Today Plumlee talks about running his own team, working with the AMA, and finally comments publicly about his dislike for factory Supersport racing.

Q: Some guys from your era, like Rob Muzzy, went on to run his own Superbike team. Have you ever thought about maybe taking it to the next level?

A: There was a couple of years where I wanted to do that, but by the time that I got to the point where I was thinking about it, the financial means were out there, beyond me. I'm not that good of a networker with people. I'm not a real people kind of person and you need to be that to get the sponsors in there. I don't think my personality is really geared for that, where Rob, he's a magnet for people and he's technically smart. He's got both bases covered and I'm only on one of them.

But I'm happy with what I do. I really enjoy what I do. Like, if something happened and I had to crewchief this thing I'd be happy to do that, but at the same time I'm more than happy to be doing what I'm doing with somebody like Ray Plumb. He let's us have enough hand in to kind of run our own little deal over here and he keeps a lot of the BS off our shoulders. Because running Rumi's thing, I realized that things are a lot different when you sit on that side of the table. It's not nearly as easy as what people say. People bag on their team manager for stuff, but when you sit there and try to do it, it's a hell of a job. It's not that much fun.

Q: You've done some racing in the Italian championship. When you came away from that, do you ever have any complaints about the AMA? Do you think it compares?

A: No, you know, it makes me crazy sometimes like it does everybody else but it's what we've got. The AMA's the best thing we have in the U.S. I think it could be a lot better. I don't agree with some of the things that we do at the racetrack. I don't agree with some of the classes that we have. I think our sport could be better, but me thinking that doesn't just make it happen. I don't want to say that if I had the reins that it would suddenly become a great sport over here with hundreds of thousands of spectators. I think it could be better and I hope it gets better, but sometimes the AMA does things I think are really stupid and other times I think. 'Yeah, it was a good day'. Like they've got good people in Tech. They got a lot of good people working here that are good people.

Q: There's talk in the paddock that you're not the biggest fan of factory riders on Supersport bikes and you feel it's inherently wrong. Would you say that's accurate? Would you like to explain your position?

A: Yeah, it's true. I would like to see that class be a bit more of an entry-level class where an entry-level guy can win a race. I don't really think it's right to have the guy who can win the National Superbike title riding a Supersport bike. But at the same time, I realize that class is hugely important to the manufacturers, probably more important than the Superbike class.

It's really a tough call. If myself, if I had total control, I'd like to see the best Superbike guys not ride the bikes, but the bikes would still come out from under our tent, they would just maybe have youngsters on them. It's a very tough thing to try to really sit down and figure out how to do this logistically.

I don't know, for some reason or another it just bothers me to see guys that could be winning the Superbike National also racing in the 600 class because we have huge financial resources behind us to make the bikes be the best. Then we take these riders that we pay bags of money to and we let them ride them and it's just, to me, a little bit of that sense of fairness goes out the window. I certainly understand it from the manufacturer's standpoint. They need to win that class as much as they need to win the 200, so it's tough.

Q: Do you think it's safe to say that maybe these marketing guys aren't aware of the risk?

A: Oh absolutely, for sure.

Q: That crash on the banking on Friday at Daytona could have ended Nicky Hayden's career.

A: Absolutely. You talked about Mike Hale earlier. You've got to remember that Mike fell off his 600 in practice at Loudon and in all likelihood that cost us the Superbike championship. Miguel had a splendid season, but because of some early on troubles, we were in the driver's seat and Mikey cracked some ribs there. It damaged his ride at Suzuka that year. It probably had a very bad effect on his career overall because we went to Suzuka for the 8-hour and he still wasn't well. He struggled there. It put him off his pace for a couple races over here and allowed Miguel to make time up on us.

In the end, Miguel was certainly a worthy champion but there's no doubt about it that 600 right there may have altered Mike's career hugely and that happens. It can happen at any time. I'm sure that Doug (Chandler) is one of the first one to admit that. I think that's why he doesn't believe in riding 600s and Mat (Mladin) too. It just happens that Miguel loves to race, that's why he's out there. He would ride a tricycle; he'll ride anything to race.

But gosh, it's tough when you've got as much money into your Superbike program as you've got, and the whole thing can come to nothing because of a 600 race.