Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Hot off a podium finish in the AMA Superstock National at Sears Point with rider Brian Parriott, White Tip Racing has moved to a new, 6000-square-foot facility in San Diego, California.

The new phone number is (858) 536-2920 and the new address is 7558 Trade St., San Diego, CA. 92121

White Tip Racing offers full engine building services, dyno tuning, G.M.D. Computrack, and is a Traxxion Dynamics Axxion Center.

From a press release:

TV COVERAGE FOR 125 GP

TORONTO, ON – This year’s Diablo Paintball Can-Am 125GP Challenge has been given a boost with the confirmation of television coverage on The Sports Network (TSN).

The fourth event in the five-round series for purebred road racing machines, which will be held at Atlantic Motorsport Park in Shubenacadie, NS on August 11 will be shown on TSN in a half-hour program.

The race will be part of the penultimate event of the Parts Canada Superbike Championship national road race series, also televised on TSN.

Series and race promoters expect a field of over 30 competitors from Canada and the United States for the 125GP Challenge race, which will feature a purse of $6000. The event is sponsored by Auto Trader and Pro Cycle of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia along with Canadian Kawasaki Motors, Honda Canada, Suzuki Canada and Yamaha Motor Canada. TSN has also signed on as a presenting sponsor.

The race will be sanctioned by the international governing body, the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) through its Canadian arm, the Canadian Motorcycle Association (CMA) and the North American Motorcycle Union (NAMU).

The Diablo Paintball Can-Am 125GP Challenge was created by veteran competitor John Bickle as a potential development series for up-and-coming motorcycle racers.

“A lot of talent can come out of the 125 class but we need to promote it,” Bickle said. “I think we have some great racers in the 125 category who don’t get the attention they deserve. I believe this will help the sport.”

The 125 Grand Prix category has been a popular training ground for motorcycle racers around the world. Current MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi is a former World 125 Champion while U.S. Superbike points leader Nicky Hayden also cut his teeth on the 125 machines.

“We want to lure younger racers into genuine race machines and give them another option for starting their race careers,” said Martin Singleton of MJS Productions, which is promoting the Diablo Paintball Can-Am 125GP Challenge race at AMP.

Television production of the AMP race will be handled by Toronto’s Professional Motorsports Productions, which organizes and televises the entire Parts Canada Superbike Championship.

“TSN is proud to bring all the action from the Can-Am 125 Grand Prix to motorcycle racing fans nationwide,” said Stewart Johnston, director of programming, TSN. “It’s a uniquely Canadian motorcycle experience and TSN is excited to be in Shubenacadie to capture all the thrills.”

For more series information, visit www.cdnsuperbike.com

On Monday, May 6, racer Chris Ulrich was diagnosed with impingement syndrome and bone spurs in his right shoulder, which was injured during pre-season testing.

Ulrich reported severe shoulder pain during AMA Superstock races at Fontana and Sears Point.

The condition will be treated with anti-inflammatory drugs and icing until the end of the racing season, when a decision regarding further treatment will be made.

Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Racer and rocket scientist Dr. Rob Tuluie and artist and school teacher Katherine Solie are engaged to be married on June 15, in Minneapolis.

Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Delays in operation of timing and scoring monitors along pit row and in the press room last weekend at Sears Point were not the fault of AMA Timing and Scoring, AMA Pro Racing’s Ron Barrick said on Tuesday, May 7.

In a phone call to roadracingworld.com, Barrick said “It was a house feed problem and it was the same at Fontana. As far as our providing feed, it was there at the start of practice for the track to pick up and distribute wherever they wanted to distribute it, to suites and the press room and so-forth.”

Barrick made the comments in reference to two previous posts, which ran May 3 under the following headlines:

05/03/2002 AMA Timing And Scoring Monitors At Sears Point Went Live At 11:40 a.m.

05/03/2002 When Official Practice Started, AMA Timing & Scoring Was Not Running At Sears Point National

Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

This just in, from Desiree Crossman:

Last Saturday (April 27), John and I were driving around Clermont because we wanted to see what was around it. It doesn’t get dark here until 10:00 at night so we didn’t know what to do for a long time so we drove around to take pictures of the area. We drove up by Puy-de-Dome which is an old volcano that isn’t active anymore but has a lot of hiking trails. So we drove around that and John showed me the Clermont-Ferrand race track which apparently use to hold GP’s there.

We didn’t know what we were going to do on Sunday, so John said, “Let’s go to Paris,” so we did.

We called up our family and told them that we were on our way to Paris for the night and were gonna check out the Eiffel Tower. It was a three hour drive to Paris and that’s all we knew. We had no idea where to go, where we were going to stay, all we knew is the Eiffel Tower and that’s where we headed. We were completely lost in Paris and John was starting to get frustrated. But eventually we found a hotel next to the tower and had a great view from our window. We were so excited. It’s not often people get to go to Paris and not only were we able to go, but we decided to drive there. John and I thought, “well, why not?” So it was cool to do that.

But on Sunday, it was freezing cold and rainy. Of course our luck. It didn’t stop us though, we climed to the top freezing our hooskers off. We took a picture, but it was sooooooo cold and so windy that all you can see is my hair completely covering my face and John’s windbraker blowing him away. It’s a funny picture.

Anyway, we are in Jerez now and John got 13th. The crowd is phenomonal. There were over 100,000 people here and more throughout the weekend. Probably 150,000 give or take. That’s the minimum. GP races, fans go absolutely nuts. I’ve never seen anything like it. All night long you hear people partying and reving engines. ALL NIGHT!!! If only the motocycle enthusiasts in the US knew the atmosphere, it’s crazy. It’s neat. We’ve heard Mugello is worse.

We had a good weekend, though, and now it’s off to Italy for a test. Just following up and we’ll keep in touch.

Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Sears Point Raceway President and General Manager Steve Page met with AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin on Sunday morning at Sears Point to discuss Mladin’s concerns with the racetrack.

The meeting took place after Superbike practice at about 11:00 a.m..

“Steve sent one of his guys down to see if I wanted to have a chat with him,” Mladin said. “One thing I will say is that he definitely seemed very accomodating. He was very receptive. But I’d have to go up there and see them and then we’d have to see what sort of changes are made to make sure he’s gonna put up what he says he will. He left the door open to have me go up there and give them a hand with their racetrack.”

Mladin said no timetable has been set for him to return to Sears Point and meet again with Page concerning specific track issues.

Page said of the meeting, “We spent about 30 minutes together and I showed Mat overhead pictures of Sears Point from 1995 and from today and I went through them corner-by-corner to show him the safety improvements we have made. I don’t know if that changed his view of the track, but I wanted to make the point that we feel there is an appropriate time and place to deal with track safety issues. I gave him my card and told him to contact me any time. I really wanted to reinforce with Mat and other riders that our door is always open.”

Page’s approach of opening a dialog with 3-time AMA Superbike Champion Mladin stands in stark contrast to the reaction riders typically encounter when they express safety concerns about racetracks hosting AMA Superbike Nationals.

AMA Pro Racing Director of Competition Merrill Vanderslice warned teams Friday that if they did not muzzle their riders, he would do it for them. Vanderslice was reacting to comments made in a post-qualifying press conference by Aaron Yates, Anthony Gobert and Mladin, in response to a direct question posed by a reporter. Their comments criticizing the track over safety issues received big play in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper.

For more information, see the following earlier posts on roadracingworld.com:

05/04/2002 AMA Fallout Over Rider Comments On Track Safety Leads To Gobert Apology At Sears Point


05/04/2002 AMA Pro Racing’s Vanderslice Furious Over Rider Comments On Track Safety At Sears Point


05/03/2002 Sears Point Still Not Safe Enough, Top Superbike Riders Say


04/29/2002 What’s Going On At Sears Point? Have Changes Made It Safer Or More Dangerous?

Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

Speed Channel Vice President of Programming/Production Rick Miner said that the interruption of the live broadcast of the May 5 AMA Supersport race from Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, California was “an anomaly”.

“It was an anomaly because of the rain-out the night before,” said Miner via telephone from his Charlotte, North Carolina office Monday. “It was a live show that it was interrupted for. It was a live post-race show that we do after every Winston Cup race. The (Winston) Cup event was originally scheduled for Saturday night, and the race was rained out and was re-started on Sunday, which is what caused the entire thing to happen.”

The Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond International Raceway in Richmond, Virginia was stopped on lap 66 of a scheduled 400 Saturday, May 4 for rain. The race was re-started at noon Eastern Time on Sunday, May 5.

“It’s not something that will ordinarily happen,” continued Miner. “In fact, I don’t think there’s another conflict all season. I guess if there’s a rain-out, but I think there’s only one more Saturday night race. Generally, if there’s a NASCAR rain-out, the race goes to Monday. So it’s a moot point. But this is something that we do in concert with Fox. It’s the Fox. We use the Fox reporters on site. And it’s a live show immediately following the race.”

When told that AMA road racing fans were very disappointed about the interruption of the race, Miner said, “Understandably. We did make the effort to tell everyone that the race would be on in its entirety at 9:00 p.m. that evening, which it was and had originally scheduled to be. I understand the live race was interrupted and people don’t like that.”

Asked about the concern on the part of motorcycle racing fans that motorcycle programming has taken a backseat to NASCAR programming, Miner said, “I understand why they feel that way and they’re not wrong. Everything they are feeling is correct. (But) it’s one of those things that can’t be planned for, which is, it’s very unusual that there is a Saturday night race that’s rained into Sunday.”

Miner said that Speed Channel executives are getting and reading e-mails from angry viewers. “Absolutely. I’ve gotten some that are very interestingly worded. I can accept that. I understand their point.”

When asked if he got to watch the AMA Supersport race from Sears Point, Miner said, “I got to watch the same amount you did.” Miner then said that he planned to watch a tape of the race.

From Peter Taran:
I want to share with you my disappointment with Speed Channel’s decision to break away from their live coverage of the AMA 600 Supersport race to air taped recap coverage of another event that was not aired or scheduled on Speed Channel (this despite the fact that “live coverage of AMA 600 Supersport racing” was listed as a “program highlight” on their website!) I dont know about your other subscribers/visitors, but I pay extra to recieve Speed Channel on my cable system, and live coverage of the AMA series forms the cornerstone of my interest in their service. If they have no intention of living up to the promise of live coverage of AMA racing, I wish they would inform us now, so that I may cancel my subscription to the service upgrades that give me access to Speed Channel in the first place.


From Vaughn K. McVey of Dallas, Texas:
I have to tell you something that really ticked me off today with the “Speed Channel”, formerly Speedvision. My Sunday afternoon was planned around watching the 600cc Sears Point race at 2:00 pm Central time. After a somewhat slow start, the race was “on” and the announcers, in their usual good form, were covering the race. Then, at 2:25 pm, the race was pre-empted by a NASCAR update on yesterday’s events, with the announcer reporting that they’ll be back to Sears Point in a half hour, and that we could tune in tonight to watch the whole race!

That’s what I thought I was doing; trying to watch the whole race.

The only reason I have subscribed to DirecTV is to watch motorcycle racing. I will probably cancel DirecTV now. If we can’t rely on them to show the races, why should they rely on a paying customer?



From R. Christopher Landgraf of Pelham, Alabama:
I Hope I’m only one of many who was EXTREMELY upset by SPEED Channel’s Sunday live coverage of the AMA 600 SS race! I have already e-mailed my complaint to the TV station and for those who may not know; the 600 race was shown at the start and after barely a lap was interuppted to show “taped” interviews of the NASCAR race. Then the AMA race was shown at its very end…interviews etc.

Hey guys at RW, YOU GUYS ROCK!



From Ed Light:
I was watching the AMA 600cc Supersport at Sears live, but on the half-hour they replaced it with NASCAR. What are they thinking? They were so helpful as to say that we could watch the 600 race tonight. Gosh.

The 600s came back right at the very end of the hour.

Their schedule does not show any NASCAR at that time.



From Willard Ivans:
Below is an e-mail I sent to Speed Channel about them wiping out the last half of the live telecast of the AMA 600 SS race from Sears Point to talk about NASCAR racing highlights and their “reply”. The message I get from this happening and their automated system reply is that
motorcycle racing programming is not a priority for them, and that they don’t have time or inclination to respond.

Why do you interrupt a live telecast (AMA 600 Supersport) to talk about *highlights* of NASCAR?! I thought that was what time slots for programming were for? I was looking forward to seeing the motorcycle races you had put in your schedule today and cancelled other activities for the day so that I would be able to watch them. Now I have to wait until another time to see the 600 race and I don’t have the benefit of getting other things done. Pre-empt rally racing or soap box derby racing please. Better yet, how about
waiting until the allotted time for NASCAR programming comes on to talk about NASCAR race highlights from wherever. I might even watch it when you do, even though I largely don’t care about NASCAR. When NASCAR programming squashes motorcycle racing coverage, with no warning, I could be forgiven for developing a resentment toward that particular segment of motorsport and
also toward the Speed Channel programming staff. I look at the schedule you produce for a reason, and I imagine you create the schedule for a reason. How about following through and actually doing it the way you planned? How do you think it would be received if you brought race highlights from World Superbike and AMA Supersport races from wherever right in the middle of a titanic battle for the lead at Bristol, telling your NASCAR fans that they can see the race in its entirety some other time? What happened today gives new life to my fears about how programming other than NASCAR will be treated by the new regime at Speed Channel. Please feel free to respond by e-mail, or contact me at the phone number I have provided. I eagerly anticipate your
reply.

From:
Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 12:44 PM
Subject: Thank you for contacting Speed Channel

Thank you for contacting Speed Channel.
We commit ourselves to read all of your comments. However, due to the quantity of emails we receive, we may not be able to answer every email.
If your question does not receive a response, we ask that you please visit the FAQ page on our website at www.SpeedTV.com, or try contacting us again.
Your comments and feedback are greatly appreciated.
To find out if Speed is available on your cable system, call 1-888-22-SPEED or call your cable operator or satellite provider directly.

Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

A posting on www.speedtv.com quoted the TV channel’s President as admitting that cutting away from live coverage of the AMA Supersport race at Sears Point was a mistake.

The post also stated that “it should never happen again.”

The post, headline, “AMA Supersport Race Should Have Continued As Planned” appeared on the site Monday afternoon after the channel received a deluge of e-mail and phone complaints.

The post quoted Speed Channel President Jim Liberatore as saying, “LIVE programming is not supposed to be interrupted. It just shouldn’t have happened but because of the rainout at Richmond we were put in a position we hadn’t anticipated and we made a bad choice. I hope the coverage Speed supplies week in and week out for motorcycle enthusiasts would support the fact that in this instance, we simply screwed up.”