Stuff you know, and don't know
Former Erion Honda rider and future Honda Superbike star Nicky Hayden finished second to Scott Parker at the Del Mar dirt track race last Saturday night. The event was not hit with a rider boycott.
It was Harley-Davidson factory rider Parker's final dirt track race as he is retiring; and probably Hayden's last dirt track race for a while as Honda has told him that they're not crazy about him ripping around on a bad ass Harley-Davidson XR750 on his off weekends next season. Hayden was seven tenths of a second behind Parker.
Harley-Davidson had a nice retirement party for Parker at this event, with Parker being presented a crystal number one to signify his many wins with the orange and black.
Kenny Roberts was interviewed on National Public Radio in October in 1993, on All Things Considered, and he was asked what it was like to ride a Grand Prix 500. He replied, "It's the most exciting thing you can do because you come very, very close to disaster every few seconds."
The black-market version of the World Superbike computer game available in Thailand, Hong Kong and other portions of the pacific rim features on its cover an image of Rich Oliver and Jamie Hacking on their YZF Yamahas (at Phoenix, I presume).
On the street in different portions of the 'rim you can buy versions of the illegally copied game for the whopping sum of five dollars. FYI: Prison in Thailand is said not to be pleasant.
Both international races yesterday announced the very same attendance: 30,000 at both the South African Grand Prix and the Sugo WSC race.
Sugo's World Superbike race was the last one for the mighty Honda RC45 Superbike. The Castrol Honda team (and Virginio Ferrari's rumored private team) will use the RC51 V-Twin Superbike next season.
Mat Mladin writes in his recent column (buried on page 117 of 124) in Australian Motorcycle News, regarding the AMA Superbike championship finale at Colorado: "I expected to have a fight on my hands but Vance and Hines and Ben Bostrom were too busy bitching and protesting to be getting on with the job at hand, and winning the championship. So it all turned out to be pretty easy."
PACE will do six non-AMA sanctioned dirt track races next year.
With Slight and Edwards re-signed with Castrol Honda for 2000, it now appears that Haga will probably stay at Yamaha as well. Gobert is pining for a Honda SWC ride on the new Honda V-Twin. Chances of that happening: eight bazillion to one. Would be pretty stout though if the bike has some grunt.
It's far from clear as to which rounds will have this, but it now seems almost sure that several of the 2000 AMA Superbike series rounds will have double Superbike races, ala Road Atlanta. The AMA is asking selected promoters to step up big time in terms of purse and sanctioning fee if they do get this, so you can guess as to which ones can afford it and which cannot. Having a saturday Superbike race is a great way to increase their Saturday crowd but promoters we've spoken with don't know if the benefit outweighs the cost. Mid-Ohio is heavily rumored to have gotten 60-70,000 through the gates this year with a single Superbike race.
Suggestion: if the AMA does indeed change the series format from one to two races per event, how about spending some of the new dough in these key areas instead of making a bunch of factory riders even richer:
- Two at track PR/press guys so that the single guy we have now isn't running around like a chicken with his head chopped off.
- Lotsa portable yet attractive airfence.
- More AMA operations people at the track.
Sounds like PACE is interviewing riders now too, not just teams and venues. This could be a ripe opportunity to make stars out of credible riders who have not yet found a 2000 Superbike ride.BIG IF: My sources say that several AMA Superbike series sponsors are mulling over pulling their support from the AMA series and throwing their money at PACE: if the television package is comparable.
More later, maybe.
Dean Adams
