Confirming unofficial reports, an American Suzuki Motor Corporation (ASMC) spokesman said that the company is not planning on importing most 2010 model streetbikes to the United States and will not be homologating 2010 GSX-R models for AMA Pro Road Racing. ASMC National Sales Manager Rod Lopusnak told Roadracingworld.com in a telephone interview, “We’re more concerned with making sure the dealers are healthy than just the need of bringing in 2010 product. “There’s a lot of excess inventory out there from all the brands. We don’t want to put the dealers in a difficult situation, so we’ve made the business decision that we’re going to bring product in by model, as needed and in some cases we will look at the seasonality of that product and then we will come with 2011 [products]. “Fortunately for us, Suzuki Motor Corporation is very healthy. Actually, they exceeded their most recent profits [projections]. They actually increased their [projections] for what their profits are going to be for the next quarter. So we’re in a good situation where our parent company is very, very healthy financially, and instead of working through the problem at 50 or 80 percent we want to try to help the dealers 100 percent and get the inventory in check across the whole country. So that’s really what our focus is.” In other words, unless there is a sudden spike in demand and draw down of current dealer inventory, 2010-model Suzuki streetbikes will not be imported into the U.S. In fact, some 2010 models will only be manufactured if demand warrants. “We’re not going to build product that we don’t need because then we’ll be in the same situation at a later date,” said Lopusnak. “There are models that we could skip, but I don’t have a list that I can give you saying, we’re going to bring this, we’re not going to bring this. We’ve brought in four [off-road] models so far. We’re going to introduce some ATVs here in the next couple of weeks. But to come out and tell you every model, we’re not going about it like that. We’re looking at it model-by-model and doing what’s best for the dealers. We’re going to look at our production abilities and the seasonality of the product and our supply of product we have in our current dealer inventory.” Asked specifically is ASMC planned to homologate 2010-model Suzuki GSX-Rs for AMA Pro Road Racing, Lopusnak said, “Right now there is no plan. Our company, I think, has shown that we are extremely supportive and our DNA of our company is racing and performance, but right now with the economy [it] puts a lot of challenges on every aspect on all of our businesses. We feel really confident that we can be very competitive with our 2009 [products], so we’re moving ahead with that. The focus right now is to help our dealers.”