Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.
A memo sent to members of the AMA Road Race Advisory Board by AMA Pro Director of Competition Merrill Vanderslice listed members of the Board, as appointed by Vanderslice.
The memo also showed that several persons who are not members of the Board were allowed to sit in on a meeting held at VIR to discuss rules for 2003 and beyond, despite the fact that in the past such meetings have been closed to people who are not members of the Advisory Board, including interested AMA Directors.
A fault in any assumption that the Board is representative can be seen by the fact that the membership of the Advisory Board has never been publicly announced by AMA Pro Racing, and by the fact that several members listed as “representing” various teams did not discuss proposed rules with the crew chiefs or owners of those teams, or, as near as we can tell, with anybody else, prior to the meeting.
The following were listed as being members of the Advisory Board and present at the VIR meeting:
Kevin Erion, Erion Racing Honda
Tom Halverson, Yamaha
Pat Alexander, Suzuki
Josh Hayes, Valvoline EMGO Suzuki
Jimmy Moore, Corona Extra Suzuki
Mike Preston, Kawasaki
Chuck Miller of Honda was allowed to represent Advisory Board member Gary Christopher of Honda, who was not present.
Dan Sakakura of Yoshimura Suzuki was allowed to represent Advisory Board member Rich Doan of Yoshimura Suzuki, who was not present.
The following were listed as being members of the Advisory Board but not present at the VIR meeting:
Jason Pridmore, Attack Suzuki
Ed Sorbo
Chuck Graves of Graves Motorsports Yamaha was listed as “being in attendance, has been appointed to the Board but had not been confirmed in writing at the time of this meeting.”
There was no explanation of why Graves had to be confirmed in writing while substitutes voting for Christopher and Doan did not.
Non-member “guests” included Gary Medley of HMC Ducati and Tanner Schultz of Aprilia.
AMA staff members present included John Farris, Andy Leisner, Ron Barrick, Rob King, Vanderslice, Terry Siegfried, Dave Buckman and Kevin Crowther.