'Soup: When you think about professional motorcycle roadracing, what are your biggest concerns at this time?

SH: I think the biggest concerns we've got are, one, is the structure, the basic structure from a commercial perspective, which I think is common for our view and philosophy on all motorcycle racing.

I would like to see us have deeper fields with independent teams that have the opportunity to compete on - there's an equipment availability issue - equipment that's competitive, basically. And (second), an economic model that justifies their investment in this sport.

I would like to see our Superbike and Supersport grids, which is our premier classes, that we can focus the most attention in developing personalities and developing teams and developing sponsorships and all the kind of commercial needs to put out a successful racing effort.

There is a structural issue that is both commercial and technical in its nature; one being equipment availability and making it economically justifiable to go roadracing in this country. You have got to create that structure, both sides, commercial and technical, to get roadracing going where we want it to go. Now, the indicators for roadracing are great: Crowds are up, double digit growth for the past two, three, four years. Television hours are up. Sponsorship is generally up. Advertising, which drives our ability to get better television coverage, is up. Interest from promoters is up. Our efforts to enhance safety have increased. I think roadracing is primed to grow in the next three to five years, but it is going to take some nurturing to do what we want to do with it.

'Soup: What is the AMA going to do about this structural issue that you've identified?

SH: Well, I think we're setting about - we've had plans that we've mentioned in other disciplines. I think we're going to sit down and address two things: one, we are nearing the end of our technological cycle for the current Superbike regulations. How do we go forward from here, technically speaking? That will set the stage for trying to accomplish some of the goals on equipment availability. Economically, it's just a matter of adjusting our business model so that we support our teams better, our independent teams in particular, better, to make it more justifiable for them to go racing Superbike and Supersport.

'Soup: I want to follow up on the technical side and follow-up on the economic side. On the technical side what are the actions and time frame for your actions?

SH: I think you are looking at 2004 for sure, and you might see steps towards that direction in 2003. Any major shift we make in technical regulations will be 2004. You might see a step in 2003.

'Soup: When we look at Superbike we have seen, qualitatively, change happening. You can look at trends in the Superbike class quantitatively, such as grid size, lap times. What metrics are you looking at, and how do you measure health in the Superbike class?

SH: Well, I think you use a lot of measurements. Clearly, factory seats is one measure. I hope that in five years that's not the only measure we use. In today's metrics, that's one measure, and that's not going the right way at the moment. But you look at top speeds, you look at discrepancies in times, you look at the basic make-up of what you allow technically on the race track and ask yourself, 'Can an independent team owner reasonably expect to compete in this class under these technical regulations?'.

So you kind of come at it from several different angles, and to try to set some objectives from what you want to have happen in the next several years.

'Soup: As you look at the technical regulations that govern the class and define the equipment, have you made some decisions on things that are mandatory? That we have to do this, or we can't allow that?

SH: Well, I think there are a couple of guidelines. We don't have a written policy that we can or can't do this. I think there are guidelines that you use to determine whether a decision is in the long term best interest of the sport.

We cannot obsolete our race tracks through technical advancements so that our lap times just keep getting lower and lower, and, therefore, we end up with race tracks that we can't race on anymore. At some point you've got to say, that there is an absolute level of speed that which we cannot, we can't exceed that absolute level of speed. You've got that out there. Keeping racetracks viable, in this country, is one of those kind of guidelines that you have to use.

'Soup: Do you think we've gone past that limit?

SH: We haven't gone past the limit. I think every now and then you have to ... part of the reason why people participate in motorsport is that you want to move technology down the road. So every now and then you have to just kind of take a step backward to allow everybody to progress forward a little bit. We may be approaching that direction, where it's time to try to look at slowing things down a little bit for technical progression to continue in the future. We can't just let it continue unbridled.

'Soup: There are some tracks, like Loudon, that some thought Superbike speeds were too fast for that track.

SH: Well, you fall in to a trap of saying that it's Superbikes or whatever. If it's an environment we're uncomfortable with for Superbike, we're likely to be uncomfortable with it for Supersport also. So you can't just look at one class. But, yeah, I think we've shown a willingness to make changes in the name of safety, where we thought it was the right thing to do.

We couldn't economically justify the kind of changes we wanted to see made at Phoenix, so we had to move on there.

I think, for roadracing fans, I think roadracing works best on a natural road course. We're a road racing organization. At the same time, we need to be serving bigger markets and bigger, better facilities, places like Sears Point and California Speedway and all that, Daytona, where we stand a chance of drawing excellent crowds.

We kind of got a blend of the realities of the American marketplace, with International Speedway, and Speedway motorsports being in the facility business. They're business partners we need to respect and grow with and utilize. But at the same time, we need to make sure that we've got natural roadcourses mixed in, so the sport continues to thrive at it's grassroots, too.

'Soup: Developing a new set of technical regulations is a political mine field. How do you see going forward on this so that the AMA is acting with a sense of transparency on how the regulations were drawn up?

SH: Well, we put a lot of effort in the last couple years of making our process a little more transparent. There's comment periods now; public comment periods at least in terms of any participant, any credential holder, we have to post rules and allow them to comment on it.

We are going to have kind of a technical committee formed that will review things in very short order. We've already have named the committee. It's a sub-committee of the board that has to approve any kind of rule making change.

'Soup: Who is on that committee?

SH: It's Mike Buckley from Dunlop, Paul Dean, Ray Blank, and Kevin Schwantz. But more than that, I think we're going to try to address at the same time with independent team owners, what their needs are, how we can incorporate them in to the marketing and commercial aspects of it, what their views are as the most viable means of accessing equipment that's competitive. So we'll take their input, directly from teams, and put it into the mix with a formula for the future that accomplishes as many of the goals as we can accomplish.

As you've pointed out, it's a a political mine field. You rarely get all that you want in one pass. So we're going to nibble away at it here for the next several years. You have to think long term in racing.

We've got the basis of having the indicators all going the right way. Television's up, marketing - I mean, even in the bad advertising environment we're growing. Purses are up, safety is up. We need to use that foothold to just keep the progression going. With the big objectives being continued commercial restructure, technical restructure, with those two primary objectives in mind. Equipment availability for the mid-level, independent teams, and a commercial structure that allows them to support it economically.

'Soup: How do these mid-level teams participate in this change? Who is their voice?

SH: Well, we have given a lot of voice to the community, whether it's everybody's voice in this public comment period, whether it's through an advisory board, whether it's through a series of meetings we're going to be having with the team owners of these independent teams that we're trying to attract into our two premier classes on a more regular basis. I mean, there's lots of opportunity for them to voice their opinion. Plus there's the good old-fashioned telephone and e-mail. I encourage all these folks to communicate with (us).

'Soup: So what's the appropriate way to communicate with the AMA while we are in this period of looking at the Superbike regulations?

SH: The public comment period is that we post proposed rule changes on our web site, and then we send out a notice to everybody. So they log in, if you're a participant and credential holder, you've got an opportunity to review the language and make comments. That's just one aspect. This is not - we're not starting from ground zero here, we've been talking about Superbike regulations for the past nine months fairly intensively. This is not new news that we're nearing the end of our cycle on the existing technical regulations. We've collected a lot information, we've already have had tons of conversations with independent teams or OEMs or whoever. We're done the path. It's just a matter now of plugging it in to - what's the right time frame. Is it 2003? Is it 2004? If it's 2004, what do you want to do in 2003 to prepare for 2004? That kind of thing.

Then on the commercial element of it, we're now in TV negotiations for the future. The commercial element of it, we've worked fairly well in the last two or three years to begin to integrate sponsors across the entire sport. We've had maybe more success on off-road, with Chevy trucks coming into Motocross and Supercross and television events and that kind of thing, than we've had in roadracing, and we need to take that success and apply it to roadrace now. But you come upon television deals every two, three years, whatever; that's your time to really make, hopefully, a quantum leap from where you were to where you want to be. That only comes about every two or three years. We're at that kind of point also. We'll be having fairly intensive discussions in the next two to three months about comercial structure and the role of television, and the role of teams within television and their sponsors and events, and all that. This has been the mission from day one, from a commercial perspective, is to make motorcycle racing a big enough platform to attract sponsorship, significant sponsorship.

The only way we've seen to do that is by, I hate to use the word, but aggregating things. Taking a mix of events, (such as) television, some part of maybe even title sponsors, class sponsors, something like that, and teams, putting them together, and taking all of that out and saying, (to) Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Right Guard, whatever, now you can come in and own a big chunk of this sport and share the wealth with everybody. Promoters have to be healthy, teams have to be healthy, and the sanctioning body has to be healthy. And television needs to be healthy. Then fans benefit, teams benefit, and everybody shares the wealth. That's the kind of - at it's simplest form, that's the business model we're looking at, the commercial structure we're looking at going forward. Then you get the full integration of sponsors wants, you get everybody working together to help the sponsor, he gets the visibility everywhere you turn. It's economic for them to keep the machine moving. That's where we're going commercially.

'Soup: We've been talking about Superbike, but there are indications within Supersport that the factory motorcycles seem to have significant performance advantages over the mid-packers.

SH: Yeah. You know, there's certain issues we're not going to resolve. I mean, factories have the biggest budgets, the can afford the best mechanics, they can afford the best riders, they can pick through parts bins to get parts that comply with the regulations. I mean, that's a formidable challenge for anybody to meet.

I mean, there's the classic belief that if you handed Aaron Yates's Daytona-winning Suzuki to the guy who ran fifteenth, he could win, too. ... Really, that's not the case. I think there's always going to be an element of, 'If I had that bike I could be up there, too,' that's not overly justified. We've just got to make sure that we're doing everything we can on an equipment availability front to make sure that if a mid-pack team owner can put together the right package, that he can get his hands on the right equipment to go win. Then you will, inevitably, as a mid-pack team owner - I don't mean that in any derogatory way - but as a mid-pack team owner, if you can pick talent and you get lucky or you're good at it, you can put a bike underneath him that's capable of doing something. We've got to make sure that if you get that combination talent and all that, the regulations allow you to succeed. And that we're there to help you commercially.

The bottom line is that I want to make it economically justifiable for that mid-pack team owner, whether he's finishing twelfth or first. That's the role, I think, that the sanctioning body, from a commercial perspective, can provide. I want to be able to keep him healthy, even if he's not winning every race. I want to be able to give him television and other kinds of inventory that allows him to remain successful, and eventually they'll pick through and maybe get the right combination and go to the box with it.

'Soup: Some other sanctioning bodies that have faced this issue have tried claiming rules and dyno rules.

SH: Yeah, dyno rules are not really in our future, as far as I can tell. I don't really think that's where we're going. It's a club racing approach to life. I don't think it's consistent with our philosophy. And it only changes the game, I mean, you could also talk about speed limits, electronic speed limiting. Then you only change it from a top-end game to a torque curve game. So everybody is going to spend tons of money getting their torque curves to work to that end. So it doesn't alter the amount of money you're going to spend, it just redirects the money you're going to spend. And that's racing. I think we would rather allow technology to develop, but limit its absolute capability. I don't know if that's the right way to say it. I just rather see a formula that still allows development and differentiation if you will, and all those things, and doesn't just say you can throw a V-8 in there or a twin, and we're going to cut it off at 120 hp or whatever. That just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, I don't think, to anybody who is racing AMA racing, for all the reasons they're here racing. I don't think that's the way we're going to go.

'Soup: Okay. Are we going to keep seeing 250s?

SH: I think 250s are on the bubble. They are different, they are purpose built bikes. They still have a fan base, fairly good grid. You could make the argument that they're not terribly expensive for a beginner, if you will, or for someone coming up through the ranks, to get their hands on a race bike, build a team, and learn the race tracks and do all the things you have to do before you can really leap off into Superbike or Supersport racing.

At the same time, if you look at the average age of a competitor in the 250 GP class, it's 36 years and change, I think, last year. It's not serving that purpose. There's little, if any, commercial interest in it. But, at the same time, it's different.

We haven't taken a position on 250 GP, as of this day. We believe that we need to have about four classes to make operations run more smoothly. So it's one of the classes that we've got to determine whether it's got a future or not. No decision has been taken on it, but we're clearly examining it's role in the future.

'Soup: How about the Daytona 200 as a showcase event. For decades it's been the AMA's premier event. This has been going through changes, and the trend, from a macro level that I see, is not that nice. You're free to disagree with that, of course.

SH: Well, I guess I would ask you to defend your question a little bit, because in the last couple years I have seen growth in the Daytona 200, whether it's the Superbike race or more hours of live television coverage. Maybe if you look at an extremely longer term perspective, historical perspective, it's had peaks and valleys, and you might be able to suggest that where we are today doesn't match up to where we were some previous year or decade ago. The last three or four years, I think, have shown growth. Crowd counts up, so I think Daytona will always play a role in our series as a premier, kind of an anchor, lead-off event.

'Soup: There was a period in time not too many years ago we had a lot of international talent that would come over, such as Carl Fogarty.

SH: Right. And they loved him over here. But in the intervening period you have had world Superbike come on and launched and get up and going. There's a World Superbike round (conflicting with Daytona), so a lot of that talent is being reserved or taken elsewhere. I think that's just the natural evolution of the market. I think you've got to - and one of the things that we talk about a lot - is the commercial aspect. There's a perfect example of what happens if you don't develop your series commercially in an appropriate manner. Someone else will do it for you and your talent and your television and everything you need to drive your racing series forward will (go) somewhere else. That is a symptom of commercial competition. You can't ignore it, it's not going to go away. But at the same time, I don't think it spells the long term demise of the Daytona 200 or anything like that.

'Soup: Do you admire the growth that World Superbike has been able to achieve?

SH: Yeah, I admire some of the crowds they draw, admire some of the elements they've put together in the marketing. They've got some difficult issues to face, from a marketing perspective. They're struggling with some technical issues that they've taken a long time to determine what they're technical make-up is going to be. They do some things well, they could do some other things better.

But, frankly, I wish Marizio (Flammini) and company the best, and we're going to grow some American roadracing, right here. We've got a great series, and we've got our television product going around the world. We've got IMG on board as our international television distribution partner. We expect top do in Superbike what we've been doing in motocross and other disciplines. We are going to be a leading roadrace property in the world.

'Soup: Speaking of motocross, I think in motocross there is something if riders in 125cc motocross get too many points they "point-out" and they cannot continue racing that class, to help keep the class based for privateers and young racers. Does roadracing need some class like that?

SH: Well, does it need a class like that? That's an interesting comment. There's a lot of conversation going on about how many classes we should have in roadracing. We run five or six classes in any given place. Some people think we don't need any less. But in motocross, supercross, flat track, essentially, we run two classes. When there's a lot less to choose from, it's more important to make sure you kind of manage those things very consciously. In roadracing we've got a lot of classes to choose from. Again, that's a tool that you need to have in the bag and look at if there's an application for it or not.

I think roadracing has a different selection process than maybe Motocross or Supercross or flat track. I'm not sure if it's applicable, but it's something we would not be opposed to examining if it has a role. Natural evolution was from 600 Supersport in to Superbike. As we've stuck more double (Superbike rounds) on to the calendar to expand our TV on Superbikes and all that, you've seen fewer and fewer dual class Supersport and Superbike competitors. That kind of natural evolution of having to focus more on Superbike winning has caused some opening up, if you will, a little bit in Supersport. I don't know if you look at point out system or not.

'Soup: Roadracing is an inherently dangerous activity. AMA has to play some role in safety. On the safety side of this sport, what is your biggest concerns?

SH: Well, I think you've got to attack safety from a whole bunch of angles, because, unfortunately, roadracing is never going to be safe. You've got to do the best you can with safety. The whole roll-out of the Air Fence program, which continues today, is, I think, is good, a good step. We've got, I think, the remote course monitoring through live television which helps makes decisions more quickly. I think it has proven itself to be effective in it's first year now of implementation. We're trying to select race tracks that are inherently safer. We're eliminating some race tracks that have issues that we can't deal with. In the case of Virginia International Raceway, we had a good race track. We made it better by moving embankments, removing guardrails, or eliminating things. We had our team of riders and team owners that went in there tested and made suggestions and that was a condition upon which we granted sanction. It's that whole process of gradually and slowly improving every year, year after year after year. Whether it's track modifications or new technology or safety barriers or lowering speeds.

Back to the technical regulations, just kind of absolute speed or cornering speeds. It's that whole combination that you have to keep in mind to make sure that you are not allowing unbridled technological advancements that makes your race tracks obsolete. We've hired a person now to ferret out new technologies on the safety front. Another point: we looked at the Daytona 200 last year, the pace car incident and all that. We've changed our flagging, we reviewed procedures every year, we do all those kind of things to improve safety.

'Soup: The Air Fence program started last year as a private fund raiser. What's the relationship between the AMA and the Air Fence program?

SH: There was a dual effort last year. John Ulrich funded some money, we funded some money. We went out and generated capital. There's a significant on-going expense to implementing that program. It takes people. But if you look at the Air Fence situation in specific, there's a maintenance cost, transportation costs, there's storage costs, there's the cost of getting here and getting it out, getting it back in, getting it to the next race. There's a significant overhead in running that program every year. It probably costs you as much to run the program each year as it does to buy the Air Fence. We're absorbing that cost, and we're doing it gladly. We'll continue with that until we've got a situation where there's enough Air Fence that promoters own at all of their facilities that we no longer have to provide that service. In this interim period we thought it was important to go ahead and get it out and do it. We'll keep the progression going.

'Soup: One comment I hear regularly is why does the AMA use pace cars and not a pace motorcycle?

SH: So the argument would be that it is harder to see a big pace car with flashing lights on it than it is to see a motorcycle? We use cars because all facilities have cars, qualified drivers to use cars, and it's a hell of a lot easier to see a big car with big flashing lights on it than to see a small motorcycle, which may be difficult to affix lights on it. The whole objective is to get the pack slowed down, under control, so the race can continue while a situation is addressed that affects the entire circuit.

I don't think you change the dynamics, I don't think there's any benefit to adding a motorcycle to the mix as opposed to a car. The question is: can you successfully accomplish getting the pack slowed down and under control or not? I think with time and with practice and with policies that work and things like that, you can do it, whether it's a car or a motorcycle.

'Soup: The criticism I've heard on the pace cars is that the performance of a car versus a motorcycle is huge. A pace motorcycle, say a CBR900, that can accelerate very quickly and insert into the field faster than a car.

SH: Again, well, you're trying to get bikes slowed down. If your procedure is correct, it shouldn't matter. The question is: do we have the right kind of communication system with riders? That's where motorcycles are a bit more unique than cars. In car racing you've all got radio communication to your driver, so all their spotters and teams can immediately tell them when something's going on. We and the teams are testing radio communication, whether it's a tone or a verbal or whatever, to see if that application works in motorcycles. That's nothing new. People have tried that over the course of time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Some people have problems with it, other people like it. There's lighting systems which we need to explore, which we are doing. There's a whole lot more that you need to look at when there's a full course yellow, which is when you would use a pace car, rather than, 'Is it a car or is it a motorcycle?' I just don't think that's - that's an easy fix that just doesn't fix anything. What you've got to do is that if you've got fifty bikes on the track at the same time, the difference is, in car racing, all fifty of the guys hear it at the same time that there's an incident. We don't have that situation in motorcycle racing. It doesn't matter whether there's a motorcycle or a car, slowing the leader down, if number 43 in the line hasn't gotten the message yet, and his closing speed is four times that of number 42. I mean, that's the problem, not whether it's a motorcycle or a car.

'Soup: Any other concerns?

SH: No. Everyone talks about concerns. I like to focus on the opportunities.