Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Pubishing, Inc.

American Honda’s Miguel Duhamel was extremely upset after the second Supersport practice on Friday at Mid-Ohio. Early in the session, Darren Luck crashed his Suzuki GSX-R in turn one and, according to Duhamel, Luck’s bike was left in the impact zone for rest of the session. “It’s just amazing. I can’t believe it,” said an obviously upset Duhamel. “The bike was a maximum 10 feet into the grass and they’re not picking up the bike. It was right in the impact zone. I came in and talked to an AMA official on the pit lane. I had to stop doing my job and tell them how to do their job. They did not move it 1mm the whole session. It kept me from charging the corner. I did charge it once, but I went wide, and I thought, ‘This is bad.’ My set-up and testing for the whole session was thrown away. It’s a safety issue and should never be overlooked. I just wanted the bike out of the impact zone. They were already there helping the rider, why couldn’t they pick up the bike? Here’s a racing organization that ran a whole weekend of racing in one day (at Infineon) and they can’t pick up a bike. That thing could have been picked up and rolled out in 30 seconds, max.”

Honda Team Manager Chuck Miller talked to AMA Race Director Ron Barrick and said, “Ron wasn’t aware of it; he didn’t think it was there. He said that they may have been short some cornerworkers because it was a Friday. This is not the first time this has happened. It’s the AMA’s responsibility to provide a safe track at all times.”

Barrick confirmed that he “Wasn’t aware of it at the time and I’ll be talking to the cornerworkers to see why there wasn’t a stoppage (red flag). I assume it was a roller and they could have gotten it out of there in two or three minutes.”