AGV Backmarker: Sanctioned. Or Not.

“Remember in the story Dune, how they just had a sense that something was underfoot,” my friend said, “and then a sandworm would appear? That’s what this feels like to me.”

My friend was addressing rumors that the underwhelming response to Roger Edmondson’s recent West Coast OEM tour was an indication that the Big Four are—again—mulling over the prospect of a rival series. Actually, it’s not much of a rumor (yet) and definitely not a prophecy.

Still, that thought crossed my mind last weekend in Las Vegas, where the Rockstar U.S. Open supercross race was taking place at the MGM Grand. James Stewart ended up winning both races, so in that way it resembled quite a few past races. There were factory teams and bikes—again, like what you’d see at an AMA supercross or AMA Pro national MX.

But while it drew a good crowd and will be broadcast on CBS—something our road racing series could only dream of—it wasn’t part of any national championship. It was just a freestanding event; strictly a commercial proposition.

The fact that it was not part of any recognized championship didn’t devalue the Open, as a showcase for the new Yamaha YZF450, when Bubba won both mains. The promoter and sponsors all seemed happy; the only complaint I heard was that Bubba checked out on the rest of the field in the first race, taking away some of the drama. That’s fairly typical for supercross, and even for road racing—though to the credit of the new-and-bitterly disputed rules, it didn’t happen much this year.

But I digress. All this made me wonder, who really needs an AMA or AMA Pro sanction?

Now, I should point out that the AMA did sanction the U.S. Open. Feld Entertainment, the promoter of the event, puts on Monster Energy Supercross, so they’ve got an ongoing relationship with the AMA.

Another case in point is the X Games. ESPN has completely leapfrogged any national aspirations and has created de facto world championships in several of the X Games events. Many people don’t even know or care that the FIS, which sanctions snowboarding’s World Cup events and provides the rules and officials for Olympic events, doesn’t sanction the X Games.

Sanctions, and the authority of sanctioning bodies, come and go. For years, the FIM recognized the American Federation of Motorcyclists as the official representatives of motorcycle racing in the United States. On the car side, if you ask people in Indianapolis and Charlotte who won the national championship last year, they’ll answer Scott Dixon or Kyle Busch. It’s largely a matter of perspective.

There was a time when a few key events set the tone for the AMA championship. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, there would often be several current and ex-world champions on the Daytona grid. The Springfield Mile, Laconia… Back then, anyone who claimed they were running a true American championship, without those events, would have been laughed at. Even more recently, the World Superbike Championship and MotoGP ennobled the AMA Pro series by sharing race weekends in Utah or at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

AMA Pro’s imprimatur has lost some of its value. When AMA Pro told Miller Motorsports Park how much money it would need to bring the series to Utah in support of the this year’s SBK event, Miller said thanks but no thanks, and put on its own support races.

When Edmonson described the XR1200 spec class under consideration, there were predictable moans that AMA Pro Racing was (again) kowtowing to Milwaukee. No matter how you feel about the “Buell rules”—and today’s Harley-closing-Buell bombshell notwithstanding—there’s nothing inherently wrong with a spec class for the country’s biggest brand. Such a class ran in Italy a couple of years ago, and judging from this amateur video, the grids were large and the racing was close.

I was chatting with Azhar Hussain a few weeks ago, about the prospects for an American championship in the TTXGP electric class. In addition to the TTXGP race on the Isle of Man next year, he’ll promote a UK series and a full-on FIM World Championship, which will run as a support class at selected World Endurance events.

Azhar would love to have a U.S. championship, too, but he said, “I spoke to Roger and he shut me down.” I know a TTXGP class would have brought a lot of media exposure and potentially a whole new class of high tech sponsors to AMA Pro nationals.

If a rival series wer promoted, packaged, and widely presented as the American championship—and if it attracted the best riders on the fastest bikes—the fans would soon all agree that it was the U.S. championship. (We tend to have a short memory; just fifteen years ago, Formula USA nearly supplanted the AMA’s series as the country’s premier road racing championship.

Last year, when there was open talk of a rival series, one of the arguments against it was that there simply weren’t that many dates available at national-caliber tracks. But since then at least one new track has opened for business in New Jersey, Miller didn’t host AMA Pro this year, and Brainerd’s been extensively renovated and lacks a major motorcycle date. Plus, the tanking economy probably means that key stakeholders wouldn’t mind a calendar with fewer dates, anyway.

Another thoughtful paddock insider I spoke to pointed out that, open track dates or not, it would be virtually impossible to stage a rival series in 2010, unless one is already deep into the planning stages. “You’d need to already have talked to potential sponsors, to insurers; you’d need to have someone writing a rule book; you’d already have booked dates.… Someone would have blabbed by now,” he opined. “There’s no way that come March, the MIC is going to say, ‘Ta-dah!’ and announce a rival series.”

I agree. But with Honda and Kawasaki anticipating a sabbatical year, and a reduced presence by Yamaha and Suzuki, there’s already a sense that 2010 may be the season that wasn’t. There’s time to get a rival series up and running for 2011 or ’12.

What would it take for a six- to eight-race championship run under those rules to be accepted by the fans as “the” U.S. championship?

1. Most of the best riders would have to be in it.
2. The events would have to feel national-caliber (like the U.S. Open).
3. Last but not least, it would have to have a good TV package, with appropriate media and promotion support.

Of course, an equally fair question is: What would it take from AMA Pro Racing to ensure the existing U.S. national championship remains the country’s premier motorcycle road racing series? Well, see 1-3 above.