No to Factory Superbike in 2009

Henny Ray Abrams | August 15, 2008

ALTON, VA, AUG 15: The 2009 AMA Superbike Championship will not include a Factory Superbike class after none of the manufacturers responded to the Friday afternoon deadline set by the Daytona Motorsports Group. On Tuesday August 5, DMG CEO Roger Edmondson sent queries to all of the manufacturers asking if they would support the class, which some had previously requested. (The rules were to be based on the 2009-2010 rules agreed to over a year ago by the now defunct AMA road race committee.) Edmondson said the class would proceed if there was a guarantee of at least eight machines. Since none of the factories responded, it meant the class was doomed. Instead, there will be two sprint races on a weekend, the horsepower and weight-restricted Daytona Superbike class and American Superbike, with rules similar to the current Superstock class. Red Bull AMA U.S. Rookies Cup and Moto-ST will also run at select events. “It’s past closing time here and there is clearly not sufficient support to include Factory Superbike in our program and we won’t,” Edmondson said in a phone conversation from Daytona Beach, Florida. “It’s not a surprise that those who didn’t ask for it didn’t respond, but it is a surprising that those who asked for those rules didn’t give me the courtesy of saying no. Other than that we are ready to move on with double-headers in American Superbike and Daytona Superbike.” Edmondson did get one response, but it didn’t address Factory Superbike. “I heard from one of the competitors that they were hoping to get me an answer by yesterday and it didn’t come in at the end of business today,” he said. “I made it clear that a non-answer was a ‘no’ vote.” As to whether the rules might yet be altered, Edmondson said, no. The Daytona Superbike class would be restricted by a horsepower to weight ratio. “This is the set of rules that we’re going to run our series by next year,” he said. “In short order we would now like to be in a position to announce a schedule, we would like to be in position to wrap up tire RPF’s (request for proposals), which will be going out Tuesday. We would like to talk about teams coming on board. It’s time to stop talking about rules and moving on.” Edmondson is now embarking on a cross country motorcycle trip with one of his sons. They’ll ride a pair of Harley-Davidsons, a Road Glide and a Street Glide, arriving at next weekend’s Grand-Am race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California in time for a Friday meeting with the AMA road race promoters.

Henny Ray Abrams | Contributing Editor

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.