Category Archives: AMA Pro Racing
Daytona’s Motorcycle Race’s Produce Excitement, Unexpected Results, and History
The eyes of most of the racing world are divided between Bristol, Melbourne, and Sebring Florida. However on the east coast of Florida, at the same place where a few weeks ago Juan Pablo Montoya took out a jet dryer on prime time network TV, the AMA Pro racing series ran it’s season opener on the Daytona roval. The AMA Pro Superbikes and sport bikes took the the track along with the Daytona Superbikes, which run the infamous Daytona 200, a few hours away from the 12 Hours of Sebring. At Daytona Elena Myers, Josh Hayes, Blake Young, and Joey Pascarella took the opening wins of the 2012 season.
Superbike race 1 was not the best race of the weekend; Hayes took a dominating lead and was never really challenged. The main point of interest is that Josh Hayes got his first Superbike win at Daytona. Superbike race 2 started much the same way with Hayes dominating in Formula One style until the late stage of the race when Blake Young, 2011 runner up, was able to fight back and eventually take the win in a photo finish. Roger Hayden was 3rd in both races. Larry Pegram’s BMW appeared to be in good form as it found the top 5 both races. Josh Herrin, upgrading from the Daytona Superbikes, crashed in race 1 but rebounded and finished 4th in race 2.
Daytona Supersport saw Elana Myers take her 2nd career victory (first was at Infineon), and first at Daytona. In fact it’s the first win at Daytona in a professional race by a female competitor, according to SpeedTV. Sorry Danica and Johanna. That’s if you count Daytona Sportbikes as a professional series, and that could be a point of contention.
The Daytona 200 is an oddity among motorcycle road races as it features pitstops. Also odd is how the 2nd tier series (Daytona Superbikes) run the 200 instead of the more prestigious Superbikes. This is due to safety concerns that come from the speed of the Superbikes over a long distance race. Last year’s 200 was marred by a Dunlop tire failure but this year’s ran without incident. Joey Pascarella, riding for Project 1 Atlanta, pulled off an upset victory. Interestingly Pascarella, unlike many of the underdog winners from Speedweeks, dominated the race. Despite leading the most laps Pascarella went into the last lap followed by three other riders. They attempted to draft pass him but didn’t get ahead of him before the start/finish line. This race also saw a photo finish between Pascarella and Jason Di Salvo. Unusually for Daytona the rider leading coming out of the infield and onto the speedway section of the track managed to win the race. Normally at a Daytona AMA race, much like in a NASCAR restrictor plate race, being in second is advantageous as it allows a rider to draft and win. But in the Superbike, Sportbike, and 200 this tactic didn’t work.
If you thought Indycar at Texas was crazy then AMA at Daytona would be full on insanity. Daytona is a bit of an oddity among AMA races and a bit controversial as well. Although tied in with Bike Week at Daytona the amount of fans who attend the race is not very impressive. There are some safety and tire concerns that are brought up by this track and at one point the DMG tried to make them race at night, which has thankfully been changed back to normal. The DMG’s rules are somewhat problematic and have caused the withdraw of major motorcycle manufacturer, especially Honda. Despite these issues, this year’s slate of races at Daytona managed to produce exciting races that, while overshadowed by the other races this weekend, deserve to be watched. Plus, this week’s races may be the only one’s televised at a reasonable hour! Now onto Homestead, Road Atlanta, and eventually Road America and Mid Ohio. Unlike in Indycar, Mid Ohio is one of the best AMA races of the year along with Road America. If you want to know what good road racing looks like, AMA Superbike at Mid Ohio and Road America would be two examples.
What Do You Value?
Values are a tricky and controversial subject. The 2012 Presidential Election is a perfect example. This is a racing blog not a political site which is probably a good thing; I don’t need to alienate any more readers than I already have. There is a point to talking about values, however. In racing terms values are what a fan looks for in racing. Do they value parity and close racing or do they value purity and innovation? Should the cars be the stars or should it be the drivers? These types of questions and views are seen in every form of racing from NASCAR to MotoGP, but nowhere in the racing world are conflicting values seen more clearly than in the Izod Indycar series. From the Sarah Fisher engine controversy to the future direction of the schedule conflicting values among fans are crystal clear.
Engines for Sarah. Just saying.
The reason for Indycar’s value conflict is obvious. Indycar attracts interest from a diverse group of people that includes NASCAR, USAC, Indy 500, F1, and ALMS/24 Hours of Le Mans fans. American and international race fans are brought together in a way that often pits them head to head. Overall fans from Europe tend to want to see a Formula One style series, or maybe a 24 Hours of Le Mans style series. American Champcar fans and ALMS fans also side with them. On the other hand American’s generally prefer a NASCAR/USAC style series. Do you want American Indy Lights Champion Joseph Newgarden or Formula One Reject and GP2 winner Luca Filippe to get an engine and thus a ride instead?
Values in racing themselves can generally be broken down like this: Parity vs. Purity. That’s the crux of the debate. The other auxiliary issues all come down to the idea of parity and purity. Multiple winning teams vs. watching the “best team win” is a classic example. Innovation vs. close racing. In Indycar it’s American drivers vs. having the “best of the best” (or, as some would argue, random F1 rejects). The oval/road course debate comes down to parity/purity as many so called “purists” turn their nose up at Texas and Kentucky. The engine debate is another perfect example of the conflicting viewpoints. Parity supporters want to see Fisher get an engine while Purity supporter want the “market” to determine who get’s what engines.
Analogy
In fact parity vs. purity parallel politics perfectly. The debate over a stronger or weaker government sounds an awful lot like the debate over a more pure or equal racing series. Think about it; racing fans from the purity standpoint want less rules while parity fans generally support stronger sanctioning bodies with bigger rule-books and more regulations. One interesting anecdote I’ve noticed is many fans who are more Conservative dislike the idea of TEAM Money or revenue sharing because it seems like “socialism.”
Of course it’s not an all or nothing issue. There are level’s of parity or purity that each fan wants to see out of their racing. It’s pretty obvious that I stand on the parity side, but I”m not as far down that side as Eddie Gossange of Texas Motor Speedway. Most racing purists want to see at least some rules and regulations so that races are won by 10 laps. I may be a racing parity supporter but that doesn’t mean I want to see competition cautions or things like the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
A Parity based series
Neither side is 100% right or wrong; however I do think the parity side is more appealing to more people. Especially in the United States. Looking at other sports series in the US, both racing (NASCAR) and stick and ball (NFL,NHL,NBA,NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball, MLB) generally stick towards the parity side. Look at the salary caps and revenue sharing. Overall fans in America have shown a lot more love and support for parity series than purity based series. Not only is a parity based series what I would prefer; it’s also what, in my editorial opinion, is going to sell better to fans in America. Something to think about when discussing Indycar.
All of that said I think some mid ground is possible. Moderation and compromise and all of that. The World Superbike Series shows that a racing series can have purity (no caution flags, multiple manufacturer with distinct equipment) yet also manages to have fairly large fields with a fair amount of competitive riders. If only we could bottle it’s magic and give a little injection into every other racing series. Indycar is somewhat tricky because of how distinct the viewpoints are. Compromise should be possible as long as a 50-50 balance is maintained. Considering the demise of Champcar that should be self-evident but it’s not. Improving the quality of road courses would help immensely. As my WSBK love indicates I’m not against all road racing, just boring road racing. A lot more people would be open to the road and street courses if it didn’t result in horrifically boring races where the top five at the start of the race are the same top five at the end. Back on topic…
Parity and Purity Meet in the World Superbike Series
The debate over what direction racing series should take come up all the time. It all comes down to what people want to see out of their racing. Why someone watches racing in the first place? Do you want to see unpredictability or see perfection? I’ll be honest I desire and demand unpredictability. I have zero interest in watching a race where I know with 99% certainty who’s going to win and I have no shame in admitting that. Not everyone feels that way and that’s fine. There is a mid ground and the goal of the sanctioning bodies should be to try and find that. Both sides have their positive and negative aspects. Too much purity can become boring while too much parity can turn a racing series into WWE on wheels. Obviously fans aren’t going to watch a series that goes too far away from what they value in racing. They’ll get nothing out of it. Coming back to Indycar I really believe finding the moderate position is vital. I don’t see how a series too focused on Purity is going to survive in the United States as anything more than a niche racing series with .3 ratings. Taking a broader approach the middle ground makes sense for all racing series. The “biggest tent” brings the most fans in and thus makes the series more attractive to sponsors and manufacturer. Any series that can appeal to both purists and parity fans will draw a lot more fans than a series that draws only one or the other.
Triple League Racing Podcast #2
After a long delay the Triple League Racing Podcast is back with episode #2. This episode was recorded a couple weeks ago so some information (Tracy/Shank, Milwaukee, ect.) might be out of date. This show focus’s on Indycar and Grand Am. It’s a bit long and maybe a little rough in spots because it’s my first attempt at editing my own podcast. As time goes on we’ll improve. Episode 3 should follow shortly. Start downloading and put this on your Ipod! Eventually I’ll get this podcast onto Itunes. Also, if you missed episode 1 with John Hall from LiveFastRacing go download it here.
What Will NBC Sports Mean For Racing?
It has finally happened. Versus been officially renamed and re-branded as NBC Sports. Indycar fans hope that this move will finally produce some real results out of the partnership between Indycar and Versus which has struggled to get ratings above .5. NBC Sports doesn’t just affect Indycar. The goal of NBC Sports is clearly to create an alternative to the sports giant ESPN. Which any reasonable sports fan should be excited about. NASCAR’s TV contracts come up soon. Could we be seeing the Sprint Cup back on NBC? NBC Sports already does the Dakar Rally as well as the Tour De France. With SpeedTV potentially moving away from racing NBC Sports could become the alternative. Versus was at one time interested in the American Le Mans Series. Should the ALMS finally abandon the Non TV Deal could this be the alternative?
Indycar on Versus had a lot of potential. Even before the Comcast/NBC merger it appeared Comcast had big plans for the channel. The Tour De France and NHL do well on Versus. As do cage fighting and PBR. Sure the rest of the programing was a mixed bag of outdoor shows and random other programming but that just meant there was less competition Indycar had to deal with for attention. Everything appeared to be great. The first race was fairly well done. Then the TV ratings for the first race came out. Two years latter and the ratings weren’t a whole lot better. A few bright moments in the 2011 season (two of which came right after the Tour De France) couldn’t make up for the fact that 3 years of Versus has added up to ratings that are significantly down from the 2008 season when Indycar was on ESPN.
NBC Sports represents the last, best chance to turn the Versus/Indycar partnership around. Otherwise it will go down as the biggest failure this side of the Champcar/Spike TV partnership. At least Champcar was able to abandon Spike; Indycar is on Versus with a long term contract. With NBC and Comcast working to build NBC Sports into a major channel the household distribution should improve. Increasing viewers and new properties also give Indycar a chance to advertise to more fans who’re watching other properties. I expect ratings to rise next season. That doesn’t vindicate the 2012 Indycar schedule; what it means is that with more people watching the channel Indycar is going to pick up some residual benefit. In fact, 2012 is the worst time to risk having boring racing because it’s got the chance to show people Indycar for the first time. Do you really want their first experience with Indycar being a parade around China or Belle Isle?
Ratings on Versus Haven't Improved Much since 09
There are some reasons to be concerned. Since Versus and ABC have been splitting the TV schedule there have been 17 races. Versus took 12 and ABC took 5. Now there’s only 16 races and that’s if the Baltimore issues are resolved and the TBA is announced. How will this affect how NBC Sports and ABC feel about Indycar? What happens if there are just 14 races? Just as problematic is the lack of a 2012 TV schedule. People have complained NBC Sports and ABC/ESPN don’t promote Indycar enough, but, how are they suppose to promote Indycar when they don’t know which races they will have? Oh, and what happens if NBC Sports get’s stuck with the boring races and ABC get’s all the good ones (season opener, 500, Texas, season finale)? Indycar already re-upped with ABC as the exclusive network broadcast partner for Indycar until both contracts are up at the end of this decade. Could it be that NBC Sports will get tired of Indycar and either buy it out or just stop trying? If they can’t have the “good races” then what’s the motivation to try? The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. If NBC Sports becomes the next ESPN then Indycar might get treated just like they were on ESPN.
NBC Sports doesn’t just affect Indycar. NASCAR’s TV contract’s end after the 2014 season. They are going to have to start negotiation’s soon. The problem is the last round of contracts where signed when NASCAR was going up and up and up. During the current television contracts ratings were in free fall until the 2011 season when they started to regain some lost ground. The question is will the same companies still be interested in NASCAR next time? NBC left NASCAR in the last contract. Before that they partnered with TNT to broadcast the Sprint Cup series. Should NBC want back in the goal most likely will be to get races on NBC itself. Comcast and NBC may want races on NBC Sports to give their channel more leverage over broadcasters. From NASCAR’s perspective any races on NBC Sports is a risk. Just ask Indycar. From Indycar’s perspective a NASCAR addition could be a repeat of NASCAR’s return to ESPN. All of that said if NBC Sports does start to turn into ESPN then moving to that channel could work out.
AMA Pro Racing Would Likely Benefit from a Move to NBC Sports
NBC Sports also is a potential home for any of the other series NASCAR owns. AMA Pro Racing, Grand AM, and Camping World Trucks are on SpeedTV while Nationwide is on ESPN. Should they lose the ability to use those channels NBC Sports could be the alternative. Whether that happens or not will likely depend on what is going on at SpeedTV right now. There are some interesting rumors and idea’s out there about what may happen and whether or not SpeedTV will continue to focus on racing. In theory AMA Pro racing, or any motorcycle road racing series, could work well on NBC Sports as it could be tied in with the Tour De France and other cycle racing that are already on the channel. That makes so much sense it’s probably not going to happen.
The ALMS was at one time pursued by Versus. Instead they went with the Non TV Deal on ESPN 3. Ask Risi Ferrari how well that went (too bad they had to remove that blog post; thankfully the comment section of the article I linked has a copy). Should ALMS ever admit defeat on ESPN3 then NBC Sports is the best (and possibly only) option. A move to NBC Sports would also be bring Indycar and ALMS closer together which in my (controversial) opinion is a good thing but which many disagree with.
Promised Much and Delivered Little
NBC Sports is a potential partner for any racing series out there. Whenever the contract’s are up even F1 and MotoGP may want to consider it. Whether the NBC Sports thing ultimately works out or not for Indycar is still up in the air. For Indycar’s sake it needs to work out. No, it has to work out. They don’t have any other options and it’s a long term contract. It’s make or break time for Indycar to get better ratings. I don’t know whether or not they will succeed but I’m guessing ratings will improve some next year. With more households and more exposure (and a bar set so low) it will be hard not to improve some; no matter how poor the racing may be. NBC Sports also has the potential to be a destination for NASCAR if the current situation doesn’t work out. NBC Sports is being built as a competitor to ESPN. How that develops will have long term affects on all racing series broadcast in the US. For better or for worse.
2011: A Year’s Worth of Racing In Review
It’s a cliché but the 2011 racing season featured the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. The year featured shocking upset wins by Regan Smith, Trevor Bayne, Dan Wheldon, and Ed Carpenter. At the same time it featured the twin tragedies of Marco Simoncelli and Dan Wheldon’s deaths. 2011 featured the continuation of Dario Franchitti’s Reign of Luck as fortunate race control rulings and random lucky breaks (RE: Beatriz taking Power out on pit road) led to another year of a NASCAR reject winning in Indycar. NASCAR was more fortunate with Jimmie Johnson’s Reign of Terror being stopped dead in it’s tracks by Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards whose battle went down to the last lap. Grand Prix Racing (Both in the MotoGP and F1 sense) was fairly dull. Carlos Checa led his Ducati to the WSBK title despite Ducati’s factory pullout. AMA Pro racing saw some stability return while Grand Am continued to be Grand Am (as in irrelevant to 99% of fans).ALMS/WEC/ILMC/24 Hours of Le Mans featured continued Audi/Peugeot domination.
Indycar and NASCAR both featured surprise winners. NASCAR kicked off the season with Trevor Bayne winning the Daytona 500. Bayne’s win brought the Wood Brothers back into victory lane. Latter Regan Smith won Darlington with Furniture Row racing. Smith’s win was especially impressive as he had to hold off Carl Edwards on old tires at Darlington. Marcos Ambrose finally won his road race. Last and least Paul Menard won the Brickyard 400 on fuel. Indycar featured two islands of unpredictability in a sea of Red cars and Andretti domination. The entire Month of May was a feast for fans of the underdogs. Sam Schmitt Motorsports (and its partner teams that were not Dragon) broke into the Fast 9 qualifying along with Sarah Fisher Racing’s Ed Carpenter. Tagliani won the pole. During the race it appeared JR Hildebrand was about to win the 500 until he crashed. Dan Wheldon managed to clear the wreck and reach the finish line winning for Bryan Herta. It should be remembered that Sebastian Saadevra left Herta last year for Conquest because Herta didn’t give him enough of a chance to win races. Fast forward to Kentucky where Ed Carpenter beat Dario Franchitti to get his first career win. Kentucky has been good to Carpenter and its loss next year will be felt by fans who want to see underdog wins and non processional racing.
NASCAR was generally unpredictable. Besides the aforementioned underdog wins we also saw the rise of a new star with Brad Keselowski winning 3 races and proving himself as a worthy successor to the Penske #2. This is even more significant since he’s going to have to help lead the team with Kurt Busch’s departure. Keselowski also had to pay a secret fine to the NASCAR Police State because he dared to say EFI was not relevant, green, and amazing technology. At least he wasn’t a Busch brother. They had a rough year with extra helpings of controversy. In the end they’re the most hated drivers in NASCAR. This is great as long as it doesn’t cost them their rides. NASCAR would be much poorer for their loss.
Going into 2011 Jimmie Johnson had won 5 Chase’s in a row. Thankfully he was stopped this year by a team of drivers including Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth. All of whom deserve credit for helping to end the reign of terror. Stewart and Edwards took the title fight all the way to Homestead. In the end Tony Stewart passed over half the field on his way to winning the race. Carl Edwards finished 2nd and in fact tied Stewart in the points. Stewart won on a tiebreaker as he had 5 wins versus Edward’s 1.
In contrast to that the two Grand Prix series (F1 and MotoGP) were fairly dull. MotoGP featured Casey Stoner Domination while Ducati struggled and Pedrossa, Lorenzo, and Spies injured themselves. A few good races did appear including Valencia and Mugello to break up the monotony. Although it wasn’t a good race Ben Spies dominated Assen to get his first career win. F1 could be summed up with one statistic: 2011 featured a record low of drivers to finish on the podium (7). The 2011 season saw the return of KERS and the addition of DRS but they failed to improve the racing. Instead we saw the Red Bull parade become even more processional as Webber rarely challenged Vettel (likely by design). Fans of “technical” racing, “pure” racing, or boring racing enjoyed it and that’s great for them. For anyone else 2011 Formula One was hard to watch.
The American Le Mans Series fell off a cliff with no prototypes and no TV. It was a pretty sad drop off after a fairly interesting 2010 season. While there are some defenders of the ESPN3 deal including ALMS’s CEO, and Triple League Racing co-writer Ross; for many more casual viewers (myself included) the combination of no TV and no prototypes spelled the end for our interest in the ALMS. With the ALMS no longer on SpeedTV the coverage on SpeedTV.com thankfully continued. However they were more focused on the Grand Sham then ALMS. The World Endurance Championship continues to hurt them. Worse the Petit Le Mans is not even on the calendar! Which means Petit will most likely not see Audi, Toyota, Aston Martin, or Peugeot show up.
WSBK continued to produce exciting racing and featured the resurgence of Ducati despite the official pullout of the factory Ducati team. Carlos Checa was the only Ducati to win a race. He also won the most races this year and the title. Max Biaggi’s destructive personality returned and hurt his title chances. A late season injury ended it. Marco Melandri and Eugene Laverty were winners with Yamaha. Sadly the announcement that Yamaha would pull out at the end of this year put a damper on that. Kawasaki also got a win in the rain! BMW continues to attempt to win a race and have announced Melandri as a replacement for Troy Corser. Over in America Josh Hayes won the title against Blake Young. Young won more races however. For Hayes 2011 was slightly disappointing as his goal after winning last year was to win the most races and dominate in a Mladin esque fashion. There is always next year.
In some surprising news Lotus Cars continued to exist throughout the year. They bought into Renault F1 and expanded that partnership heading into 2012. The Lotus engine program in Indycar continued. They signed a few teams and are expected to sign more next year. While an engine has been built they have not been put into a car and will not be seen on track until January. Lotus also has some GT car programs and a strange track day F1 style car for track days (if you have multiple millions of dollars). They made it through this year but will they be here next year?
Austin GP continued in turmoil. Austin has bounced on and off the schedule while constriction continues to start and stop. The announcement of the New Jersey Grand Prix for 2013 was another cause for concern. On the plus side Austin announced a slate of races including a Australian Touring Car race in 2012 and the third US MotoGP in 2013. Will Austin in the end happen? We still don’t know. At least they got the date moved back until November 2012 so that they have more time. It also means the fans that go to the track won’t get backed by the summer heat in Texas.
Sponsorship struggles plagued all series. The pullout of Suzuki from MotoGP, Yamaha from WSBK, and the continued withdraw of Renault in F1 (they continue to build engines but sold the team to Lotus) were the most obvious. NASCAR also saw major sponsorship issues despite strong TV ratings and good attendance. Their problems appear to be threefold. NASCAR sponsorships that were made (or renewed) in the 05-07 timeframe were sold at a high priced based on the idea of NASCAR’s continued growth. Since NASCAR has shrunk in the last few years and only started to right the ship this year that cannot be helpful in getting new deals worked out. NASCAR struggles demographically with younger fans, minority fans, and fans outside the Mid West/South East/Pennsylvania regions and that limits many sponsors (RE: Red Bull). Finally some of the cannibalization of sponsors as well as smaller deals and Official Sponsorship Of NASCAR may have devalued the market. The combination of these issues has led to contraction at Roush and Childress as well as the complete pullout of Red Bull Racing. It’s also prevented expansion of teams like Waltrip, Gibbs, and Stewart/Haas.
MotoGP’s struggles were just as worrying. There were only 17 bikes this year. Teams high and low cannot sign sponsorship deals. The Yamaha team went the entire year without a title sponsor and late breaking news is that Petronas left them. The shocking thing is MotoGP is the 2nd most watched form of racing (behind F1) yet cannot get sponsorship deals as good as what NASCAR and even Indycar teams manage to sign. A major push to sign sponsors is a must for next year or else they could be back to just 17 bikes before too long. CRT’s will help bike count some but without funding they will be horribly uncompetitive. WSBK has many of the same issues although they have a few more sponsors and factories. It’s not even worth talking about AMA.
Indycar is doing well with sponsorship considering they get .3 ratings. Still when Newman Haas cannot get sponsorship things are not good. There are still too many ride buyers and too few real, activating, sponsors. Track title sponsorship is an especially troubling issue and one of the reasons for the horrific 2012 schedule. On the other side of open wheel F1 continues to do okay although more and more ride buyers are creeping in. ALMS is not doing very well. Without TV what do you expect? Factory support remains in GT2 and that is vital for them. Most sponsors in ALMS right now are brought by the driver or the team owner’s business (RE: Muscle Milk).
The leadership in racing continued to make questionable decisions. Bernie Eccolstone and the FIA’s love of Middle Eastern dictators backfired with the protests in Bahrain. Despite this they are obsessed with racing in that nation and have scheduled a return in 2012 and nearly went through with a race in 2011. Randy Bernard opened 2011 with big promises and big idea’s only to end it with the worst schedule in years and a growing number of problems. Brian France continued to say what he wanted to be true rather than what was true. Dorna’s CEO (owners of MotoGP) recognized what was wrong in GP (only 2 winning teams, 17 bikes). The problem is his war on the factory teams could make things much worse. If the factory Ducati, Honda, and Yamaha teams pull out who will pay for the USGP’s and SpeedTV deal?
Sadly a wrap up of 2011 is not complete without discussing the tragedy that struck towards the end of the year. Dan Wheldon’s death at Vegas shocked the racing community both in America and worldwide. In the wake of this tragedy Graham Rahal organized the Dan Wheldon Charity Auction for Wheldon’s kid’s and wife. The amount of participation among drivers worldwide was impressive. It brought together people from F1, NASCAR, Indycar, and even a few MotoGP riders put stuff into the auction. The tragedy created some controversy with many people wanting to find someone or something to blame. Car count, “inexperienced drivers,” ovals, or the Vegas 5 Million Dollar Challenge were popular scapegoats. In reality his death was due to, as the Vegas accident report said, a “perfect storm” of events. Still it motivated a group of oval haters that are a combination of F1 and Champcar fans, drivers, and journalists. Just a week after Wheldon’s death at Vegas another tragedy struck the MotoGP in Malaysia. Marco Simoncelli was killed after crashing his bike and being hit by oncoming traffic. Coming so close after Wheldon’s death was especially shocking. The MotoGP community held a massive celebration of Simoncelli’s life at Valencia which included a “moment of noise” from the Moto2 bikes as a fitting tribute to the “Mad Fro Man.” In the MotoGP community there was a lot less effort to look for someone to blame and more acceptance of the “perfect storm” view.
As long as there’s not a second economic collapse 2012 is looking like a better year for racing. Assuming NASCAR is able to figure out the sponsorship crisis 2012 should build on 2011 and prepare for the “new” new car in 2013 that will hopefully produce better racing on the 1.5 mile ovals. F1 is still boring but maybe revised rules will help? WSBK should continue along as it is and be some of the best racing in the world. However MotoGP, Indycar, and ALMS are in a lot more peril. GP will live and die by what goes on with the CRT’s and factory teams. Should the factories pull out then who will pay for races and television? If the CRT’s are awful will anyone want to sponsor them in 2013? Indycar has a horrific 2012 schedule that has only 15 confirmed races (one of which may disappear). Indycar will not have a star driver in 2012 with Danica’s move to NASCAR. What driver does Indycar have that will attract casual fans? I’m pretty sure 99% of American’s could care less about Dixon or Dario. The 2012 car is not turning out as expected either. Hope seems to rest on the potential for Ford or Fiat/Ferrari/Alfa Romeo entering in 2013. As for ALMS much will depend on who really shows up next year. Does Robertson’s Ford GT and Risi’s Ferrari return? Will Newman Haas and Level 5 show up in LMP2? And will there be more than 3 LMP1 cars?
Triple League Racing Podcast #1 With John Hall of LiveFastRacing.com!
It has finally arrived. The Triple League Racing Podcast is now live! We have a very special guest interview with John Hall from LiveFastRacing.com and the LiveFastRacing podcast. His podcast ran from 2007-2009 and was one of the top racing podcasts around with an eclectic mix of racing series that included NASCAR, Indycar, ALMS, AMA Pro Racing, MotoGP, and World Superbikes. Personally it was my favorite racing podcast and a major influence on my blogging. I managed to find John and drag him out of “retirement” and get him back into the podcasting business for my inaugural show. John may have been out of the game for longer than this blog has been around but he was still on his A game. As it was my first time podcasting I have a few area’s I need to work on. So you’ll need to give me that. I think I was okay but hopefully when we do future podcasts I’ll do better.
I hope that readers, whether you like what I say and think or not, give this show a listen. Especially for fans of the LFR podcast. It’s nice to get John back out here. I’m incredibly grateful that John was willing to spend the time over his Thanksgiving break to cut a show with me. Yes, it was a few weeks ago but most of the information is still relevant. Due to being awhile ago we didn’t (thankfully) talk about the Kurt Busch incident, so those of you who are angry with me about that should still listen. Also no mention of the end of Newman Haas or any other recent (since Thanksgiving) news stories.
Topics covered included NASCAR, Indycar, ALMS, AMA Pro Racing, MotoGP and a little WSBK. Hopefully you guys enjoy it! I also need to thank Eric Hall (No relation) of Another Indycar Blog for helping edit the show. Make sure to read his blog and follow him on twitter. Eric will be a regular co-host on our show although he couldn’t make this one. We’re also planning to get John back sometime right before the season starts next spring and do a “pre-season breakdown” show. With a little luck this will be the first of many podcasts out of us! Thanks again to John Hall for coming on and getting us off to a good start. We’ll try and get onto Itunes within the next two weeks. And with luck, a new show next week.
AMA Pro Racing To New Orleans and Homestead?
The AMA Pro Racing series has announced it’s new schedule with a couple surprises. Road Atlanta also returns to the schedule. The news (to me at least) is the Homestead Roval and New Orleans race at Nola Motorsport Park. Nola Motorsports park is a new racetrack in New Orleans. Homestead Miami Speedway is the racetrack where NASCAR ends it’s season. Indycar used to race there too, until it got thrown out. Obviously the AMA won’t run the oval. Instead they will run the roval similar to the Grand Am series.
I have honestly never heard of a racetrack in New Orleans or Nola Motorsport Park. Using the miracle of Google I was able to find it’s website and an old Jalopnik article about it. It has some interesting potential but it seems like a club track. Not sure about how an AMA Pro Race will work there. Alan Wilson, the track designer and husband of former driver Desire Wilson has designed a fair number of tracks including Gingerman (Club track in Michigan), Miller Motorsports Park, and the infamous Barber Motorsports park. Take from that what you will. The track layout hasn’t been announced. Here’s the track map along with the possibilities. We’ll have to see how the riders feel about the safety and ability to pass when they test there. New Orleans seems like an interesting place to end the season. But you have to wonder about a club race track…
Especially as it’ll come right after Homestead. Rovals and motorcycle road racing is a controversial subject. There are serious safety concerns about racing a bike on a track with those types of walls and speeds. Rovals also don’t necessarily produce as good of racing as other tracks. Homestead didn’t sell out for the Sprint Cup season finale and didn’t do well with the Indycar season finale. I’d be a bit concerned what it’s going to look like with AMA.
Homestead Roval
This brings the AMA up to eleven races which is an improvement. It reduces the massive gaps in the schedule that AMA struggles with. The gaps in the schedule that remain are not as serious. That said the gaps that do exist still dampen the potential for building casual fan interest. As always with the AMA, the schedule can change. Just ask VIR. Now if only the AMA could get a decent TV deal…
Team Meeting: Season In Review: AMA Pro Racing 2011
The 2011 AMA Pro Racing Season ended early with Josh Hayes winning his second title in a row. The season saw some great on track racing, for those who saw it. Running races between 11PM-2AM and then going for months at a time with no races made drawing interest into the series almost impossible. Not racing Road Atlanta, losing VIR, and then not getting the final TBA date (suppose to be the season finale) ever confirmed. Despite these issues when the races were ran and when a person was able to see them they usually ended up being exciting. The on track action was excellent and a tight points battle continued all season long between Josh Hayes and Blake Young. So unlike a certain other American series which puts on horrifically boring road races, at least it was entertaining.
Hayes get's to keep the #1
Josh Hayes Goes 2 in a Row: Hayes challenged Matt Maladin for the 2009 AMA Pro Racing title and then backed it up by winning the 2010 title. For 2011 his goal was to repeat as champion and win a bunch of races. On the first goal he succeeded, on the 2nd one he failed. Hayes managed to just beat Young for the title by finishing 2nd in the final race of the season at New Jersey. On the race winning side of things it didn’t go quite as well. He only won 3 times, once at Infineon, Road America, and New Jersey. Hayes will enter next year hoping for a 3rd title in a row and more wins, basically, the same things he wanted this year.
Missed Predictions: I picked the right champion but I over estimated Bostrom and Tommy Hayden and underestimated Blake Young. I was close with Hayden. He finished 3rd in points with 3 wins. Bostrom… missed the mark on him. 2 podiums and 5th in points was all he could muster. Young wasn’t even mentioned in my pre season predictions… That was a slight over-site, considering he won 7 races!
Failure in Daytona: The AMA got off to a rough start in Daytona. The Daytona 200 (run by the Daytona Sportbikes not American Superbikes) was marred by a incredibly long red flag that was due to tire problems. Goodyear/Dunlop failures are not relegated to NASCAR alone, it appears. Jason Di Salvo blew an engine on the same lap the Red Flag was waved. His team was allowed to put a new engine in the bike. He was able to get his bike out in time for the restart and went on to win the race, which saw a Red Flag fly after the top 6 crossed the finish line.
Retro Racing
XR1200′s: “Retro” Looking Bikes in a Modern Setting: I’ve long advocated bringing retro styled race cars back into modern racing, much like the current Ford Mustang, Mini Cooper, and Fiat 500 do to road cars. In the AMA’s XR1200′s class “Cafe racer” style XR1200′s get raced around major American road courses. This class is one of the development series in AMA Pro Racing. Opinions are mixed. John Hall of Live Fast Racing is a supporter while Eric Hall (AnotherIndycarBlog/Triple League Racing) liked how they looked but not how they sounded or raced. I really like seeing a retro styled race series. A lot. The XR1200′s look like the classic race bikes I saw in the Gilmore Car Museum (speaking of things I need to write…). That’s pretty cool. In all honestly I’d be a lot more interested in the Daytona Sportbikes if these style of bikes (not just the XR1200′s) were the 2nd tier series.
Daytona Sporbike: Danny Eslick won the 2011 Daytona Sportbike championship despite a horrible start to the season. After a DNF at Daytona he rebounded with double podiums at Infineon. A late season surge saw him win at Barber, Mid Ohio, and Laguna Seca. With only 1 finish lower than 7th (Daytona) he was able to beat Josh Herrin (5 wins, 1 DNS, 1DNF, 1 29th place finish) for the title. Tommy Aquino finished 3rd in points. He was consistent but not a major factor for wins or podium’s until the last two rounds. Jason Di Salvo won the first 3 races but struggled afterwords. Hence he was 4th in points.
Indianapolis in the Future???: Could Indianapolis Motor Speedway be in the AMA’s future? Indy was listed as “Round 8″ on the AMA schedule online despite only hosting the XR1200′s during the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix. But the AMA series needs more races and they already partner with WSBK and MotoGP at Miller and Laguna, respectively. The Indy GP has a crowded schedule already but if the AMA is flexible it’s a possibility. Considering they only had 8 races this year they should be flexible.
AMA did not go to Road Atlanta this season
Scheduling Failure: The 2011 AMA Schedule was fairly disastrous. Road Atlanta was dropped heading into this season. The season finale was TBA as was the round at Barber. Barber was confirmed but the TBA season finale never materialized. As if that wasn’t good enough VIR was dropped for reasons I’m not sure of. Probably financial. Also not sure who’ fault that was. Still, when you only have 8 races for the main series spread from March-September, with multiple month+ long breaks (one from March to May) you’ve got issues. Either get more races or condense the season, because those types of gaps are unacceptable.
Return of Roger: Roger Hayden made his return to the US. He was much more successful than in WSBK. However he only scored 2 podiums and finished 6th in points. Not the triumphant return I had predicted but it might be a building year. If he keeps his ride there’s always next year.
Weak Field: 44 riders attempted to make at least 1 start in the AMA American Superbike series. However only the top 6 riders scored a podium and only the top 4 scored a win. Not a sign of a healthy field. The problem is that a couple teams with factory backing and sponsorship are battling against a group of privateer’s and really under-experienced/under funded teams.
Has Potential but it's not doing anything to grow itself!
On Track Racing Still Strong, But Does Anyone See it?: Although the field is really, really weak, the racing is good. There’s a lot more passing for the lead and top positions than in, say, Indycar on the road courses. But again who sees it? It’s on really really late. 10pm-2am depending on the race. There’s absolutely no media coverage outside of some spotty Speed TV coverage. It makes watching hard and it makes covering it, even in the limited amount that I do here, very very difficult. If the AMA could fix it’s major problems and get itself a decent TV deal then they might have a decent product that could be marketed as an extreme sport. But at the moment it’s not like that and it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any better…
Team Meeting; Weekend in Review: Labor Day Parade Edition
Indycar: This weekend saw Baltimore host it’s first Labor Day Parade. The race weekend got off to a rough start with lot’s of track problems. Things improved and attendance was strong. The track struggled to produce great racing as it was too narrow and the longest straight away got cut up by a chicane due to a railroad track that cut through the course.
On the plus side the top 5 at the start were not the same as at the finish (unlike Infineon). On the minus side Power won from pole. Again. While that’s pretty boring at least it means the Scottish Douche’s championship lead is down to 5 points with the Twin Ring’s of Boredom coming up next. Oriol Servia finished 2nd and Tony Kanaan finished 3rd. Kanaan was involved in a major wreck during warmup and started from the rear with EJ Viso’s backup car.
The attendance at Baltimore was very strong. I don’t know though, if it’s quite as good as some are claiming . Promoters attendance numbers are usually optimistic, to put it nicely. And part 2 is that with any event put in downtown Baltimore, what else was expected? I’m sure a food festival or a true Labor Day Parade would have drawn a lot of people too.
Which brings up whether or not the race will stay. While with such strong attendance it seems likely it’s worth remembering there were and are a lot of financial concern’s with the track. Will the attendance help bring more sponsors in and will the public continue to support it?
I probably sound pretty down on Baltimore. Honesty though it seems like a track with promise if the chicane goes away. The problem is Indycar’s really full of street courses and some are going to need to go away. Baltimore deserves to stay. But I did some math based on one of Curt Cavin’s Q&A answers, and I came up with the potential of 11 to 12 road and street races for 2012 and only 5 or 6 ovals. That is literally Champcar. I tend to think that won’t happen, but then something’s got to give. If not Baltimore, where? Does Toronto or Edmonton get killed? Sacrifice Infineon or Barber (we could only hope) or don’t revive Road America? As I’ve said before I don’t understand how it’s going to work out. Supposedly we’ll get an announcement this weekend. I just hope we don’t wake up to find ourselves in the Champ Car World Series Presented By Izod…
Simona was freed! She backed it up by making the top 12 in qualifying and having a good race undone by some late race pit issues. Seriously, give her a good car and she’d be great. I would imagine better than say, Kimball or Viso, to use two examples.
Indycar’s 2012 situation continues to have issues. Lotus is being Lotus. Which means nothing is confirmed and no teams are signed. Worse Honda and Chevy don’t really want to have more than 10 teams to supply. There are concerns either Lotus isn’t happening, won’t be willing to supply enough teams, and/or is going to be completely useless and slow. So instead of making things better and closer, it might make 1/3rd of the teams even worse off than they are now…. It’s not time to give up hope. But Lotus is not a stable company and the potential for another Indy Failure League Moment is high.
Indycar’s race control continues to do great things. This time they reverted to a previous lap after an incident on a restart (but in turn 3, so don’t blame double file restarts) caused a large amount of the field to stall out on track. Was it the right call? Hard to say. Despite reverting a couple cars had to drop out due to damage. But it’s a little concerning how often Race Control has reverted the finishing order. I’m glad they didn’t do this at Indy…
In more Indy Failure League news the 5 million dollar challenge at Vegas has died. No one wanted to do it. It didn’t help that Penske and Ganassi, being their usual douche selves, refused to enter a car despite having more than enough of them. As this was something I was really supportive of I’m pretty disappointed. People always are saying “you need to be more positive”. But when I get positive about something in Indycar it always seems to end up disappointing me…
Twin Ring’s of Boredom next…. because the best way to build momentum for the end of the season is to have a massive gap in the schedule with a race no one is going to or want’s to watch.
NASCAR: The Sprint Cup race was rained out on Sunday night. Due to the high threat of rain Monday the race was postponed until Tuesday. Oh, and it may rain Tuesday. The Cup guys have to be in Richmond by Thursday.
Cup Lite was won by Carl Edwards where as Cup Zero was won by a Truck driver, Ron Hornaday Jr.
Trucks (Cup Zero) are expected to announce a return to Rockinham North Carolina. That’s a pretty big deal to many fans who miss “The Rock.”
Whenever it’s run, Atlanta will host the “Sprint Summer Showdown” where the winners of the previous six races will get to compete for 3 million dollars. 1 mil for them, 1 for a fan, and 1 for a charity of their choice. Of the drivers eligible, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski are the most likely to pull it off.
His win brought the 2011 MotoGP title fight back from the dead
MotoGP: The Italian Grand Prix saw Jorge Lorenzo get another win, taking the momentum from an ill feeling Casey Stoner. Again Stoner’s neck injury caused him to struggle and finish 3rd behind Lorenzo and Pedrossa. No team orders there, although Stoner seemed a little annoyed about it. Stoner needs to talk to his former teammate Nicky Hayden about the things Pedrossa may do to his teammate when the teammate is fighting for the title. Maybe it was karma for the Dario esque whining in victory lane last week at Indy.
Despite the issues on race day Stoner did get another pole.
Spies qualified 4th and finished 6th. Another bad start torpedo’d any chance he had at a podium. He was able to hold off Rossi but could not pass Dovizioso or Simoncelli. Simoncelli passed Dovizioso and did not crash, getting his first finish ahead of Dovizioso for the season.
The fun at Ducati continued with Rossi finishing 7th and Hayden crashing out. For this team, it’s 2012 or bust.
Loris Caparossi announced his retirement this weekend. After the current season is over he’s done racing; no Superbike, no CRT.
Colin Edward’s CRT deal was announced. It’s expected he’ll get a Yamaha engine not a BMW. His new team is hoping for help from Tech 3 in developing a chassis but that’s not been agreed to yet.
Indy and Misano both confirmed contract extensions with MotoGP.
WSBK: An injury to Max Biaggi forced him to sit out both races. This saw him drop from 2nd to 3rd in the title. Carlos Checa started on pole from the Nurburgring. Checa easily won race 1 ahead of Melandri. Race 2 was run in the rain. Haga led early until he crashed out. In the end Tom Sykes won the race which was called early due to the conditions. Checa finished race 2 in 8th.
Sykes win was his first and the first for Kawasaki in a long time.
Marco Melandri didn’t win but he did take 2nd in race 1 and 6th in race 2. He’s now 74 points behind Checa.
ALMS: The Labor Day Parade also had a sports car component. Dyson went 1-2 in the 3 car prototype class. Falken Tire Porsche again won the GT race.
2011 AMA Pro Racing champion
AMA Pro Racing: Due to issues involving 2 races getting canceled New Jersey was the season finale for AMA Pro Racing. Josh Hayes started the weekend trailing Blake Young. Hayes won the first race and retook the lead. In race two Hayes had to finish 3rd or better to win, if Young won the race. The title was in doubt until the last lap. Young ended up leading the race with Hayes varying from 2nd to 5th. Hayes entered the last couple laps in 4th but Ben Bostrom went off track and Hayes used that as a distraction to catch Roger Hayden. Hayes won his 2nd title by 5 points. I’ll have a season review out… sometime.
Team Meeting; Weekend in Review: Blame Canada Edition
Canada has hosted two races this weekend; Indycar @ Edmonton and American Le Mans Series @ Mosport. I understand most of you probably didn’t know there was an ALMS race, as it got almost no publicity, but I swear it really happened. Neither of these races were especially exciting and both were marred by too many “avoidable contact” penalties. Add in the Indycar “race” at Toronto and American race fans have a lot of reasons to say “Blame Canada!”
NFL: What? Isn’t this a racing blog? Yes it is, but the end of the NFL lockout does affect racing. Both NASCAR and Indycar were hoping to benefit from not having to go up against the NFL in the fall. I was skeptical about the amount of a boost this would give these two series, but it would be better than nothing. Sadly, the players and team owners came to an agreement.
Indycar: Will Power won the incredibly dull race from Edmonton. Although in concept the track looked good and seemed to have a fair number of passing zones in reality it was too narrow and most of those passing zones did not materialize. In fact, the race had to be shortened from 90 laps to 80 laps to fit into the TV window because laps were taking longer than predicted. It had all the makings of another Indy Failure League disaster, but I was wrong and no major disasters occurred during the race. Instead of being an Indy Failure League race it was an Indy Insomnia cure event. Which was worse, in my opinion, at least disasters are a bit fun to watch. Sato got the pole but was not much of a threat after the first few laps. Power then led and led and led until the race ended. Throw in a few wrecks and that was it. In two weeks we have Mid Ohio to look forward too, so expect more of the same. Either a wreckfest or a parade.
I am not a fan of avoidable contact penalties and this race showed why. Yes, handing out penalties probably kept the race cleaner. BUT, it made the drivers too cautious and not nearly aggressive enough. As such it became a very boring processional affair. In what way is that better than Toronto?
I had some high hopes for this course and it’s layout and was pretty disappointed with the results. I mean it had so much potential with a longer straight and potential passing zones! But in the end it was too narrow. And people wonder why I’m cynical at times…
Adam Carroll and Simon Pagenaud will likely be in Indycar again. Because I’m sure there are thousands of American fans just dying to buy tickets and watch races on TV because of these guys. As Champ Car, Indycar, and indeed F1′s popularity in the US shows, American’s just can’t get enough random unknown international drivers. Please note the sarcasm in this paragraph.
In news about a driver who actually does have fans and a name in the US (more than any Indycar driver not named Danica) Travis Pastrana is planning on racing for the Vegas 5 Million Dollar challenge. Pending approval Pastrana is the first driver since Speed (who may have lost his invite) to come out publicly for this. Joey Hands and Simon Pagenaud both are believed to be interested but neither brings in any fans. Perfect 5 are Riakkonen, Pastrana, Block, Kyle Busch, Kasey Kahne, but this is unlikely.
The 2012 Indycar will take to the track at Mid Ohio during an open test for the first time. Hopefully it doesn’t look like an F1 car anymore…
TV ratings got a Tour De France bump in Toronto, and with no Lights race between them, are likely to get it again this week. Now will this bump in interest continue is the question, and will be get above Camping World Trucks on Versus this year? This is, after all, year 3 on Versus.
NASCAR: No Cup race; the Nationwide race at Nashville was won by, guess what? A Cup driver! The only notable thing about NASCAR this week was the invocation where the pastor channeled his inner Ricky Bobby and, among things, thanked god for his “smoking hot wife”. And that’s about the only interesting thing that happened this weekend in NASCAR.
F1: A Formula One race not won by Vettel!!!! Hamilton won. Eric will discuss this one latter on in the week.
ALMS: Who’s brilliant idea was it to schedule ALMS at Mosport right when Indycar’s doing their Canadian tour? Not that it mattered as the ALMS’s continued slide into oblivion continues. No TV deal and no hype leading into this race. Honestly I was surprised there was a race this weekend and didn’t realize it until the ALMS twitter account mentioned it. SpeedTV’s sports car guy didn’t even go to this race; he went to Grand Sham. That really says a lot. When you’re getting too down about Indycar’s direction, the ALMS proves it can always be worse.
The overall win (which had 3 teams competing) saw Muscle Milk win. In GT2, the Corvette won which is good. However, they only won because the BMW’s got avoidable contact penalties. I want to see races decided on track, not in the pits, not on fuel, and definitely not by some idiot in race control.
MotoGP: Casey Stoner won the USGP@ Laguna Seca. Interestingly, this race saw some actual on track passes! Lorenzo took the pole and early lead with Stoner in 3rd. Stoner caught and passed teammate Pedrossa and then caught and passed Lorenzo. Spies got a poor start but was able to finish 4th with a late race pass against Dovizioso. Hayden and Rossi fought for 6th and 7th with Rossi coming out on top.
Laguna Seca is a good track and produced a good race but even motorcycle riders and fans say it’s pretty tight and narrow. Rumors of a potential Indycar race have come up. If a track is almost too tight for a bike what is it going to be for an Indycar? Answer, a parade. So I would expect to hear Laguna confirmed for Indycar in the next few weeks.
The saga of Motegi continues. Riders have backpedaled some in their anti-Motegi views especially as 3/4 bike makers are from Japan. Unusually, Rossi’s been pretty quite about this. The latest radiation news out of Japan says that it is safe to go. The main problem is the condition of the damaged nuclear power plant. It seems like Motegi is safe enough but this is an issue that has polarized the MotoGP paddock, media, and fanbase. The Japanese and British on one side; Spanish and Italians on the other. It looks like the race will go on, but this will continue to be a story until we know for sure. I dislike Motegi on principle, but while I still believe the Indycar race should be canceled, there’s not much reason to cancel the GP. I mean the GP track isn’t damaged, unlike Indycar’s.
Ben Bostrom rode a wildcard LRC Honda. Sadly Bostrom DNF’d. However he was faster than Elias during the race.
Norton’s MotoGP program for 2012 (along with Suzuki’s) has been awfully quite. Both claim to be planning on a full factory effort… but at this point it’s looking very much like USF1 the sequel.
Ben Spies has passed Nicky Hayden and is up to 6th in MotoGP points, on the heels of Rossi and Pedrossa. Pedrossa jumped Rossi.
John Hopkins will get a wildcard ride for WSBK at Silvestone and MotoGP at Bruno.
MotoGP will take a short summer break and resume with Bruno and Indy latter in August.
AMA Pro Racing: The AMA Pro Series also ran a race at Laguna Seca. Tommy Hayden won the race. With VIR canceled and the tenth round never materializing only one race, New Jersey, is left in the season. This race will take place early September. Josh Hayes and Blake Young will be fighting for the title when that time comes.
