New Schedule For Sunday At Infineon Raceway

New Schedule For Sunday At Infineon Raceway

© 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

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Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

AMA Pro Racing officials have issued a new schedule for Sunday at Infineon Raceway, as follows:

8:00-10:45 a.m.
Practice
250cc Grand Prix
Superbike
Supersport
Superstock
Formula Xtreme

11:00 a.m.
Superbike Race One (28 laps)

12:00 p.m.
250cc Grand Prix race (17 laps)

1:00 p.m.
Supersport race (17 laps)

2:00 p.m.
Superstock race (17 laps)

3:00 p.m.
Superbike Race Two (28 laps)

4:00 p.m.
Formula Xtreme race (17 laps)


Earlier in the afternoon, prior to releasing the new schedule, AMA Pro Racing and Infineon Raceway officials held a press conference on the situation.

The press conference included Infineon’s President and General Manager Steve Page, Vice President of Communications John Cardinale, Vice President of Facilities Jere Starks, AMA Pro Racing Director of Road Racing Ron Barrick, and riders Mat Mladin and Miguel Duhamel.

Mladin, who had seen the seepage on the track first hand said, “When you go out there on a dry racetrack it’s either got to be dry or wet, and we don’t race here in the rain for other reasons. Unfortunately, there are a few corners out there where it’s just impossible. If you’re going out there as a single rider and knew the course had a couple of wet spots, then it’s not as big of an issue, even though it’s still an issue. The way the track is now, you’re probably talking five or six seconds off what you could do if the track was dry. It’s one of those things that when you get a whole bunch of people on the racetrack at the same time it could become a problem. There probably would be a problem.”

“We really have to look to the AMA and the riders to let us know if the track is rideable,” said Page. “We had over an inch of rain here last night and the earth here is like a big sponge and it’s full of water right now. The good news is that the forecast from what we’ve seen is that we’re not likely to have much more in the way of showers, and with every hour, the water that’s trapped under the surface recedes and the track could be in fine shape tomorrow morning.”

“I think the AMA handled it very well,” said Duhamel. “The decision (not to ride) was not an upheaval of riders as maybe happened in the past; it was a constructive decision with the AMA and the track. It was a safety issue and we just didn’t do it.”

When asked why the track had not been completely resurfaced while there had been other, obvious capital improvements at the track, Page said, “We could go into a long, detailed explanation of the sequencing of different things. We create the environment and grade the bowl, the area around the track, first and foremost. Unfortunately, it had to do with a variety of reasons with the sequencing of the project. The portion of the track that hasn’t been repaved, we simply haven’t been able to get to that. By September 1st, all the areas that are still the old pavement will be replaced. You should also understand that, in some of the areas that we have new pavement, with the amount of water we have under the ground, with the amount of rain that we’ve had and to have an inch of rain at the tail end of our rainy season, there’s just a lot of water there, and regardless of what the surface is on the track you’re going to have water wanting to work its way to the surface.”

“After the repaving, that doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is solved,” added Cardinale.

“Once the water gets underneath the track, we’re in trouble,” said Starks. “So, part of the repaving process is a comprehensive drainage system to cut off the water before it gets under the track. Asphalt is porous. Gravity works on water just like it works on everything else and it’s going to go down and it’s going to come to the surface. It’s up to us to design a system that keeps the water underneath the track.”

Asked if running two Superbike races on the same day was going to be hard, Mladin said, “I don’t see it as being a major problem. What will be a major problem is trying to give everybody enough track time to try to figure out what kind of tires and stuff everyone needs to use. If we were to go tomorrow and (practice) for 15 minutes and then go race, you hope you make the right pick, but it’s the same for everybody.”

“Hopefully they’ll just go by points (for qualifying) and try and give us some extra time to practice so we can try to find some sort of setup,” said Duhamel. “For myself, it’s probably going to be three races; I’ve got the 600 also. It’s not a problem for Mat, he trains a lot, but for me, I didn’t do anything all winter,” joked the obviously fit Duhamel. Asked if mental exhaustion was going to be a problem, Duhamel said, “I’ll probably go faster; less air to my brain.” Duhamel then added, “It’s going to definitely be more taxing on the body. You’ll maybe see people going backwards because they’re just getting tired. This is definitely a very physical track. I’d rather not think about it.”

Page said track officials had thought about changing the date of the race after having problems with rain two out of the last four years, but added, “There would be a lot of other challenges working back through the other events that we do. The first part of May in this part of the country is usually a pretty dependable date. The fact that we’ve had two times, maybe we need to think about it. But we’re not going to immediately start petitioning for a different date.”

Barrick said, “Out intent is to run a very full program tomorrow. We’ll sit down with the track and see how early we have to start in the morning. The plan would be to hit the first Superbike race when it was scheduled for live television originally, and the second Superbike race would probably be at the end of the day to give the riders and crews an opportunity to regroup.”

Track officials also announced that Saturday tickets would be honored on Sunday, or can be returned for a refund.

And official track statement on the ticket situation included this:

All fans that attended Saturday’s racing will have three ways to redeem their tickets:

1. All Saturday event tickets will be honored at the gate for Sunday’s AMA Superbike doubleheader.

2. All Saturday tickets purchased through Infineon Raceway may be returned by mail for a direct refund. The address for Infineon Raceway is: Highways 37 and 121, Sonoma, CA, 95476. Please address letter to: AMA Ticket Refund.

3. All fans that purchased Saturday tickets through Ticketmaster should call 707-528-TIXS (8497) for step-by-step instructions on how to obtain a refund.

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