The Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000s belonging to race winner Mat Mladin, runner-up Ben Spies and third-place finisher Tommy Hayden were all taken to technical inspection following the August 17 AMA Superbike race at VIRginia International Raceway. It was the fifth time the three teammates swept the podium in 2008, but this time only one of their three machines was singled out, resulting in Mladin being disqualified from both races at VIR and the 2008 AMA Superbike Championship being all but decided.
The technical inspections started routinely, with all three machines having their cylinder heads pulled off. Then the decision was made to tear Mladin’s engine down to the crankshaft while releasing Spies’ and Tommy Hayden’s engines back to their crews.
“It was determined to check one of the cranks because of things that could be seen by looking in the cases. That’s my understanding,” Colin Fraser, Director of Competition for AMA Pro Racing told Roadracingworld.com Friday. “We only did one because the three bikes were teammates. In retrospect, we probably should have pulled the cranks of all of them, but there’s nothing we can do about that at this point because we only pulled the winner.”
To clarify, Roadracingworld.com asked if the decision to investigation Mladin’s crankshaft was caused by something tech inspectors saw in his engine cases or if they saw something in one of the other bike’s cases and then inspected Mladin’s crankshaft, Fraser said, “I don’t know for sure how that decision came to be. I guess because it was the winning bike. But absolutely that’s the one thing we would like to change, which would be to have pulled all three cranks, because obviously it asks more questions, right?”
Two of those questions are: Did AMA Pro Racing single out Mladin for the crankshaft inspection because he has been an outspoken critic of Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG), the new owners of AMA Pro Racing, and its 2009 plans for the series? Did DMG take action against the Rockstar Makita Suzuki team, American Suzuki’s factory team, because American Suzuki has opposed DMG’s proposed plans for the future of AMA Pro road racing?
“I appreciate and understand why people might connect the dots on this one, but there was no intent, there was no opportunity taken advantage of,” said Fraser. “That’s not how we do things. That’s not how we want to do things going forward. The efforts that the team makes to succeed should be respected. We’re putting on an entertainment. We need to make sure the competitors trust us, that it’s our goal to put on a good and safe and fair show. I get it why people think that, but there’s no agenda on our part.”
Rockstar Makita Suzuki has announced plans to appeal Mladin’s disqualification. If the disqualification is upheld and Mladin loses all of the points he earned at VIR, Spies can clinch the 2008 AMA Superbike Championship, his third straight, by finishing 19th or better in Race One at Road Atlanta.