A rider revolt is afoot at Mid-Ohio, with the majority of factory and support team riders remaining in a group at the riders meeting–alone, AMA officials having abandoned any further discussion with a declaration by new AMA road racing boss Keith Kizer of “that’s the way it is”–while the Superbike and FX practices went on track.
At issue is the lack of Supersport and Superstock practice sessions today. AMA officials have said that the riders can have three laps before the race; riders want 10 minutes of practice to assess track conditions following rain storms yesterday and last night.
That same scenario led to the AMA Supersport race at Loudon in 2001 being boycotted by factory and support team riders and a handful of privateers racing, after then-AMA-boss Merrill Vanderslice dug his heels in and said, “Sometimes the tail wags the dog, but not today.” For want of a few laps of practice, the races at Loudon were ruined and AMA Pro did not return to the track.
Notable boycott-busters so far at Mid-Ohio include Jordan Motorsports’ Steve Rapp and Jake Holden and Erion Honda’s Josh Hayes and Aaron Gobert.
AMA officials claim they have no room in the tight schedule to allow any practice. Riders says it’s a safety issue, especially for riders who do not compete in any classes other than Supersport and/or Superstock.
While the riders continued to work on organizing and unifying their position, Leo Vince/Pegram Racing Honda’s Larry Pegram went out in the short Superbike warm-up session. After turning a handful of laps, his best a 1:32, Pegram returned to the gathering of riders to report, “It’s still wet on the backside. You can’t even get your knee down right now. If they lined up and ran those heat races right now there would be a lot of red flags and hurt riders. It [track] needs about two hours or good riding on it, and even then you better not get off line.”
Shortly after Pegram’s report back to the group, Matsushima Performance Suzuki’s Danny Eslick returned from Formula Xtreme warm-up to report, “I just did one lap, and it was stupid out there.”
After Pegram’s and Eslick’s reports, a sort of roll call was taken as each rider stated to the group that he would not ride in the Superbike heat races. The riders then left the gathering to check in with other riders to see if they would join their boycott of the heat races.
Stay tuned.