Why Doesn’t AMA Pro Racing Use Aggregate Timing? Because They Don’t Want To…

Why Doesn’t AMA Pro Racing Use Aggregate Timing? Because They Don’t Want To…

© 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

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Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

From an e-mail sent by a reader:

I have been following racing for many years and I still can’t understand why the AMA can’t keep up with the rest of the world’s professional racing organizations in the red flag & aggregate timing rules.

So many times I have watched AMA races get red-flagged at some point during the race, where someone has worked their butt off to secure a really good lead only to be red-flagged and have to start again without their lead taken into consideration (except for being re-gridded on pole).

In effect the AMA is saying that the first part of the race doesn’t count and doesn’t matter. It brings to mind a Superbike race a couple of years ago that was dwindled down to 6 or 7 laps due to a red-flag incident 16 laps into the race. What a joke! Why not delare the first 16 laps as “the race”?

With all the computerized timing systems surely it wouldn’t be that difficult for them to use aggregate timing like the rest of the professional racing world does in the event of a red flag mid-race. I am sure most riders would like to see it that way.

Oh, I forgot, what the riders think doesn’t really matter to AMA Pro Racing.

Frank Nolan
Hollywood, California


And our snappy editorial reply:

AMA Pro Racing Director of Competition Merrill Vanderslice has said, many times, that AMA Pro Racing will never use aggregate time as long as he is in charge, because it is confusing to spectators. Of course, we have not heard Mr. Vanderslice explain why assessing a 10-second penalty on many riders at Fontana was less confusing to spectators than using aggregate scoring.

And, as seen at Fontana, AMA Pro Racing is at times incapable of performing the most basic timing & scoring operation, that of producing results in a timely fashion following a race or qualifying session.

So, to answer your question, they don’t want to, and even if they did want to, there’s a good chance that they’d screw it up–and blame it on the racetrack afterwards.

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