Kawasaki USA Marketing Director Bruce Stjernstrom says that Kawasaki's goals in US Racing are pretty clear:

"Our position is, and I think that we have made everybody, whether it be DMG or MIC or whomever, aware of what we want from the beginning," he said late yesterday. "We want to race against the best. That's really why we do it. It only becomes valuable at that point, if we beat the best."

"Secondly we want to have an opportunity to develop our product through racing. A good example of that for us is our 2008 ZX-10R. The development of that bike happened in World Superbike and Japan Superbike and US Superbike. The value of the racing and the testing and all the things that went into that played a big part in the changes and the significant technology that went into that product.

Kawasaki dropped out of US Superbike racing after the 1983 season and it took nearly five year for Rob Muzzy to lure them back. If Kawasaki's Us racing program racing goes away, he fears it will be difficult for them to return. "The value of racing to our company is very high. And I fear that if we lose the opportunity to develop our product through racing that the interest from our parent company will diminish," he said.

"Our company is very interested in racing. We like racing. We love racing, we love doing it. We love all the things that it brings. The pride, the trials and tribulations and all the things that go with it. That's real. When you leave the racetrack, you can't fake that. Sure, you can write ads and do all that other stuff but the success or failure of racing are things you can't deny."

"We like to think about the positive side of it--the credibility that it brings. To the brand, the company and the product itself. those things are really important to us," he said.

So will it be MIC or DMG? "In regards to the current situation, we're not against anybody,"Stjernstrom answered. "We just want to be part of what can not only be good for our company and our customers. Those are critical things. We want to continue to race at a reasonably high level and maybe keep our dealers involved. We also want to see the aftermarket companies stay involved in racing. They make contributions to racing and development of parts. That is a big part of what keeps customers involved in racing and in riding. So we don't want to forget the aftermarket."

"There's some good to what everybody is saying and there is some bad to what everybody is saying. Nobody wants to see competing entities; everybody knows that ultimately that is not the best for everyone. But at the same time we have remained consistent about what is important to us. To us it's fairly simple. We want to race against the best."