AGV Backmarker:
Daytona notes: Who cleans up after a storm of controversy?
March 16, 2006
By Mark Gardiner
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I raced up in Alberta for a few years. That’s in western Canada, north of Montana. I know what you’re thinking: There’s something north of Montana? Then, for a few years, I raced in Loudon, New Hampshire, while living in the aptly named town of Sackville, New Brunswick. That’s north of Maine. In both of those places, each March, I had to shovel my car out of a snowdrift and drive to some sports bar that had a satellite dish in order to watch the Daytona 200.

So when I found myself living in Texas this spring, I was determined to do something I’ve always dreamed of doing: ride to Daytona for the 200. It was, I told myself, only 1,200 miles from McKinney. Of course, the only motorcycle I had at my disposal (that ran and was licensed) was The Chick’s 1973 BMW R75.

I told myself that in ’73 it would have been one of the best possible choices.

Road food for thought. Breakfast at a Waffle House somewhere in west Florida. This is perhaps the only restaurant chain with menus that carry a disclaimer to the effect of, we’ll cook your food to order but considering the bacteria counts around here, don’t blame us if you fall sick and die. No kidding, “serious illness or death” are the exact words used on the bottom of the menu. I guess I was taking my life in my hands riding down there. Mark Gardiner photo

I was stopping to fill the bike and stretch my legs at the first gas station after each “00” clicked over on the odometer. In the dark, that put me in New Orleans. I should’ve filled early; the west side of town by the airport was lit up and looked more or less like business as usual. But by the time I saw exits for downtown, it was eerie. I knew there was a city out there, but I couldn’t see a light anywhere.

For miles.

Miles.

I started imagining just how much of a hassle it’d be to run dry there. When, every now and then, I saw a light off in the distance, I pulled off the highway into what was basically Sadr City. The only pools of light were generator-powered spots illuminating some fenced-off building or business, presumably so security guards could see potential looters.

Keep Out.

None of the traffic lights worked, so every intersection was a four-way stop, but there was no reason to even slow. I was the only guy on the road. Every time I pulled off hoping to find a gas station, I wasted another few miles of range, but I was still lured off a couple more times. Once, a promising complex of buildings that was all lit up turned out to be a hospital with its own power. A couple of car dealerships had the same deal.

Not that I didn’t see lots of gas stations. It’s just that they were all fenced off, dark, blown-out. The average modern sport bike has a headlight that would’ve been the envy of a Bol d’Or racer when the Bimmer was built. My headlight cast a yellowish pool about 30 feet in front of me, and every now and then I had to swerve to avoid huge piles of rubble that had been bulldozed into the middle of the street and left there with no flashers or warning of any kind.

Running out down there would be worse than running out on the highway, so I got back on I-10 and switched to reserve, figuring I’ll either get out of the war zone and find an open gas station or run dry trying. When I did come across a brand-new Shell station, I wasn’t bothered by the fact that gas was about 30 cents a gallon more than it had been 100 miles west of Big Easy.

Maybe another time, I’ll tell you more stories from the road. Like passing the large county lockup van filled with a chain gang that was all black, except for the white sheriff. Or stopping for Cajun food; when you see “pork spine stew” on the menu, that’s when you know you’re off the beaten track. But for now the thing that strikes me is that there were really two tragedies in New Orleans.

The first was that it was destroyed by Katrina. The second is more subtle. No one—not the civic, state, or federal governments; not FEMA or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; not the American Institute of Architects, not even Halliburton—has a plan to take advantage of what is also an incredible opportunity.

Look at is this way: Despite the fact that rescue and rebuilding efforts deteriorated into whining and finger-pointing after the storm, the part of New Orleans that everyone came for—the French Quarter—survived essentially intact. The parts that were dysfunctional were wiped off the map. No major U.S. city has ever had a better chance to reinvent itself, keeping a great heritage alive while starting over with a clean slate in all the areas that sucked.

The use of a pace car in the Daytona 200 was rife with errors. Andrew Northcott photo

Instead, on my ride down I saw one tawdry mobile home after another headed that way. You know that human nature being what it is, those temporary solutions are going to end up being more-or-less permanent. You think the lower Ninth Ward was one of America’s poorest and most blighted neighborhoods before? Wait ‘til you see it reborn as a trailer park.

I’m not an AMA pressroom regular. Nor do I have a bone to pick, personally, with AMA Pro Racing. In my limited contacts with them, they’ve always been polite, professional, and helpful.

But I was there to follow the Buell story, and although letting those bikes race in the 200 didn’t cause the current apparent implosion of Pro Racing, the decision did trigger a storm of controversy. Amongst pundits, the “Buell Rule” was quietly cited as the reason for at least one high-profile resignation and was rumored to be the reason for another departure (though the word “Buell” never made it into either announcement).

So, I was sensitized to the general level of rancor toward Pro Racing on the part of riders, team principals, and (particularly) the press.

Daytona is the one place where supercross and superbikes cross paths. It’s obvious that SX outdraws the 200. That might explain the widely shared feeling that the AMA has not promoted road racing effectively. Many note the lack of a title sponsor for the Superbike championship (although it’s not clear to me how a series sponsor would benefit most of the complainers). A better TV package would help attract more out-of-industry sponsors. At a lot of the tracks where we race, there were never big crowds. But old hands remember the days when the 200 was an international event drawing riders the likes of Hailwood and Agostini. A great heritage seems to have been squandered, even though Bike Week itself still draws a horde of motorcyclists.

There’s still a lot of bitterness over the decision to move the 200 down to the FX class (though I think that was dictated by the Speedway and that the AMA essentially had nothing to say in the matter. If they wanted to keep the tradition of the Daytona 200 alive at all, it was going to be for 600s. And Harleys, but that’s another story).

And on and on. But what about the fact that the Pro Racing board had just been dissolved, Merrill Vanderslice was packing up his desk, and indeed that the entire structure of Pro Racing and its relationship to the AMA was being re-struck? At best, reactions ranged from very cautious optimism to continued pessimism.

Then the pace car incident happened. Yamaha filed a protest, though the exact nature of their complaint was not made public. While Ron Barrick pored over TV tapes, the assembled press corps waited. And waited. The ‘stands emptied. The champagne dryed on Jake’s leathers. Down at the far end of pit lane, privateers celebrated or commiserated over beer. All the big team transporters grumbled off into the darkness. And finally poor Ron came down to explain what had happened.

AMA Pro Racing appears to be in crisis. Andrew Northcott photo

There had not been a pace car practice session, as there had been years ago when pace-car use came into effect at Daytona (the only round where one is used). There was only one person in the car, not two as per written procedure. Riders were not waved past the pace car until the lead rider caught up to it, as the rules also specify.

By way of explanation, the AMA’s official stance was pretty much, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Barrick, who was actually driving the car, took the fall. Though he stopped short of an outright “mea culpa,” it was clear from his body language and tone of voice that no one was more disappointed with the outcome than he was. It was clear that no amount of negative feedback, at this stage, was going to make him any less inclined to repeat those errors. It was also clear that nothing could be done to un-launch the pace car, to un-run the race, or to undo the result.

It was, in short, past tense. And my point in telling you this is that the atmosphere in the room was beyond tense. While the pace-car incident was a fiasco, it was obvious that a lot of stuff that had simmered for weeks (or years) was boiling over.

Over the next couple of days, I had a lot of time to think, as I trundled home on The Chick’s bike. I wondered whether the relationship between AMA Pro Racing and the professional motorcycle road racing community can be fixed. Will anyone really give the new order the benefit of the doubt, or will the next mistake (and there will be one) be greeted with similar angst, bitterness, and general bridge-burning?

In the absence of a comprehensive, transparent, well-funded plan that’s supported by all the constituents, New Orleans will only be newer, not better in the wake of Katrina. The same goes for AMA Pro Racing (especially the Superbike series), where the lights are still mostly out.

The AMA should try one more time to rebuild American road racing while our long racing heritage is yet unbroken, and they should do everything they can to make it work this time. They might not get another chance.