Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

In an unprecedented move, the 12-man Board of Directors of the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) unanimously voted to order AMA Pro Racing to immediately improve safety, operational and communication problems.

The vote came at AMA headquarters in Pickerington, Ohio on Monday, May 13 during a regularly scheduled Board meeting, after discussion of a long litany of documented, serious problems with AMA Pro Racing safety and track set-up, at-track operations and officiating and a general lack of communication between Pro Racing and the AMA members who are involved in AMA professional competition.

The continuing problems have been a PR nightmare for the AMA itself, a non-profit membership association which owns AMA Pro Racing and is widely perceived as being one and the same as its for-profit Pro Racing subsidiary.

Three members of the AMA Board (former 500cc World Champion Kevin Schwantz, Dunlop’s Mike Buckley and Honda’s Ray Blank), who also serve on the 6-man AMA Pro Racing Board, participated in the discussion and supported the motion.

The vote by the AMA Board can be seen as a mandate for those three Pro Racing Board members to work with new Pro Racing Chairman P.J. Harvey to quickly clean up the problems by whatever means are necessary.

The current members of the AMA Board of Directors are lawyers Rick Gray and Dal Smilie, former 500cc Motocross World Champion Jeff Smith, Kawasaki’s Croft Long, former AMA Pro Thunder Champion Jeff Nash, Suzuki’s Mel Harris, Harley-Davidson’s Ken Sutton, John Ulrich, Racer X magazine’s Davey Coombs, Buckley, Blank and Schwantz.