like the Venezuelan Federation we made several years ago a program for beginners and now the riders you know from Venezuela, like Robertino Pietri, Fernando Amantini, Armandito Ferrer, Victor Chirinos, all these riders come from thess beginner categories. And I can say one of the last legacies of my Presidency for the Venezuelan Federation is that we will have again one category for beginners. Because it is the only way to have good riders, young riders in the future, not only for Venezuela, but for every country. If every country works in this way, we will have thousands of good riders in the future. RW: If you were going to speak to each rider in the world who is racing with the FIM, what message would you give them? VI: I am happy with the riders in our sport in comparison with other sports. I think the motorcycle riders are very good sportsman, with good ethics, they are ethical people; I’m happy with the riders of our sport, really. I don’t have any special recommendation. I think the only recommendation is to follow this way because they will be in any case the example for the new riders all over the world. I think they show in principal a good example for the riders. Our sport is safe, I think.