This message in from a student/privateer:

My name is Rafiq Premji and I am an aspiring pro racer who lives in Boulder, Colorado. Being the stereotypical, broke college-student privateer, I know most every other person in my position and have made many contracts within racing (mostly at the MRA). When I read the story on your website about Scott Hollingsworth and his proposal to remove the “support” classes from AMA Pro Racing, I was crushed. Classes like 250cc GP and 750 Supersport are where I intend to make my debut in national racing. Without them, I have no chance to even become competitive with some of the big names on a national name, national televised event.

I did the only thing I thought possible that would make an impact. I first e-mailed several representatives from AMA Racing (and received replies from none of them) then created a petition protesting the decision. I have passed the URL of this petition onto a few bulletin boards and mailing lists and have even seen it circulate to some larger sites by other people.


Though the 400 signatures with many very powerful comments has impressed me and restores faith in the racing community, I know that 400 is not enough to make the impact on AMA Racing that it needs.

This type of message is what the AMA needs. To see novices, top-ranked privateers and pro all together, uniting on a cause like this. It would show them that removing the support classes would not in fact increase their revenues or race attendance but lose them many ticket sales and racers, and create even more disillusionment among long-time followers of their organization.

If you have not seen this petition before, I hope you consider my request and help out an important cause like this one.

Here is the URL to my petition, and I also encourage anyone who cares about the future of AMA Racing to write their representatives and tell them why it would be a bad decision to remove the support classes:

http://www.petitiononline.com/amarace/

Rafiq Premji
Boulder, Colorado