The San Jose BMW team that won the VIR round of the inaugural SunTrust MOTO-ST Championship has pulled out of a 500-kilometer race scheduled for Saturday on the infield road course at Iowa Speedway, in Newton, Iowa, on the grounds that the track is too dangerous for motorcycle racing. “We’ve pulled out of the race,” San Jose BMW lead rider Brian Parriott told Roadracingworld.com via cell phone Friday evening. “It’s too dangerous for a motorcycle to go around this f””king place. We’re going around a Turn One and Two banking situation similar to that of PIR [Phoenix International Raceway], is what it reminds me of.” In the past, motorcycle races have been held on road courses at speedway ovals, using parts of the banked speedways as turns, but few events on similar tracks are still held. “It’s real bad,” Parriott said of riding his 117-horsepower BMW R 1200 S around Turns One and Two of Iowa Speedway’s 7/8-mile Tri-Oval. “Lots of lean angle, knee on the ground, top of fifth gear and no protection on the wall whatsoever, no haybales, no nothing. You enter about mid-bank and then swoop down to the bottom. Then on the exit you come all the way out to the wall again. “I did about eight laps in practice and almost binned it into the wall with just a small mistake, a small wheelslip. I just got off the bike and said, ‘Forget it.’ And the hard tire wasn’t working for the bike in the right-hander, because you’re on the left for the whole lap and you finally get to the one right-hander that they have and the tire’s cold and there’s a wall there. It’s about 30-40 feet [off the track]. You’re only in second [gear] and you probably wouldn’t get to it. But you’re staring at a wall and the tires are loose”¦” Parriott said he and other racers looked into slowing the first section of track down with an artificial chicane, but with only 20 feet of apron to work with, “it looks pretty much impossible to do. “The Aprilia team [Aprilia USA 2], they’re leading the points,” continued Parriott. “We were talking before we even got on the bikes that they would pull out if the top three would pull and it wouldn’t affect points. But the third place guys, Vallely Racing, they wouldn’t pull out. They want to do the race. So in turn, Aprilia is gonna do the race, and I guess I’m the pussy, right? (Tom) Montano [Parriott’s teammate] also said he’s not gonna do it. If I’m not gonna do it, he’s not gonna do it. He’s a veteran Isle of Man contender, and he doesn’t feel it’s safe enough, either. “I hope it doesn’t happen, but somebody’s gonna get hurt. And there’s a CCS race in three weeks time that comes here, and they’re gonna have 1000s out here. “I really think a MOTO-ST official should say this really isn’t a motorcycle track and we should not do it. Have a different outlook than the AMA does,” continued Parriott, who has not competed in an AMA event in recent years. “It’s not just an event that they can make money at. It’s an event where they can keep the riders safe and happy and everybody wants to go around and have a race. They should differentiate themselves from the AMA.” Parriott added that the San Jose BMW team may start the race and do a few laps in order to earn some entry fees back and get some points. Aprilia USA 2’s Ty Howard, the fastest man during practice at Iowa Speedway, said he agreed with Parriott that the track was not particularly safe for motorcycles, saying, “Yeah, for sure. I wouldn’t want to be on anything faster than my Aprilia, that’s for sure. We’re entering that corner [NASCAR Turn One] at 140 mph on the speedometer dragging a knee. We’re accelerating going into it. I probably wouldn’t have to slow down going into it unless I wanted to. “It’s a three-lane NASCAR track. So figure three lanes on the highway and it’s about the same thing. We’re running right around between the first and second lanes. So if we crash we’ll hit the wall in about 20 feet. And there’s no protection at all on the wall. It’s definitely not a place you want to crash.” Howard said the transition from the speedway’s back straightaway to the infield portion was similar to the transition into the infield road course at Pikes Peak International Raceway but with some significant differences. “Coming off the back straightaway, you’ve got a good wall right there,” on rider’s right, said Howard. “I’m kicking fifth gear going down in there. There’s not a whole lot of room for error. Luckily, we’ve got about four or five Airfence right there and there’s two more down deep in the corner. But all of that is not real safe. You’ve got to use a little control through all of that. If there were no walls there I would probably be three or four seconds faster. “It’s a lot like Pikes Peak, but it’s a lot more extreme than Pike’s Peak. We’re a lot straighter to the back straightaway at Pike’s Peak. Here, we’re really having to turn pretty hard.” And that section of track leads to a hard-braking zone with a tight left-hand turn that has little run-off room before another wall. “Like 30 feet off of the track there’s a steel wall,” said Howard. “There’s a tire wall, some Airfence and about a 20-foot-wide gravel trap there. It might slow you down a couple mph before you nail the wall.” Howard said his team, like several others, was willing to sit out the race, but Vallely Racing Suzuki, which runs two teams in the series and has a mathematical shot at the overall Championship, would not join “the boycott.” “I came back [Thursday] night and everyone accosted me quite unexpectedly,” said Tom Vallely, who is a back-up rider as well as being a Team Owner. “I noticed that the MOTO-ST guys were there with all these guys hanging around them. They were talking this and that and the dangers and these things like that. I said, ‘Whoa! Whoa! We haven’t even been on the track yet.’ “So one of the guys asks me point blank, ‘Would you go with a boycott?’ ‘Absolutely not. I’ve already talked to my guys. We’ve got a plan, and I will not boycott it.’ “The town is unbelievably behind this thing. You cannot believe the excitement around here. You can’t believe the crowd here tonight. It’s unbelievable. If you boycott this thing without giving it a chance, that would be the end of the series. No promoter would touch this thing. Like any oval there’s always a risk, but what’s not a risk? You know what I’m saying? Yeah, it could be something better, but the real truth of the matter is it’s more than acceptable.” “It is what it is,” said veteran racer Jimmy Filice, who came out of retirement to run the MOTO-ST series with teammate Jay Springsteen. “I can compare it to maybe Phoenix International or maybe Charlotte. There’s some high-risk areas. We’re running a 650, so the bigger bikes have more of an issue. But we’re all carrying about the same mid-corner speed there [NASCAR Turns One and Two]. “We went out and tried to make some suggestions and look at the racetrack Thursday, the first day of practice, but there’s really no options to make it any different. The risk was basically the same. Everything’s been pretty good so far. Everybody, I think, is aware of it and just trying to be safe with it. But there’s risks everywhere, I feel. “The organization is trying to work with us the best they can, but there’s not a lot of options. There’s some riders who feel it’s just way too risky for them. I fear it, sure, but I fear a lot of different places. But it’s something where we need to try and take care of each other and not race so hard through this area. My son’s racing in this, and I’m nervous for him, of course. I feel everything will go well as long there’s no incident in that corner, no engine failure. And that, I feel, is the biggest risk we have at this point. It’s tough. My goal is to have everyone walk away from here tomorrow night and have a good race and put on a good professional show for all of these fans.” MOTO-ST Race Director Colin Fraser was not on site in Iowa because he was attending to his duties as head of the Parts Canada Superbike Championship this weekend at Mosport. But Roadracingworld.com contacted MOTO-ST founder (and President of Grand American Road Racing) Roger Edmondson at Iowa Speedway for his reaction to San Jose BMW pulling out of the race due to concerns over safety. “I don’t have any problem with any rider, any time, anywhere determining they are not comfortable with the racetrack and withdrawing their participation,” said Edmondson. “That’s a God-given right and it’s a sanctioning body-recognized given right. In other words, we’ve got provisions in our rules for people to make their own decision whether or not a course suits them, and this case it obviously doesn’t suit Brian [Parriott].” Asked if he thinks Iowa Speedway is safe for motorcycles to race on, Edmondson said, “I think, first off, there isn’t any safe racetrack. Certainly, every racetrack could be better, but in this particular situation I think we have a brand new facility holding their first-ever motorcycle event and I believe everything that could be done has been done to make it as safe as possible. “The corner that Brian [Parriott] is having a problem with is an 80-mph corner, according to all the data we have here from the timing systems and from the radar guns. And that’s certainly not an insignificant amount of speed. So if it makes him uncomfortable, if in his view it’s too risky to race it I have to respect that. On the other hand, I think it’s important to respect the opinion of all the other guys who are finding a way to be professional about this and move forward and get the race done.” The SunTrust MOTO-ST 500K at Iowa Speedway is the featured race Saturday at the track during a weekend that also includes a race for Rolex Daytona Protoypes, Friday night, and a Grand Am Rolex Sports Car Series, Saturday afternoon. Use this link to view a map of Iowa Speedway: ~http://www.iowaspeedway.com/pdfs/SpeedwayMap.pdf~ The Airfence deployed at Iowa Speedway was issued to ASRA/CCS by the Roadracing World Action Fund, and is on loan to Grand American Road Racing for this event.