FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: I have been racing in the United States for four years now. I come from what people call a third-world country (Colombia), I have raced in the CCS, ASRA, WERA, AMA and DMG AMA. Maybe I’m not the fastest rider of the AMA field, but I love this sport like crazy and I’m pushing myself to be better every time, I have proved that to me and to everyone. I had my share of success in my country and in the CCS, and all I can say is that, 2009 was the most un-fulfilling, frustrating and bad season of my career, come on! I’m from Colombia, we only have one little track, but we have fun racing, that’s the bottom line, we do this because we love it, there are only a few riders that actually live from this, the other ones like me are just insane, and love the feeling. This year was bad, the ideas of DMG were crazy, and every time we, the clowns of the circus, try to talk about it, they shut us up like kindergarden kids. I call myself an educated and civilized man, but every time I talked to Colin Fraser, I just wanted to slap him for the way he treated me and the way he treated the other riders. But like I said, I’m an educated man. At Daytona, I had to fight for my finish position by phone and mail, because, the AMA were giving people positions that they didn’t earn riding. At Topeka and Virginia, I went to talk to to AMA official about the issue of the too-hard front tire for MotoGT. I broke my leg at VIR losing the front again, on a MotoGT bike, and nothing happened, but for me it was the end of my season. I didn’t race at VIR and New Jersey. The list is long, but this border jumper just came to the land of opportunity, to “the home of the free” to do what he loves, to race in the most important National Championship in the world, and you know what I feel? I feel that in 2009 it was a joke, and now looking back, I really missed racing CCS with my friends in the Florida Region. I missed Mr. Henry Degouw, a former racer and now the respectful leader of a Championship he is, I missed going to a real riders’ meeting, not like the ones we had to suffer through in the AMA. I missed just going to that little track in some place in South America and racing my heart out because this is what I love. And DMG just killed one year of my dream. I didn’t go back to the CCS or Colombia because I wanted to race against the best of the best. God, I’m over 30 and I started racing when I was 21. I know that I’m not going to be World Champion, but I’m trying to be the best that I can be, I’m trying to race in a championship where I can look in front and look at the leathers of people I admire, and maybe some they look back and or to my side and be among them but racing in the AMA, it’s not even fun any more. I just want to remind you that the Unites States of America is the most important country in the world, and you have a duty to be the best, to receive foreign riders, and make them feel at home, to create a way for kids to be like Kenny, John, Kevin, Nicky, Colin and all those guys that have made your nation proud. We are the clowns of the circus, and without us, you won’t have a show, we deserve some respect, all of us, not only the top five riders from the first to the last we are risking the same, we are fighting for the same goal, to be better and do what we love. We all know that Mat Mladin was going to retire, but the DMG ways made him take that decision very easily, like he said , “I wasn’t having any fun.” God, they are powerful when they manage to retire a legend. We, the foreign riders, are important in your championship, names like Miguel Duhamel, Mat Mladin, Martin Cardenas, just to name some, are the fact of how important is motorcycle racing in your country. I don’t know what I’m going to do next year, I really want to keep racing in the United States, maybe because of this, I won’t be accepted in the AMA but if in some way this can help illustrate the frustration of people that came to your country and your championship to learn , to live a dream, so be it. But remember, you have a duty to create a championship that will make the young riders fight for their dreams and goals, a championship that foreign riders like me will dream to race, a championship to the level of your nation. In 2009 you failed miserably. I hope you have the courage to accept it, fix it and learn from it. Just read the motorcycle forums, DMG AMA is a joke to most of the spectators. My mother once told me, if one guy says something bad about you Santiago, he can be wrong, if two people say something bad about you, maybe they can be wrong, but when many people say it, DUDE, YOU ARE WRONG! Think about it–riders, team owners, brands, journalists are united, not against DMG AMA, they are against how things were managed this season. Please do something, or you won’t have the factory teams, you won’t have the foreign riders dreaming to race your championship, you won’t have big names of this sport running around the pit lane, you will kill the dream for all of us. And the fact that Mladin is gone, the fact that the Hacker was racing WSB to have fun, Honda is out for 2010, and other brands and teams are pulling out of the championship, can’t be a plot, I hope the guys that are the owners of the ball, will play this second half with their brains. Santiago Villa AMA Pro #32 www.santiagovilla23.com Bogota, Colombia FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: I fully support both the timing and the content of your editorials on this subject. Your assessments and objectives are dead on target. Whether it’s journalistic integrity, financial integrity or personal integrity, no business will prosper without employees that mirror it. My hope is that Mr. Edmondson will start at the top in making a serious assessment of integrity, and that it be the number one criteria for any new salaried positions within DMG. However, some of his own actions to date reveal he may not be capable of setting aside personal loyalties to address the black and white reality of this issue. John Cone Marion, North Carolina FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: I may or may not be the first, but I will pledge $20 to Johnny Rock Page legal fund. Just tell me where to send it! Good luck and go get them Johnny! David Ferris Kerrville, Texas FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: Thank you David Swarts for the succinctly worded article on the Ludington suspension affair. We (your readership) have always appreciated concise and non-biased information in your magazine and you didn’t disappoint. I only wish I could be chastised AND awarded at the same time in MY job! So…….”Good on’ya mate!” It was good finally meeting you at New Jersey and hope to run into you next season. Eric Barrows Fullerton , California FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: I have read every opinion and article you have released about DMG. I would like to state for the record that I am not a writer and the opinion within is my own. It’s meant as a reflection of the fan and what we (or I in this case) see as it pertains to Pro road racing in the US. When the AMA announced that they would turn over control of Superbike to an outside entity I truly thought this was the best idea in the world. Bring in a professional organization and run Superbike with the efficiency of F1 and the marketing of WSBK. When the winter of 2008 was closing and the race season was about to begin I went to Daytona at the request of a friend who runs a local motorcycle magazine to “report” the fan perspective of the famed Daytona 200. I watched the announcement of DMG buying the series live. It was a new dawn. I was excited. I expected a new level racing. One that matched WSBK. Something to make the statement that America was the innovator of Superbike and we were taking the reins. We were going to show the world that the AMA road racing series was the place to race. We were already snapping up international racers. In 2006 I working for a Ducati dealer in Atlanta, Neil Hodgson was doing the promo thing before the Road Atlanta race and we got to talking. He told me he loved racing the AMA series. He wanted that championship and he’d race here until he got it. I think James Ellison was here then and Chaz Davies was coming along. Martin Cardenas was just getting into racing here and the AMA was well on its way to international support. Well, about mid-way though the 2008 season DMG was showing their colors. Bits and pieces of what DMG wanted to do for the 2009 season started to leak out. DMG almost blew the whole 2009 season for the fans and the last race of 2008 hadn’t even happened. When 2009 started the fans knew from the onset that things at the track weren’t the same, but on the track things looked exactly the same. As a 15-year fan of Superbike I can tell you that 1. Corner marshals are volunteers and are fallible and 2. The technical geeks in inspection paint a picture that makes DMG happy–even when they are not always correct. As a fan, what would I do: 1. AMA racing may be thought of as a National series by DMG, but the fans think it’s the coolest series in the world. In order to maintain that I suggest allowing FIM “Customer” Superbikes to race. Why? Because we don’t need 40 bikes to make the grid. Yes, some teams would have to make hard choices, but gridding 25 bikes or so is still a show. The teams that could pull that of are Graves/Yamaha,Corona & Erion/Honda, Yosh/Suzuki, Pegram/Ducati, Attack/Kawasaki, Jordan, Ulrich’s Suzuki teams and KWS Aprilia (if they race the RSV4 next season). There are a possible 17 of 25 seats right there. Make the Buell race Superbike only and you have two riders there, as well. Keep the control tires and your silly 17-inch tire rule. Everything else is on the table. 2. Make the Daytona class up with the same rules as Superbike. Keep the over 1000cc bikes out! We think it’s stupid to race 600cc Fours, 675cc Triples and the 848 against them no matter what the stats say. If Buell or KTM want into racing then commit to Superbike! 3. Bring back 600cc Supersport in the same format as 2007. 4. Put the kids on the 450s if you must, but it’s going to be more expensive than the teams are being led to believe. As a manager, what would I do? Fire my managers and technical staff. Then start over by going directly to the closed-down course operations and asking for mechanics, team managers and retired racers to see who wants a job. Train them the same way the FIM trains their crews. You can still use volunteer cornerworkers, but train them better so mistakes like CARS being on the track or crashed bikes being too close to the track don’t happen–again. Get a TV deal that doesn’t blow big hairy chunks on the fans you so desire. Fox made the deal that put NASCAR on the map over a decade ago. I would say it’s probably a good idea to look outside of Speed TV. Start with Turner Broadcasting. They own TNT and TBS. They have one of the best Sports programming departments in the world. Roger–you’re bleeding your fan base because you blew the model. We want the biggest, baddest, fastest motorcycle racing in the world. You took that from us and attendance suffered. How do I know? I have worked as a vendor at Road Atlanta selling insurance since 2001 and at Barber since 2005. Foot traffic is off. I hear the same from friends that work other tracks, too. You took our beloved sport and turn it on its ear thinking your model was correct. You were wrong. Your plan was flawed and instead of modifying (like you said you would) you did just what Ulrich said in his latest (09/30/09) piece. You’re in denial, man. You are making me wish that Hardcard had won the original bid. If you don’t snap out of it soon the fans will just stop showing up. If that happens what will happen to the dozens of riders that love Pro Racing? They’re already running from the series. We can’t afford any more mistakes like this season. Superbike will disappear from US soil if it continues. Kirk A. Harrington Advantage Benefits, LLC Canton, Georgia Editor’s note: Actually, it’s doubtful that Mr. Harrington’s option #1 would be financially viable for many of the teams he lists. Anything that increases costs in any way for the 2010 season is likely to be a major problem. Do not underestimate the effect current economic conditions are having on motorcycle racing.