Kawasaki Undecided On 2009 American Road Racing Plans

Sep 11, 2008, ©Copyright 2008, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

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Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. has not yet finalized its 2009 professional road racing plans, and not decided whether it will participate in the Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG)/AMA Pro Racing series or the newly-proposed Motorcycle Industry Council (MIC)/United States Super Bike (USSB) series.

“We’ve told both USSB folks and DMG folks what we, from Kawasaki, were interested in a series that included all the top competition, which means all the top teams, the good teams,” said Bruce Stjernstrom, who oversees Kawasaki’s racing activities from his position as Director of Marketing. “Also, that we wanted to have a class structure where we could modify our bikes because we use racing as a means to help develop our products. So from our standpoint we haven’t ruled out anything at this point, participating in anything. There’s no polarization from our side.”

September 19-21 Kawasaki will host a national dealer meeting in Dallas, Texas, but no racing plans will be announced at that event, according to Stjernstrom. In fact, Stjernstrom does not know exactly when Kawasaki will finalize its 2009 road racing plans. The next key piece of information Kawasaki needs to start making its plans is published schedules from AMA and USSB.

“We’re anxious for that,” said Stjernstrom. “I think that will be the next step for everybody, and then we’ll see where everything goes from there. We haven’t made any definitive plans at this point.

“We haven’t seen anything final from anybody at this point, really. So we don’t really feel like we need to make a decision.”