Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

The factory race department at Aprilia had developed a big-bore two-stroke engine specifically for the proposed 2004 AMA Formula Xtreme class shortly before AMA Pro Racing announced two-strokes would be ineligible for the revised class.

That’s the word from Stargel Aprilia team co-owner Rocky Stargel, who is fielding 2002 AMA 250cc Grand Prix Champion Chuck Sorensen on an Aprilia RSV250 in 2003 and had planned on running a big-bore version of the bike in the proposed 2004 FX class.

Stargel said he was initially sad that the 250cc Grand Prix class was dropped from the 2004 AMA lineup, but after more thought, became interested in the potential of the new Formula Xtreme class.

“I felt here’s an opportunity to race against a higher caliber opponent, maybe have a better television package, give more exposure to Aprilia, you know, really up the ante as far as the competitiveness of our team and the challenge involved. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea,” said Stargel.

Stargel then called his contacts with Aprilia in Italy and told them of the new FX class.

“They looked into it and started developing an engine package that was within those proposed guidelines – 330cc or less, two cylinders – and did come up with a solution to do that and felt really confident that it would be a really high-quality, competitive bike,” said Stargel.

“Shortly after Mid-Ohio, I was contacted by an individual who basically felt I should be aware of the fact that the eight-member AMA Pro Racing board was single-handedly going to rescind their earlier proposal of allowing two-strokes in Xtreme. When I first heard that, I was in absolute shock, because they came up with the original proposal and I saw no reason to change that and had no indication that was happening.

“So I contacted one of the members of the racing board and spoke to him, and he agreed with a lot of things I had to say and asked me to put those feelings down in writing and get it to them. I wrote about a two-page letter that basically stated our case and sent that to them. Didn’t hear anything back, and the next thing I hear back is the press release (from AMA Pro Racing outlining its revised 2004 class structure) on the Internet that gave no explanation for anything and said two-strokes would be ineligible (for the 2004 Formula Xtreme class).

“First of all, I e-mailed that press release to the race department in Italy as well as Aprilia USA. Then after a few days of being able to digest it, I called the board member I originally contacted, and he seemed to be frustrated and didn’t have a lot of insight for me. When I pressed the point and wanted to know what the negative was or the drawback was, he simply said the only thing that came up was that was not the direction the AMA wanted to go.

“I see no real negativity in it…It seemed to me the spirit the (Formula Xtreme) class was to have various types of mechanicals, great competition with maybe some unorthodox thinking, which you don’t see a lot of these days.

“When I originally looked at this from the original proposal it encompassed built 600s, 750cc Twins as well as large air-cooled Twins. So you’re including some Pro Thunder bikes and 250s with horsepower boosts. Looking at that and if you go back and look at lap times from the last year of Pro Thunder with an excellent, very professional effort put on by Jeff Nash and Kirk McCarthy at every track they competed at and we also competed at, they were never faster than us – best lap time versus best lap time.

“All the bikes remain from the original (AMA Pro Racing 2004 class struture) proposal except the second most competitive bike (330cc two-strokes) that I think would pose the most threat to the Japanese 600s. To me, that doesn’t exactly reek of fairness, especially when there’s absolutely no fore warning that they’re considering doing that. Real lack of communication there, and it seems like at least the Pro Racing board doesn’t feel like they have to answer to anyone or be accountable to anyone.”