Motorcycle road racing in America has not met expectations for quite a while now. Our guys are no longer dominating GP racing as they did in decades past. MotoAmerica, our premier road racing league has made strides by reinstalling the 1000cc bikes as the premier class and bumping the 600’s down to B-team. Hiring my Internet-buddy Andrew Capone as rainmaker for the series is another great move towards professional sponsorship and revenue generation. I’ve never raced on pavement but I rank as an expert spectator due to the sheer number of road races I’ve attended. I’ve got a few ideas on how to make MotoAmerica better and I’m not shy about cranking them out.
From my cheap seats way in the back of the bleachers the first thing that needs doing is to make all racers have large, flat, standard size number plates with a stark contrast between the background and the number. These plates should be situated so that they are legible when the motorcycle is upright or leaned over. Copy how AMA flat track does it. I have no problem seeing the plates they use. So many times at Daytona I’ve lost interest in a race because the stylized graphics on the motorcycles obscure identifying marks. Numbers that are fairly easy to read in a still photo become much more difficult to read when the motorcycles are trotting past at 100 miles per hour and the view is 100 yards away with a barrier fence between you and the action. A hard to follow race is a boring race.
American road racers are never going to get back atop the pinnacle of GP racing until they test themselves against the world’s best. It’s expensive for a US rider to got to Europe so why not bring Europe to the USA? What if all the contract issues could be solved and MotoAmerica paid start money to a few of the GP guys? Pay Rossi to start a few races, Marquez or Dovizioso would be a huge draw. I’m guessing the increased gate alone would pay for Rossi. This harkens back to when European motocross stars were paid to compete over here. American racers gained first hand experience on where they needed to be in order to defeat the best. There is no physical barrier preventing our top AMA racers from competing on even terms with world-class GP racers. Show our greyhounds the European rabbit and they will move heaven and earth to stay on their tail.
Paying start money to stars will cost a lot so MotoAmerica should welcome any advertiser with money into the road racing world. Alcohol, cigarettes, recently legalized medical pot growers, even trailer park Oxycodone dealers should be allowed access to the audience for a price. MotoAmerica can be the expensive venue for all manner of sin-tax products to sell their wares. The squeaky-clean motorcycle racer thing cannot work. The general public will never engage with MotoAmerica because they think all motorcyclists are riff-raff. MotoAmerica should embrace the outlaw buried deep within every rider’s heart.
I have more ideas for MotoAmerica, lots more. Some of them un-publishable, some of them illegal or require three people. How about free programs to go with that expensive ticket? What if a few road races counted towards the flat track championship? Wouldn’t it be a crowd pleaser to see a circle of FT guys show up to battle on pavement in a close flat track championship? Anyway, I’ll wait here at Tinfiny Ranch for the inevitable MotoAmerica call asking me to join the team. I’ll have to decline; monsoon season is coming and I’ve got a lot of concrete work to do in preparation.
I do enjoy reading your rants, raves, stories, and motorcycle refreshment pieces. I swear that you could watch grass grow and make it an entertaining read.
Lord! How I miss the exciting days of the mid-1990’s through early 2000’s with Duhamel and Mladin duking it out. Chandler, Zemke, Spies, Polen, Hayden, the Bostrom Brothers, etc. Remember “Two Wheel Tuesday” on the Speed Channel? Remember when all the AMA Supberbike races were broadcast every week?
We can thank Daytona Motorsports group for “NASCAR-ifying” motorcycle racing in America and ultimately strangling it.
I really hope that Wayne Rainey and MotoAmerica can cultivate some talent for the world stage. Ever since Ben Spies left WSBK, I don’t care about it anymore.
Sadly, I don’t think we’ll ever get any top tier European talent to compete in any series over here. Their corporate sponsors probably wouldn’t let them take the chance of injuring themselves in a non-MotoGP race. (But we can only hope. . .)
Cheers,
Dan K.
I’ve attended several AMA road races over the years, though I’ll admit not as many recently. I drove or rode to Road Atlanta, VIR, Daytona, Mid Ohio (RIP), Indy (also RIP) and Utah to watch races. When the NASCAR folks got involved a few years ago, the racing actually improved, though the money apparently didn’t. The fans seemed to stop attending just to spite the NASCAR connection. Most racing in the US has suffered since the economic downturn in the late 00’s. When the Krave folks took over everyone was shouting that things were going to get better. Unfortunately, they seem no better. The TV coverage seems amateurish at best. The crowds are staying away. The actual racing (what little that’s televised) seems competitive, but I get the feeling there’s still not much money. When my family and I drove cross country to watch the racing at Utah a couple of years ago you could count the fans. I had a Suzuki rep chase me across the parking lot to give us all free tickets. That’s both great and sad at the same time. I think you’re right that the key to the entire series is money. Someone needs to get much more creative in finding series sponsorship. My wife is a retired sales rep for a TV station and she just shakes her head at the marketing efforts made by the racing series in the US. Someone decided social media is the key, and no one wants to spend any real money to advertise their series. Some manufacturers are spending a little, while others refuse to even field factory teams. The US isn’t the center of the motorcycle universe any more, and it’s reflected in the limited funding the manufacturers are willing to spend here.
That long run of 600cc Yamaha racing didn’t help matters.
The BEST idea ever! Put a giant, flat track style number on ALL the bikes! Then you would know who was who! Gresh you are a genius!
The 600cc idea was not a good one that we all agree, and the marketing efforts have been pretty weak and unfocused for sure. People follow the stars and right now there are no stars to follow. Heck, who are those guys? Put GIANT Flat track numbers on the bikes and GIVE everyone a program, you cannot tell the players without a program you know! The NBA has been pretty successful in using the star system why not US motorcycle racing?
Unlike NASCAR fans, motorcycle fans still care about who made their motorcycle.
There should be some way to cash in on this.
Somehow, some way get Honda back.