There are a couple of good if contradictory articles in Soup's website and Cycle News over the last few days. Here is my take...

Mat Mladin spoke his and others minds after Superbike on Saturday. To say he was extremely critical of the proposed (and Mandated) change in rules and structure for next season is an understatement. You can read it at Soup and I agree with 90% of what he said although I think he's overly harsh in his assesment of the abilities of other riders. Although truthfully as an old time race team manager once told me there are basically "A" rider's, "B' rider's and everybody else. There are probably only 12 A riders on the circuit as we speak. ( I could write a whole thread on this aspect alone but I'll save it for another time, let's just say you'd be surprized who is or is not on the A list or who is or has become a B rider.)

Cycle News reported that Yamahas Keith McCarty was apparently trying to act as peacemaker/consensus builder between DMG and the OEM's by suggesting a rules change somewhere between what had previously been agreed to for 2009/2010 and what DMG was now proposing/mandating. To which Roger Edmondson gave the following "choice" to the OEM's.

1. OK we can do that but you have to agree to field a minimum of 4 bikes each or

2. You can do what I've already said (superstock) and I'll drop the minimum bike requirement.

According to Edmondson he has responses from 3 of the 4 OEM's, however it gets sticky about who did not respond. Cycle News say's it wasn't Suzuki, while Edmondson himself say's it wasn't Honda that didn't respond. Well both things can't be true. We already know that Yamaha proposed the compromise and that Kawasaki has been "on board" from the beginning
so who's lying Roger or his staff.

The bigger issue here is that the choices are not really choices. At least half of the OEM's want no part of what is being proposed/mandated and have already said their not fielding 4 bikes each. Edmondson goes on to say he's going to do what he wants to do and get on board or else and further that it can't be any worse than it is now! Oh really?!

He also goes on to tout Moto-St and cites that they have legends like Springer and Filice racing that series. Well that's true they are racing a Kawasaki EX500 making roughly 70hp and you can measure their lap times around Daytona with a Sundial.

That is not a knock on them but please realize their racing for fun not for a living. If Roger thinks a promoter is getting excited about having that show as anything but a filler I think he's spending too much time reading his own press releases. Note I raced and won Endurance Championships and as a rider I loved the track time but other than family and friends nobody showed much interest in buying tickets to see it.

To wrap this up for now. One of Mladins points was that DMG was going after a type of fan (Nascar) that is clearly not the same as the existing motorcycle race fan. There is nothing wrong with that goal but I think it like many that that fan is looking for something that motorcycle racing can't provide. Riders are not sitting in steel cages and while there is some fairing and handlebar banging on occasion you won't find rider's putting competitors into the wall for some perceived infraction in practise or in the pits or at dinner last night. The last thing a rider wants to see is mutiple bikes crashing because 4 guys want to fit where only 2 can..it's just a different sport and fanbase.

So stay tuned the "rules" package is due soon and we'll see how this saga develops.