Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

The AMA Superbike event this weekend at Pikes Peak International Raceway in Fountain, Colorado is only a two-day event, breaking away from a decades-old trend of three- and four-day AMA events, according to paddock veterans. In fact, a quick survey of knowledgeable sources found no one who could remember when the last two-day AMA Superbike event was, if ever.

On a normal, three-day AMA Superbike weekend, official practice starts on Friday morning and continues into Friday afternoon, followed by qualifying sessions for Superbike and one of the support classes, usually Formula Xtreme or Superstock.

Practice, final Superbike qualifying and qualifying for the remaining support classes take place Saturday morning and early afternoon, followed by the first Superbike race (if it is a double-header event) and one of the support races.

Sunday morning sees warm-up sessions for each class in the morning with the remaining final events in the afternoon.

The two-day schedule at Pikes Peak calls for practice for each class Saturday morning and single qualifying sessions for each class – including Superbike – Saturday afternoon.

Each class will have a warm-up session Sunday morning, followed by final events in the following order: Supersport, Superstock, Formula Xtreme and Superbike.

Many from the larger teams in the AMA paddock are optimistic about the two-day event format in Colorado and the potential for more two-day AMA events in the future. But some privateers who don’t have access to pre-season testing say the format doesn’t give them enough practice to get up to speed and set up their bikes.