Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

For the first time since late in the 2002 season, AMA Pro Racing Timing & Scoring appeared to be fully functional when official practice started at Brainerd International Raceway Friday.

Lap times appeared as soon as the first bikes went around the track, and were properly displayed on monitors in the press room and along pit lane.

AMA Pro Racing Timing & Scoring has been plagued by operational problems since the 2002 season finale at Virginia International Raceway, with problems ranging from relatively minor–such as times not displayed along pit road at the start of practice or screens not updating with current information as at Daytona–to a complete system meltdown at Fontana and random wild times assigned to riders at Pikes Peak, scrambling grid position assignments.

AMA Pro Racing officials have consistently blamed the problems on third parties, including various racetracks and the system hardware supplier, AMB; missing is any explanation of why racetrack systems were not tested and debugged prior to the start of official practice (at, for example, Fontana) or why untried new hardware was used as the primary system at Pikes Peak instead of being relegated to backup system status until proven and debugged. AMA Pro Racing officials have also attempted to justify the continuing problems by pointing out that racebikes frequently break despite the best efforts of mechanics to ensure otherwise.

However, nobody at AMA Pro Racing has offered an example of a mechanic whose bike malfunctioned at every race since near the end of the 2002 season and who still has his or her job.

AMA Pro Racing officials have also pointed out the rare problems with timing & scoring systems encountered by F1 car racing to justify their own ongoing problems, and have described delays in issuing results–which led to Saturday winners at Fontana not getting their names in local newspapers–as being merely “an inconvenience.”