For Stu, wherever you are…

Hey Stu,

Sorry I didn’t promptly return your call on 10/12, if I’d have known I wouldn’t get to talk with you again you can bet I would have canceled that stupid business meeting. I was going to tell you when you got back from Daytona, but I guess you had to leave from there to another place. So I’ll have to write you, here goes…

Some of our fellow racers have commented recently about my progress on the racetrack. They said I got a lot faster, asked where my new focus and talent came from, some who used to be way faster than me that I was now passing would come up to me and be sort of surprised but mostly glad for me, stuff like that. It made me feel good, but I lied and told them the reason was because the bike was so well set-up, and I was spending more time in the saddle. In fact, this is only partly true.

The real reason I wanted to improve so much was because you and I talked pretty seriously about mounting a team effort to go attack the AMA 750 SS campaign for 2002. I mean, we had the sponsor package together, were making calls for support, lined up a deal for the Arclight bikes, even took silly photos of each other for the package cover page! Once I got to know you,
and we visited each others’ homes, shared our ideas, goals and lives a bit, it was obvious to me that I wanted to taste the passion, skill, strength and honor that seemed to come so naturally to you, on track and off. I so badly wanted to team with you, and was so glad that you were willing to do so with me, that I wanted at all costs to avoid being an embarrassment to you when it came to my ability to ride. I mean, it sounds stupid in retrospect, but I admired your talent, tenacity, knowledge and hunger for the sport so much that I was afraid I would let you down if I didn’t ‘wick it up’.

How selfish and stupid I feel now. I know you would have accepted me for whatever ability, contribution and results I could muster. I should’ve figured that out right away, but now that you are gone from this world I want you to know the impact you had on my life and my racing pursuits.

I was honored to carry your checkered flag in your tribute lap at the Buttonwillow AFM season finale event on the Sunday following your tragic accident. I will always remember you, my friend, and the lesson you taught me. Always be true to yourself, give all you have in everything you do, and above all, say what you mean to those close to you before they are gone forever.

Stuart, you were not only a great racer, you were a great man. I love you, bro. I will see you again on the grandest of all podiums, and I will make sure to douse you with the champagne of the gods. You will always be number 1 in my heart.

Your friend forever,
Kenan Rappuchi
AFM/CCS #910

From a press release issued by Sears Point Raceway:

Crews Ready to Begin Construction of Underground Tunnels, Hillside Terrace Seats

SONOMA, Calif. (IMMEDIATE RELEASE) – Preliminary work is just about complete on several key areas of the $50 million Modernization Plan as construction crews work at a feverish pace to prepare the “new” Sears Point Raceway for the 2002 racing season.

Excavation is finished on the two underground pedestrian tunnels that are being built, one under start/finish and the other under Turn 10. Actual construction of the tunnels will tentatively begin the first week of November. Each tunnel will be 20-feet wide, with the start/finish tunnel spanning 128 feet, while the Turn 10 tunnel will be 270 feet long.

The tunnels will help expedite pedestrian traffic flow around the property on busy event weekends, as well as provide spectators with dramatically improved sightlines of the racing action. The tunnels replace the bridges that were used as thoroughfares at start/finish and Turn 10.

“Our goal was to reinvent the Sears Point Raceway experience for our customers while maintaining the tradition of superlative competition on the track,” said Steve Page, president and general manager of Sears Point Raceway. “I believe we will present motor racing in a setting where the overall experience will be a positive one for the fans.”

Grading is also complete above Turn 7 on the road course and workers will soon begin construction of hillside terrace seats in that area. These will be the same hillside terrace seats that were embraced by fans above Turns 2-4 on the road course for the 2001 season. Each seat will be 24 inches wide, which is 33-percent wider than the average bleacher seat. Fans will also have three feet of leg room for comfort. Terrace seats will also be built above Turn 9 once the grading is complete in that section of track.

Another major project is the new permanent grandstand on the west side of start/finish. Crews will begin laying the foundation in early November, which will lead to the construction of the grandstand. The grandstand will feature flip-down stadium seats with cup holders. These seats will offer fans tremendous sightlines of road-race action, plus they will be situated right above pit row. This will give fans a view of pit stops unparalleled in motorsports.

Other projects still pending are the repaving of the drag strip, creation of a 660-foot concrete launch pad for drag racing, enlargement of pit road to accommodate a 43-car starting grid, increased run-off at Turns 8, 8a, 9 and 10 and the construction of a go-kart track on the south side of the property.

Most elements of the Modernization Plan will be complete by the Dodge/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Winston Cup weekend, June 20-23.

This just in from Moto Liberty:

Silkolene and Sliders? Audrey from Moto Liberty will be at Road Atlanta GNF with big supply of Silkolene to let racers turn their Silkolene Award Certificates into product on the spot, so bring your certificates. Look for the big white Moto Liberty Transporter (which is for sale) or the crazy lady in the velcro suit with sliders all over her. Check out motoliberty.com for a picture of the truck for sale, SilkoleneStore.com on oil and Sliderwoman.com for pucks. [email protected]. (972) 243-5995. (800) 214-RACE.

Aprilia USA will sponsor a single RSV Mille R road racing team in the 2002 Formula USA Series.

The company now sponsors two teams, Blackmans Racing and BFR/Pro Italia Racing.

Blackmans Racing is thought to have the inside track on a deal renewal because Blackmans Cycles invested a substantial amount of its own money in the two-rider team, which fielded Tray Batey and Mike Himmelsbach throughout 2001. Chris Carr also rode with the team, at the spring and fall Daytona rounds.

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By John Ulrich

The decision to not stop the second Formula USA Unlimited Superbike race at Daytona on Sunday–before the lead pack of five riders ran into what eventual winner Michael Barnes called “a wall of rain” heading into the chicane–was the worst case of officiating I can remember in the 26 years I’ve been going to races at Daytona International Speedway.

To his credit, Formula USA’s Kenny Abbott–the man who made the decision to continue–actually agreed with me and admitted that he had made a mistake when I told him that. Abbott said he didn’t want the F-USA Championship to be decided by a decision to stop the race a lap early.

Abbott was lucky that the Championship wasn’t decided by all five leaders sliding into the wall.

There was plenty of warning. Cornerworkers were reporting rain in the chicane the lap before, when Mike Ciccotto slid up the banking into the Alpina Air Fence at the exit of the chicane, somehow got bounced back onto his wheels, and took off in pursuit again.

Instead of calling for a red flag then, Abbott instructed cornerworkers to wave yellow flags and debris flags at the entrance to the chicane, explaining later that doing so eliminated passing at the point.

Waving flags and limiting passing do not produce traction. When it is wet, the Daytona chicane has scant traction under the best of circumstances, and barely any for riders on tires built for dry conditions.

Barnes described conditions in the chicane on the last lap as being “like ice”.

All five of the men in the lead pack agreed later that the race should have been stopped.

Abbott later railed about tire companies producing DOT-labelled tires that have just enough tread to avoid being labelled a “slick.” The way he sees it, DOT-labelled tires should be adequate for any conditions, wet or dry.

The flaw in that thinking is that the tire companies have enough trouble keeping DOT-labelled tires together for 12 laps now, even on machines limited to 145 horsepower. Dunlop, Metzeler and Michelin all had examples of their latest semi-slick DOT-labelled tires chunk during practice at Daytona, and two out of the three had tires chunk during the first, dry Formula USA race at Daytona. Adding tread will only make the tires more prone to chunking in dry conditions.

The real problem here is a lack of priority given to rider safety. It is a problem not unique to Formula USA. Indeed, it seems to infect race officials of every stripe.

At Virginia International Raceway in September, AMA Pro Racing’s Gary Mathers was more concerned about keeping practice on schedule than he was about placing additional Air Fence in front of a bare steel barrier Jamie Hacking had just hit. His rationalization was that Hacking’s hit was a fluke, unlikely to happen again. That same thinking after Thomas Wilson hit a bare wall at Loudon circa 1998 led to Miguel Duhamel hitting the same still-bare wall later the same day, nearly ending his career.

Long before I started the Roadracing World Air Fence Fund, AMA Trustee and American Honda Vice President Ray Blank–the man ultimately in charge of American Honda’s racing programs–told me that rider safety had to be the top priority for AMA Pro racing.

Blank was right, even if that message has obviously not permeated down to the operational level.

It is a message that Formula USA officials would do well to follow as well.

Formula USA has a Safety Director in Roger Lyle, but apparently he’s only used to place haybales and Air Fence and has no say in race operations in regards to track conditions. Lyle told me that he would have stopped the race, had he been given a chance or authority to do so.

Sandy McPherson–the veteran race control official who originally trained nearly every well-known race official now affiliated with Formula USA, including Lyle and Abbott–told me that she would have stopped the race, had she been given a chance or authority to do so.

And it’s not like Formula USA has not faced this type of problem before–the same thing happened at VIR in July, rain falling on the last lap of the second Unlimited Superbike race, with the same lame non-response.

The first priority has to be rider safety. If it starts raining enough to wet the track during a race, pull out the red flags. Then either call it a race or restart, depending upon how many laps have been run.

And no, this is not about who did or didn’t win. I don’t care about who won the race, or the Championship.

What I care about is officiating that keeps rider safety as the top priority, every race, every track, every time.

Formula USA’s Bill Syfan told me later that, had officials stopped the race at Daytona, they would have had as many or more people complaining about that decision as they did with the decision they made to continue the race.

Anyone who thinks that continuing that race was the right decision needs to be suited up and sent down the back straightaway at 160 mph, through a wall of water and into a soaking chicane, on dry-pattern DOT-labelled tires. Then we’ll talk.

Chances are, they would reach the same conclusion as the riders in the lead pack, Michael Barnes, Shawn Higbee, Mike Ciccotto, Lee Acree and Grant Lopez: The race should have been stopped.

The question now is, will Formula USA officials learn from this mistake and improve and codify the decision-making process for such situations?

Or just continue to hope they luck out in the future, and that the lead pack makes it back around to the finish line?

One can only hope…

BFR Aprilia’s Aaron Clark missed the final round of the Formula USA Series at Daytona because he suffered a punctured and collapsed lung while training on a motocross bike.

Clark was still hospitalized in Phoenix when his team showed up at Daytona for last weekend’s races.

Shogun Motorsports will not run a National road racing program in 2002 and will instead concentrate on televised Arenacross events.

The lack of television coverage of the Formula USA Series prompted the decision.

Shogun Motorsports competed with Ty Howard and Paul Harrell in the 2001 F-USA National Road Race Series.

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

The Roadracing World Air Fence Fund was honored at the annual F-USA/CCS Awards Ceremony, held at Daytona USA Sunday night.

Roadracing World Air Fence Fund founder John Ulrich accepted a trophy from Kenny Abbott of Formula USA and got a standing ovation from the capacity crowd in the Daytona USA auditorium, on the grounds of Daytona International Speedway.

The Air Fence Fund provided 20 sections of Alpina Air Fence for use at Daytona this past week, with spectacular results.

Before presenting the award, Abbott mentioned Ulrich’s long-standing personal and professional efforts to improve rider safety.

In accepting the trophy, Ulrich thanked contributors to the Air Fence Fund and said that the Fund is proof that racers make things happen.

Copyright 2001, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Alpina Air Fence sections in place at Daytona International Speedway–thanks to the Roadracing World Air Fence Fund and Parts Unlimited–have proved valuable in at least eight crashes during the F-USA/CCS Race of Champions as of Sunday morning.

A full 18, 28-foot sections of Alpina Air Module inflatable air barriers are in place around Daytona’s 3.56-mile round course, with two held in reserve. Alpina modules are in place in turn one, going into turn six, on the speedway wall at the exit of turn six leading from the infield to the speedway banking, on riders’ left in the chicane where AMA Pro Thunder racer Dirk Piz was killed in March 2001 and additional sections against the speedway wall at the exit of the chicane.

Although a few air barriers have been used at Daytona in the past for AMA Superbike races, CCS and Formula USA racers have never had the luxury of the devices. The sections of Alpina module in place against the speedway walls exiting turn six and the chicane protect riders from sections of walls that were previously not protected by any form of impact-attenuating device, including haybales. The Alpina Air Modules have proved particularly effective in those areas.

Friday, October 19 during the wet Middleweight Supersport Amateur race, Florida rider Santiago Sierra highsided over a slick patch at the exit of the chicane. Formula USA National Safety Director Roger Lyle was an eyewitness to the crash and said, “He got launched pretty good, probably 10 feet in the air, and went flipping. His helmet came off during the flipping, and he landed right in the Air Fence.”

Sierra was conscious and coherent at the scene and rode in an ambulance to the infield care center before refusing treatment and walking back to his pits.

According to safety logs checked by Lyle Sunday morning, the 18 sections of Alpina Air Module deployed at Daytona had been hit eight times with all of the riders suffering only minor injuries.