Just when it looked like all hope for a controversial outcome for the Daytona 200 was gone, the AMA came to our rescue.

In the practice sessions ahead of the Daytona 200 the Buell XBRRs were only scaring their own riders. The riders aboard motorcycles made from re-cycled beer cans had several seconds on the riders aboard motorcycles made from re-cycled crankcases. One hundred-fifty horsepower? Hardly. The real horsepower figure was more like the number of BBs the Veep put in to Harry Whittington's neck--somewhere between six and two hundred.

However, just because the Buell XBRR is the slowest factory roadracer on the planet does not negate the concerns with how it was homologated for Formula Xtreme. A good argument still exists that the engine in the XBRR is not based on a U.S. street legal engine, and it will likely be protested when a rider on a Buell XBRR eventually takes points or purse money away from someone else.

The Daytona 200 did reinforce the other major off-track topic among race watchers after management massacre at Pro Racing: can the AMA still run professional motorcycle racing effectively?

Hardly.

Leave it Anthony Fania, the hapless rider that was dropped kicked by Aaron Yates after both tangled and crashed out of the 2004 Daytona 200, to turn this year's race into a theater of the absurd.

With the leaders six laps from the end the AMA noticed that Fania's motorcycle was crashed on the track but Fania himself was nowhere in sight. Before filing a Missing Person's report with the Volusia County sheriff, Race Director Ron Barrick decided to hop in the pace car and conduct a search. Unfortunately, the one-man band Barrick entered the track in front of the fourth-place rider instead of the first-place rider and put the top three riders nearly a full lap in front of Eric Bostrom and Miguel DuHamel. Oops.

To his credit, Barrick took responsibility and a barrage of questions from the racing press. But Barrick's claim that entering the track in front of the wrong rider did not have an effect on the outcome of the race doesn't wash. Had Barrick followed correct procedures then he would have spent Saturday evening at the Olive Garden rather than eating leftover lunch food in the Speedway press room.

That evening the AMA issued a press release stating - not once but twice - how important it is to bring the race under control when a fallen rider is in a potentially dangerous situation.

No argument on the overriding interest, just approach. If the AMA was serious about bringing the race under control as quickly as possible for safety's sake then it should have had every flagging station put out a red flag.

Instead the AMA decided to use the pace car, forgetful of the last time the pace car was used in the Daytona 200. That was in 2001 and the group of riders racing for second place ran into each other and caused additional crashing with some riders needing ambulance rides.

Though proper procedures were followed in 2001, the AMA recognized then that there are serious issues when it comes to pace cars. Did anything happen? Apparently not.

I predicted that the 2006 Daytona 200 would be historic and for all the wrong reasons, and I was right. It is the first motor sports event of any kind that required a post-race press conference of the pace car driver.

The use of pace cars is unique to the Daytona 200. Roger Edmondson introduced the pace car for reasons more for live television coverage than safety. During the early years of live TV coverage of the Daytona 200 the AMA relied on a manual scoring system (i.e., Roger's wife Peggy writing bike numbers down on long strip of paper). If a red flag was thrown half-way through the race it could take the AMA an hour to catch up on completing lap charts and issuing a re-start grid, even though the issue that caused the red flag could usually be corrected in a few minutes. Roger felt it was better TV to have motorcycles circulating the track slowly behind a pace car instead of sitting in the pits.

Today the AMA has an infinitely better timing and scoring system. Scoring is in real time. It would be possible to have a red flag and generate a new grid before the first bike reaches the pits. The race could be re-started in a few minutes, provided that the AMA adopt a rule prohibiting work and repairs on the motorcycle during the red flag. This is the practice in NASCAR and FIM World Endurance championship. That means that the only thing a mechanic could do during a red flag is put the bike on a stand and cover it from rain. No more free pit stops to change tires, clutches, fork springs, and fairings, add oil and gas, potty break, and all the other things that happen during red flags.

As much as the AMA would like us all to think that the pace car foul-up was just an honest mistake that did not affect the outcome of the race, it is much bigger than that. It revealed deeper problems in the AMA.

Why was it that the AMA could not locate Anthony Fania after he crashed? Was it a lack of course workers, or communication equipment, or both?

Why was the Race Director driving the pace car instead of directing the race? Was it a lack of personnel, or a Race Director that prefers driving the pace car over directing the race? And who directs and controls the race when the Race Director is playing pace car driver?

Why was there no spotter in the pace car when the AMA said there would be during the riders' briefing? Was it a lack of personnel or sloppy following of proper procedures?

The AMA exposed their lack of bench strength starting with the dismissal of Pro Racing CEO Scott Hollingsworth and failing to immediately name a successor. It continued with the resignation of PJ Harvey from the board of directors of Pro Racing and failing to name a successor, then the replacement of the entire board of directors of Pro Racing with a new committee with no members, and then the resignation of the director of competition, Merrill Vanderslice, with no named successor. At the race track there are not enough corner workers, pace car drivers, and spotters. The AMA is short of critical mass to run races efficiently and effectively.

However, just before the Daytona 200 the AMA issued a press release to inform us that six guys were found for the new racing committee to work on strategic planning and direction.

What is strategic planning, you ask? Strategic planning is deciding what activities you are going to do that is different from your rivals, or what same activities you are going to do but in a different way. Strategic planning is all about gaining an advantage on your rival.

When it comes to professional motorcycle racing in the United States the only game is the AMA. Professional motorcycle racing is a niche market with a virtual monopoly by the AMA.

The problem the AMA needs to address is not strategic planning but operational effectiveness. Unreliable operations is undermining the public's trust in the AMA's racing activities and if left uncorrected will cause the AMA to lose its legitimacy as a racing organization.

Tracy Hagen has covered AMA Superbike, World Superbike, World Endurance and Grand Prix racing since 1985.