Formula USA Director of Road Racing Bill Syfan has invited 800cc Ducati refugees from the AMA Pro Thunder class to participate in F-USA Sport Bike races. Under F-USA rules, machines in the Sport Bike class can displace up to 800cc with a minimum weight of 365 pounds and a maximum horsepower output of 112 horsepower on a Dyno Jet Dyno. To be eligible, Ducati 748s must run stock wheels, frames and cases and must compete on DOT-labelled tires. Each F-USA Sport Bike race features a $10,000 purse which pays $2000 to win with $1500 for second and $1200 for third, paying down to 15th.

Area Coca-Cola Bottlers will back the “Coca-Cola Texas Superbike Endurance Series”, according to a press release issued by RPM Racing, the Texas-based WERA South Central Region affiliate. The series will consist of seven 4-hour races run at Texas World Speedway, Hallett Motor Racing Circuit, and the new 2.83-mile road course at Texas Motor Speedway. Each event will include three WERA Superbike classes, Heavyweight, Mediumweight and Lightweight, with a total series purse of $12,000 including per-event and points fund payouts. Area Coca-Cola Bottlers have also put up a $4000 purse for the Formula One class at the first round of the WERA South Central Region Sportsman Sprint Series, sheduled for March 11 at Hallett. More information is available from the RPM Racing Inc. website at www.rpmraceclub.com

Insiders say that racer Morgan Broadhead may be involved with a new company being set up by three-time World Champion Freddie Spencer to distribute Michelin racing tires in the Western United States. A yet-to-be-confirmed deal would have Broadhead oversee several regional subdistributors. An official announcement of the arrangement is expected soon.

Buell Motor Company Chairman and Chief Technical Officer Erik Buell said January 25 that he knew about proposed changes to AMA Pro Thunder rules prior to their being enacted and had ample opportunity to comment, and that riders who didn’t know about the proposed changes should have called AMA officials and asked if any rule changes were pending. Buell was an AMA racer and Harley-Davidson engineer prior to forming the company that bears his name; Harley-Davison now owns 98 percent of the company and Buell owns 2 percent. “They notified us before they made the changes (to the Pro Thunder rules),” said Buell in a telephone interview with Roadracing World. “I make it a point to talk to them (AMA officials) and just check on things. They didn’t call me on the phone. Usually about 2/3 to ¾ of the way through the season I always want to call and ask what the plans are for next year. That’s when they told me they have an issue with the time schedule. The dual Superbike races were becoming a real nightmare with not enough practice time, and they were getting a lot of complaints from riders in different classes. So we had a debate over who would have to move and that it would probably be Pro Thunder. They talked to me about (taking Pro Thunder off of the National schedule) and said that they were considering that. I don’t have any final results from them on what they’re gonna wind up doing. I think what they do want to do is tie it into WERA more. “I heard that there were comments from a rider about how they’re being not fair and making a bunch of changes arbitrarily. I’ll give you my position of the situation. I can’t say that we’re in agreement with the AMA all of the time, and probably no one is, but they do talk with us and they do explain their reasons. Particularly, Merrill Vanderslice (AMA Pro Racing Director of Competition) has been very good about talking and explaining in detail why they’re making changes. Say five years ago or more, that wasn’t the case. There was a time when I was racing, they would go, ‘That’s the way it is. Shut up.’ But they’re not that way at all. The AMA is like a lot of professional sports organizations. They have a lot of interests to balance. It’s particularly difficult to understand when you’re a young racer focused on one outcome. When I was a racer, it was my success I was focused on. “I’ve been around for a while, and I used to be a professional racer. I can really relate to where those guys are. One of the tough things you have to do is grow up and be more mature. There’s a lot of professionalism that our sport can pick up on. For example, the racers need to communicate with the organization. I mean, it’s their career, their profession. A lot of teams and riders that are successful build relationships with the organizations. Some riders think that they are going to get a call notifying them of changes, but they’ve got a misconception of the size of the staff available at the AMA. It just doesn’t happen that way. They should be calling in. Again, not in January or February when the rulebook comes out, but the earlier the better because people need to put their program together for the following year. If you’re going to get sponsorship, usually budgets from corporations are fixed by October. You need to get involved. I think that’s the message. I’m sure some people are frustrated while others know what’s going on. The difference is whether you talk to them or not. The worst thing you can do is vilify and get mad at the AMA or PACE or whatever organization it is, because they’re people, too. There are times when organizations get out of control and do stupid things. I know you guys have done exposes on this deal that happened with the AMA a while ago. Sometimes that happens, but that’s not the case here. Merrill’s a pretty good guy. “You’ve gotta be flexible. You’ve gotta understand the reason why things are happening. You’ve gotta push back. You’ve gotta try to talk to them. But when they make a decision, we have to go ahead with it. We may not be in total agreement, but I can understand that they’ve considered all of their stakeholders and I think they are being fair. “(The communication problems between the riders and the AMA) is probably more the riders’ fault than anyone else. These guys need to be professional and call up and ask. Could it be better? Probably. But they have a group that is willing to listen. I tell young racers, ‘Man it used to be worse. You better believe it.’ There was no way that you were gonna get heard in the old days. I think the AMA’s a much better organization than it was. I think they are trying to be very straight and honest. “(Roadracing World) is the strongest voice to the riders in the country. If you guys wrote an article about how to be more professional, how not to put the burden on the AMA and say, ‘What’s wrong with the AMA?’ Quite frankly, and I’m going to be candid, one of the weaknesses in our sport, because it’s such an intense sport, the guys who are professional racers tend to have ragged-edge personalities. I was one. It ain’t an easy sport. Your life’s at risk. We need to elevate this sport to a little more professional level. I think it could have a huge impact.” Buell added that he didn’t believe that AMA Pro Thunder rule changes caught Ducati management off-guard, saying “I assure you that Ducati was in constant communication with them about Superbike stuff. If they didn’t know, they didn’t ask them. Quite frankly, if Ducati cared enough about the class–they’re a lot bigger than Buell–they could’ve sponsored the class. The class was gonna be canceled last year. It was because Progressive Insurance pulled out. There was no one to fund the class. We came in. It’s all and good to whine and moan about it, but we’re the reason that it existed last year. Ducati took advantage of it and won the Championship. If they’re taking a negative position on this, shame on them. They know the AMA better than that.”

Dr. Rob Tuluie’s Tul-Aris racebike will be on display in the Manley Cycle/Lofgren Racing Booth during the January 26-28 Advanstar Cycle World Motorcycle Show, at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The Tul-Aris was featured in the February, 2001 issue of Roadracing World. Ducati stars Larry Pegram and Doug Polen will sign autographs at the Ducati display at the show. Pegram rides for the Competition Accessories Ducati team, and Polen won the 1991 and 1992 Superbike World Championships on a Ducati. Ducati North America is giving away copies of the new Acclaim video game, Ducati World Racing Challenge, in a drawing held on Friday night at each Advanstar Cycle World Motorcycle Show. Ducati is also giving away a limited edition Ducati backpack made by Ogio, and a Suomy Ben Bostrom replica helmet, in drawings held on Saturday night and Sunday night, respectively at each show. The video game retails for $49.95, the backpack for $72 and the helmet for $399.

Racer Bill St. John has announced plans to concentrate on the WERA National Challenge Series instead of the AMA Pro Thunder Series in 2001. St. John finished fourth in the 1999 AMA Pro Thunder Championship and ninth in the 2000 Championship, and finished third in the Pro Thunder race at Mid-Ohio in 2000. St. John will compete in the WERA Heavyweight Twins class on a BCM Ducati 748 and in the WERA Lightweight Twins class on a Cycle Specialties of Athens Ducati 750SS. St. John said that his decision was influenced by new AMA rules limiting Pro Thunder bikes to 750cc and a 380-pound minimum weight, and by the news that the AMA plans to eliminate the Pro Thunder class from Pro Racing weekends entirely in the future. “It seems to me that the fastest bikes in the class were already 750cc and were already 380 pounds,” said St. John of the AMA Pro Thunder situation. “For the other guys, this is just going to make it harder for them to keep up. My bike was an 800 and was a little less than 380. The 748RS was already faster than we could be at 800cc. And the weight thing is bad because now you really have to have that bike (a Ducati 748RS)to compete. It’s not like (Mark) Ledesma is going to be able to go in there with a lighter (SV650) bike to compete.”

AMA Road Race Advisory Board Member and AMA 250cc Grand Prix racer Ed Sorbo has told Roadracing World that dissatisfaction with recent actions taken by the AMA Pro Racing Board of Directors permeates AMA Pro Racing, from the top down. Sorbo said that in his duties as an Advisory Board member he has personally heard AMA Director of Professional Competition Merrill Vanderslice and Road Race Manager Ron Barrick complain that the Pro Racing Directors thwart their efforts to properly manage AMA road racing, will not allow them to do the jobs they were hired to do and don’t know anything about the realities of racing. “The AMA is by far the best organization to race with and they do so many things so well it’s impressive,” elaborated Sorbo. “And that makes the stupid stuff they do seem even more frustrating. And furthermore, I know a lot of people who work for the AMA personally and they are wonderful people and I respect them immensely. But they are directed by these people hiding in the ivory towers, and it is incomprehensible how they come up with stuff up there.” By “these people hiding in the ivory towers,” Sorbo was referring to AMA Pro Racing Directors. AMA Pro Racing officials have recently complained that the Board of Directors needlessly blocked implementation of several important new rules and delayed implementation of new displacement and weight rules for the Pro Thunder class. As a result, the officials say, they have unfairly come under attack from irate racers negatively affected by the late announcement of new rules. Vanderslice and Barrick have declined to comment on the record regarding actions taken by the Pro Racing Board of Directors. In a puzzling development, Sorbo also revealed that riders who pre-enter for the entire 2001 AMA road race season will receive a mechanic’s pass free of charge under a new, unannounced AMA Pro Racing policy. Observers say they can’t figure out why the AMA would want to keep what is likely to be an extremely popular new policy secret instead of announcing it to AMA racers. The AMA Pro Racing Board of Directors includes Paul Dean of Cycle World magazine; attorney Rick Gray; P.J. Harvey of PJ1 oil; Mark Tuttle, recently retired from Harley-Davidson; attorney Cary Agajanian; and Ray Blank of American Honda Motor Co.

Racer Vaclav “Vincent” Haskovec has revealed that he tested Pirelli tires January 14 at Buttonwillow Raceway in Buttonwillow, California for Blackmans Cycles Racing, prior to bailing out of his deal with the Blackmans team. Haskovec did his testing on a Yamaha YZF-R6, comparing the latest Pirelli tires against comparable Dunlops. “I went as fast as I could on the Dunlops, then I put on the Pirellis and went one second faster,” Haskovec said of his test session. “Pirelli is fantastic tire. I came to Willow Springs and told Dunlop, ‘You must do something, because Pirelli is better. Pirelli has found something.'” Haskovec had agreed to ride an Aprilia RSV Mille R for the Blackmans team in the Formula USA Series but bailed out on the deal before signing a contract. Haskovec believes he is riding for an AMA Pro Supersport team sponsored by Corona beer and American Suzuki Motor Corp. and organized by Landers Sevier, but Haskovec has not seen or signed any paperwork on the deal. Suzuki officials have refused to comment other than to say that no deal has been finalized.

SFX Motor Sports Group announced the return of Doug Gonda to Formula USA with a January 25 press release headlined “SFX appoints Doug Gonda to Formula USA expansion efforts.” The release read, “Douglas Gonda has been retained by SFX Motor Sports to manage race track business development for road racing properties. Mr. Gonda will be responsible for all track negotiations and race scheduling for both SFX Motor Sports’ Championship Cup Series (CCS) and the Formula USA National Road Race Series. “Mr. Gonda has extensive experience in the business of motorcycle road racing over a period of nearly two decades. Aside from his background as an event organizer and promoter, Mr. Gonda has worked as consultant and business partner with AMA, CCS and WERA. Mr. Gonda was the founder of the National Championship Formula USA Series. The Formula USA Series was acquired by SFX from Mr. Gonda in 1999.” The release went on to quote SFX Motor Sports Group Senior Director of Marketing, Motorcycles, Dan Krolczyk as saying “Doug has been an important piece of the history of Formula USA road racing and of the new SFX Motor Sports road racing properties. We’re happy to keep Doug involved in the expansion of road racing.” According to the release, SFX Motor Sports has 92 motorcycle road racing events scheduled across the nation in 2001, 31 operated through affiliate organizations and 61 produced and promoted directly by SFX Motor Sports.

According to former racer Dennis Smith of Sport Tire Services, Dunlop’s grid fitment at the January 20-21, 2001 WSMC race shot up to a record 71 percent, up from 54 percent at the same race last year. Smith said that his sales at the track set a new record for his company at a WSMC club event, by a margin of 33 percent. Smith’s sales were helped by the fact that there was no Michelin sales and service operation at the event. Graves Race Tire Service did not renew its contract with Michelin, bailing out of the deal at the end of 2000. No new Michelin representative has been named yet, although Michelin North America officials are thought to be close to finalizing a deal with three-time World Champion Freddie Spencer, who won his titles on Michelin tires. Spencer is interested in putting together a tire sales operation with racer Dale Kieffer, who has been involved in trackside tire sales for about five years.