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.”

From a press release:

EDMONTON ROUND CANCELLED

Parts Canada Superbike Championship officials have announced the cancellation of the third round of the 2002 season, which had been scheduled for Edmonton’s Namao Airport June 15-16.

The Namao facility is a working Canadian Armed Forces base and security issues following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States made it extremely difficult for event and series organizers to stage the races.

“It’s a real disappointment,” said Colin Fraser of Professional Motorsports Productions, which organizes the Parts Canada Superbike Championship. “We respect the efforts of Simon Hughes and the Edmonton Motorcycle Roadracing Association and appreciate the difficult circumstances they’re in. It’s very important for us to have events in western Canada.”

PMP is provisionally planning to replace the Edmonton event with a doubleheader at Calgary’s Race City Motorsports Park. The venue has hosted similar ‘Big Kahuna’ style events in the past. Race City is slated to stage the second round of the series June 8-9.

The Parts Canada Superbike Championship is Canada’s premier motorcycle road racing series. The 2002 season opens at Shannonville Motorsport Park, near Belleville, ON, May 18-19 with Maple Ridge, BC’s Steve Crevier trying to score his third straight series title and seventh overall.

Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

AMA Supersport Final Results:

1. Aaron Yates, Suzuki GSX-R600, 16 laps
2. Anthony Gobert, Yamaha YZF-R6, -2.022
3. Jamie Hacking, Suzuki GSX-R600, -4.645
4. Damon Buckmaster, Yamaha YZF-R6, -5.330
5. Ben Spies, Suzuki GSX-R600, -9.061
6. Jake Zemke, Honda CBR600F4i, -10.082
7. Mike Hale, Honda CBR600F4i, -10.171
8. Tommy Hayden, Kawasaki ZX-6R, -10.279
9. Jason Pridmore, Suzuki GSX-R600, -22.633
10. Tom Kipp, Suzuki GSX-R600, -24.500
11. Tony Meiring, Kawasaki ZX-6R, -25.699
12. Brian Parriott, Honda CBR600F4i, -25.794
13. Jimmy Moore, Suzuki GSX-R600, -36.736
14.Ty Howard, Suzuki GSX-R600, -41.554
15. Owen Weichel, Kawasaki ZX-6R, -42.898
16. Alex Gobert, Honda CBR600F4i, -46.152
17. Owen Richey, Yamaha YZF-R6, -56.022
18. Clint McBain, Suzuki GSX-R600, -66.386
19. Jimmy Filice, Kawasaki ZX-6R, -71.039
20. Jason Perez, Suzuki GSX-R600, -71.131
21. Robert Campbell, Kawasaki ZX-6R
22. Justin Blake, Suzuki GSX-R600
23. Tyler Wadsworth, Yamaha YZF-R6
24. Scott Simpson, Kawasaki ZX-6R
25. Kevin Pate, Suzuki GSX-R600
26. Chris Siglin, Suzuki GSX-R600
27. Daryl Woodward, Yamaha YZF-R6, -1 lap
28. Hugh Pestes, Suzuki GSX-R600, -1 lap
29. Todd Costley, Yamaha YZF-R6, -1 lap
30. Dirk Sanchez, Kawasaki ZX-6R, -1 lap
31. Michael Fellsworth, Kawasaki ZX-6R, -1 lap
32. Chris Siebenhaar, Honda CBR600F4i, -1 lap
33. Chris Velvarde, Kawasaki ZX-6R, -1 lap
34. Brian Lowe, Suzuki GSX-R600, -1 lap
35. Michael Dantonio, Yamaha YZF-R6, -1 lap
36. Hector Romero, Yamaha YZF-R6, -3 laps
37. Dale Palmer, Yamaha YZF-R6, -4 laps
38. Katja Poensgen, Suzuki GSX-R600, -8 laps
39. Michael Hannas, Kawasaki ZX-6R, -15 laps, DNF, Crash
40. Andrew Nelson, DNS.

Supersport Point Standings:

1. Yates, 110 points
2. Hacking, 81 points
3. Buckmaster, 79 points
4. Spies, 73 points
5. Hale, 70 points
6. Pridmore, 69 points
7. Gobert, 66 points
8. Kipp, 64 points
9. Meiring, 59 points
10. Zemke, 58 points


This just in: Speed Channel interupted the live broadcast of the Supersport race after 30 minutes–mid-race–and switched to a NASCAR highlights show.

Complain to Speed Channel here:

SPEED

Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

Sunday Morning Superbike Practice Times:

1. Eric Bostrom, Kawasaki ZX-7RR, 1:32.514
2. Nicky Hayden, Honda RC51, 1:32.791
3. Miguel Duhamel, Honda RC51, 1:32.920
4. Mat Mladin, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:33.239
5. Aaron Yates, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:33.343
6. Doug Chandler, Ducati 998RS, 1:33.374
7. Pascal Picotte, Ducati 998RS, 1:33.390
8. Jamie Hacking, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:33.436
9. Anthony Gobert, Yamaha YZF-R7, 1:34.141
10. Brian Livengood, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:37.340
11. Mark Foster, Kawasaki ZX-7R, 1:37.346
12. Tom Montano, Ducati 998S, 1:37.453
13. Robert Jensen, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:38.263
14. Alan Schmidt, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:38.330
15. Robert Christman, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:38.427
16. Ed Milhausen, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:38.435
17. Jeremy Toye, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:38.528
18. Vincent Haskovec, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:38.547
19. Owen Richey, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:38.674
20. Brian Parriott, Suzuki GSX-R750, 1:38.704