The editorial: ~https://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=34129~ The e-mail exchange, starting with an e-mail from MIC’s Ty van Hooydonk to Roadracing World’s John Ulrich: Sept. 10 Subject: Not a press release, but a note regarding USSB Dear John, How are you? I’ve landed in Indy after flying all day, then rushed to meet with a mainstream journalist who will be writing a MotoGP piece for the Four Seasons Hotel chain magazine, worldwide. He’s done great stories on motorcycling for airline pubs, lad mags, the George Lucas Edutopia magazine for teachers, and even Smithsonian. Our kind of guy. So, I’m already in the mode of herding media cats for this weekend’s race, in what will likely be my last event with DTM (Discover Today’s Motorcycling) staff. Pretty much everything that we’ve got to say now is out there in our news release and FAQs. I hope folks are really reading it all and have been able to appreciate the work behind it. But if you have some particular questions, please send e-mails and I’ll do what I can to respond while on the run till next week. There’s more to come and I look forward to speaking with you, and other enthusiast media, in person, in the weeks ahead. Best, Ty Sept. 10 Subject: RE: Not a press release, but a note regarding USSB How am I? How about, incredulous? Your press materials raise more questions than they answer. How about you field a few questions live, vs. via e-mail, starting with, what’s the 2009 schedule, what tracks do you have? What teams will participate now that Yamaha has declared its intent to run in the DMG series? What operational staff do you have? What are you going to do for Airfence, since the existing fleet went with DMG, and how are you going to deploy whatever you replace it with? What are you going to do for timing and scoring? What will the purse and contingency payouts be? What are you going to do for the non-factory teams and riders who make up everything past the first two rows of the grid? We had 12 bikes finish one of the Superbike races at Cal Speedway earlier this year, and several of them were actually Superstock bikes. How are you going to get more than the existing nine Superbikes on the grid? How many of the 300+ MIC member firms have signed off on this plan? After AMA established Paradama, it bled red ink for more than a decade, sometimes requiring periodic cash infusions of as much as $750,000 at a time. Is USSB a for-profit and if so how much red ink will MIC accept, and over what time period? Etc. Call David Swarts at my office, I’ll be flying tommorrow. John Ulrich Subject: RE: Not a press release, but a note regarding USSB Sept. 12 Dear John, Our news release, FAQ and Web site were produced to get the word out, stop the rumors about MIC intentions, and allow the USSB team to begin work on the series in earnest. And since we announced, we’ve been contacted with a tremendous amount of support, and pledges of support, for road racing at the highest level, which is what we intend to deliver. So it’s helped us. We well understand you are anxious to know all the details. We’re excited about developments and we are anxious to tell you. You’re a success, as a racer, a team owner, a businessman and a champion for rider safety. You certainly understand these concerns are best discussed between business partners rather than in blogs. You well know with any start-up there are many business considerations that control the dissemination of information. Our MIC board members have expressed their appreciation of our ongoing efforts at producing precise communications. And with regard to participating teams and the schedules of racetracks, we recognize their rights to make their own announcements and we look forward to those. The growing USSB staff, consultants, professional contractors, as well as long-time industry and racing veterans assisting us, have and will continue to address all of the issues raised in your e-mail. Count on us releasing information as we can, and going “live” in the near future with a news conference and Q&A session. Best regards, Ty RE: Not a press release, but a note regarding USSB Sept. 16 Wow. OK, good luck with that. JU