American Suzuki and Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki have taken the case of Mat Mladin’s crankshaft to the court of public opinion, and AMA Pro Racing’s Roger Edmondson has answered their opening arguments. On August 16-17 Mat Mladin took a pair of convincing AMA Superbike race wins at VIRginia International Raceway. Following the races Mladin’s engine was examined in Technical Inspection, questions were raised about the crankshaft in his GSX-R1000, and the crankshaft was taken back to AMA Pro Racing headquarters in Ohio for further investigation and comparison with a crankshaft from a homologated sample GSX-R1000 already in AMA Pro Racing’s possession. AMA Chief Tech Inspector Jim Rashid said that he subsequently requested six additional sample, stock GSX-R1000 crankshafts from American Suzuki for comparison. On August 20 AMA Pro Racing received two (not six) additional sample, stock crankshafts from American Suzuki, compared those new sample crankshafts and the originally homologated crankshaft with the crankshaft taken out of Mladin’s racebike at VIR, and found Mladin’s crankshaft to be illegal. On August 21 AMA Pro Racing issued a statement that Mladin was disqualified from both races at VIR and was stripped of all points earned. On August 22 American Suzuki and Mladin’s team stated their intent to appeal the decision. On August 29 at Road Atlanta, Mladin’s (and teammate Tommy Hayden’s) lap times from Friday Superbike qualifying were disallowed after a post-qualifying tech inspection found what the AMA said were more non-homologated crankshafts in their bikes. AMA officials said that Ben Spies’ bike–inspected at the same time–had a legal, homologated crankshaft. AMA Pro Racing confiscated the crankshafts from Mladin’s and Hayden’s bikes. In subsequent tech inspections during the race weekend at Road Atlanta, replacement cranks in Mladin’s and Hayden’s bikes were found to be legal and to match the homologated crankshaft and the additional two sample crankshafts submitted by American Suzuki. On August 30 AMA Pro Racing’s Bill Syfan briefed the press and Mladin’s team about technical irregularities with the crankshaft found in post-race inspection of Mladin’s racebike at VIR. On the morning of September 5 AMA Pro Racing received another crankshaft from American Suzuki, which American Suzuki said was an “exemplar” crankshaft out of a customer’s GSX-R1000 and similar to the crankshaft found in Mladin’s GSX-R1000 racebike. Later that same day and shortly before the 5:00 p.m. EDT appeal deadline, the balance of American Suzuki’s appeal paperwork was submitted to AMA Pro Racing, including written arguments, a crankshaft expert’s analysis of another crankshaft which American Suzuki said matched Mladin’s confiscated VIR crank, and photos of forging tooling and raw forgings–but notably without photos of any finished crankshafts. A short time (the team says it was mere minutes) after receiving Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki’s appeal paperwork, AMA Pro Racing issued a press release stating that the appeal had been denied because it was “without merit.” Earlier today American Suzuki and Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki issued a joint statement, through their normal public relations firm, blasting AMA Pro Racing for denying the appeal and presenting their appeal evidence for public evaluation. That statement read, in part: “In a situation where a championship hangs in the balance, and the reputation of a rider of Mladin’s caliber is at stake, it is in everyone’s best interests to err on the side of fairness and impartiality. An independent appeal board must hear all of the relevant evidence before imposing what amounts to a terminating sanction based primarily upon unfounded and clearly partisan suspicions. “AMA Pro Racing has obviously abused its discretion and has wrongfully tarnished Mladin’s reputation in the public eye by disqualifying him and ignoring the evidence offered in good faith. The clear implication of the sanctioning body’s conduct in this case is that it feared the outcome if a neutral tribunal had been convened. “American Suzuki Motor Corporation and Yoshimura Racing believe it is essential to openly document the critical evidence they submitted which AMA Pro Racing spurned. They are therefore releasing, for the general public’s review, the extensive written history and outline that was provided to the AMA about the OEM crankshaft manufacturing process and the Salpaka [Glenn Salpaka of Falicon Crankshaft Components, Inc.] analysis.” When reached Friday afternoon at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and asked for his reaction, AMA Pro Racing boss Edmondson blasted right back at Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki. “Three times we were asked by principals of Yoshimura Racing what it would take to make this whole thing go away,” Edmondson told Roadracingworld.com. “Typically, that is not the kind of thing you hear when people are negotiating in good faith and trying to work toward a resolution of an appeal. “The second thing, we’ve had three different stories on the origin or the reason we had that crank [from Mladin’s bike], all of which changed based on the circumstance of the moment. “Here’s the bottom line to this thing: They gave us [homologated] a part in accordance with the rules that represented the part that was legally used. The part that came out of the motorcycle (Mladin’s) did not match that part. “They tried to convince us that another vendor made that part. And I think that’s right. I think it’s the vendor that makes [racing] kit cranks, not the vendor that makes production cranks, because in the entire Suzuki nation of motorcycles only three have ever had cranks like that, that we are aware of. “Now the fact is they got caught cheating. This was not a rules violation alone. This was cheating. In my opinion, not all rules violations are cheating. Sometimes people make a mistake. This was cheating. Someone somewhere made a conscious decision to put a crank in those racebikes that did not match the sample they sent us. “Now I’m tired of this. The answer when asked ‘what’s it going to take to make this go away’ was going to be ‘stand up like a man, admit you were caught and we’ll move on down the road.’ They don’t seem able to do that, and I am fed up with us being preached to about our integrity and our ability to enforce the rules fairly by people who have been caught blatantly cheating with illegal parts. “All this other bullsh-t about whether it helped the performance and stuff is secondary. The part didn’t match the sample, period. “And nobody’s accused Mat Mladin of anything. All he does is ride the motorcycle. If Mladin’s got an issue with anybody he ought to be looking at his teammates (mechanics) and asking them the hard questions and leave us alone.”