The Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC), which represents several major motorcycle manufacturers and almost 300 aftermarket parts and accessory companies, provided no details or plans for an alternate professional motorcycle road racing series in a meeting with race promoters August 22 at Infineon Raceway.
The race promoters, working under the newly-formed, not-for-profit Road Race Industry Council (RRIC) to avoid any anti-trust issues, organized meetings with AMA Pro Racing/Daytona Motorsports Group boss Roger Edmondson and MIC President Tim Buche to voice their concerns and get more information from both parties in regards to the future of professional motorcycle road racing.
Edmondson met with RRIC first, then RRIC met with Buche. After an internal meeting, RRIC held a second meeting with Edmondson.
Not much was resolved during the eight hours of meetings, according to RRIC members Gill Campbell (CEO and General Manager of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca) and George Bruggenthies (General Manager of Road America).
“There wasn’t a lot of resolution,” Bruggenthies told Roadracingworld.com Tuesday.
One thing, however, was learned — MIC does not have a plan for a viable alternate professional road race series in 2009 or if they do they did not share it with RRIC, the people who would be paying for the rights to host and promote the series’ events.
“Nothing that was shared with us. Nothing concrete at all. Nothing,” said Bruggenthies. “It wasn’t like, here’s the dates, here’s the structure, here’s the organization, here’s the TV package. No, none of those. There was nothing concrete shared.”
“We went to get information,” said Campbell, “and without sounding vague, because it all kind of was, we certainly came away with some information and I think some information I personally wished we’d had five months ago to have been working on this. But I think that we all came away with the same feeling we went into it — we would like to see all of the manufacturers participating in the series.”
Asked which series, Campbell said, “In a single series, and right now Roger’s series is the one that’s there.”
The comments made by Campell and Bruggenthies seem to refute reports published elsewhere that an MIC series would run in 2009.
The idea of an alternative MIC series was pushed by American Honda’s Ray Blank and American Suzuki’s Mel Harris.
Their claims that an MIC series could (or would) happen may have been a negotiating tactic. Previously, the pair had demanded FIM World Superbike rules for the premier class in the 2009 AMA Pro Racing series run by DMG. But when DMG offered a premier class running under FIM World Superbike rules, the pair switched their demands to proposed 2009 AMA committee rules. After DMG announced it would run a premier class (called Factory Superbike) under those rules, the pair switched their demands to existing 2008 AMA Superbike rules.
When both companies failed to commit to the 2009 Factory Superbike class run under the 2009 AMA Committee rules by an August 15 deadline, DMG cancelled the class.