From an e-mail, which expresses the personal opinion of a reader:

The last two weekends of the 2002 AMA season were both exciting and amazingly disappointing for me to watch. My problem wasn’t with the racing itself, no, that was top notch as usual. What had me practically screaming into my television set were the turnworkers at Mid-Ohio and VIR. In Mid-Ohio, I winced as Aaron Yates was left pinned under his bike bleeding like a vampire victim for what seemed like minutes on end. When two turnworkers finally did arrive they both picked up the bike and proceeded to stand there with the bike!! NEITHER BOTHERED TO ATTEND TO YATES!! What the heck was going on? He finally managed to get up on his own and proceeded to leak blood like a sieve as he ran across the track by himself to safety.

Then at VIR, I watched in complete amazement as Nicky Hayden’s bike sat for minutes on end (sound familiar?) before anyone bothered to check on it, or *hey* pick it up (I know, radical thinking on my part). Then the RC-51 that costs more than most of us make in a year bursts into flames and THERE ARE STILL NO TURNWORKERS!! Finally, someone bothers to show up, and Nicky has to put the thing out himself.

I have the distinct pleasure of racing AFM, with the best turnworkers around. That is probably why I was so confused by what happened at Mid-Ohio and VIR. I have never seen it take so long for turnworkers to get to a crashed rider in AFM (or WSB or GP, for that matter). With all of the hoopla this year about track safety, you’d think the AMA would put a little more emphasis on (1) having enough turnworkers so it never takes more than a few seconds to get to a crashed rider, and (2) turnworkers that know their job. Well, maybe in 2003?

Sincerely,
Stephen Robinson
San Francisco, CA