MotoGP's gay question: confronting the elephant in the room, 2008

A little less than five years ago, I had dinner with a friend of mine here in Kansas City. He'd been a VIP at the inaugural Indy MotoGP event, and had run into a paddock insider who, in the course of pointing out various people at one moment pointed to some guy and told my friend, “...and that's Rossi's lover.”

My friend asked for clarification and was told that this was something lots of people knew but didn't openly talk about. The source was a guy who worked in a PR capacity with Fiat, who had worked with Rossi a bit.

I asked my friend, "Was your guide pointing out 'Uccio'? Rossi travels to all the races with some buddy named Alessio Salucci (aka Uccio) from his home town, and I don't think their relationship is sexual, but I can imagine that others might..."

My friend, however, didn't remember the name of the person described as Rossi's lover.

I raise this topic now because at the pre-Jerez press conference a couple of weeks ago, David Emmett -- of MotoMatters.com fame -- asked the assembled stars why there'd never been an openly gay MotoGP rider. The assembled riders, of course, were mostly pretty young; they've grown up in an era of increasing acceptance of public homosexuality, and were nonplussed by the question. But I'll bet you that privately, the organizers and 'old guard' of the sport were displeased by David's question.

While I didn't read any comments from Rossi himself, he was the elephant in the room. Other people with a stake in the story pointed out, at some length, that Rossi's relationship with Uccio wasn't 'gay', that Uccio had a child, and that Rossi's been squiring some hottie lately, but the couple kept her out of the limelight.

When a friend of mine returned from the 2008 MotoGP event and reported that it was an open secret that Rossi was gay, I was doubtful. I had another friend who had better-than-average access to the factory Honda team when Rossi'd ridden there, and I asked that guy about it, off the record. The person I asked, who obviously must remain anonymous even now, was someone I thought would be well informed but very conservative with his opinion. I expected him to quash the 'rumor' out of hand. I was surprised when, after a pause to consider his response, he said, "Well, I wouldn't say 'gay' but I could believe he was bi, and I don't think he's the only one in the paddock."

Meanwhile, back to the summer of 2008...

In telling me that story, my friend wasn't expressing any judgement of his own as to the truth of the rumor. He was telling me the story because he felt the experience of hearing it was interesting. (He was a huge Rossi fan and his admiration was not dimmed by being told Rossi was gay. My friend's girlfriend was certainly bummed by this 'news,' however.)

My first thought was, well that would explain why I've never seen paparazzi photos of him cavorting nude with some Italian supermodel on a private beach (though I'd certainly never seen him cavorting with hot guys, either.) My second thought was, it would probably be harder to come out in Italy than it would be here.

The first thing I said out loud to my friend, just as he said almost the same thing was, "If he was gay, it would sure be interesting if he came out."

A day or so later, I posed this question on my Facebook page: Is Valentino Rossi the most famous gay athlete? Back then, I had about 120 Facebook ‘friends’, who were almost all either motorcycle journalists, or motorcycle racers. That was 2008, remember, before FB privacy had eroded. At the time, there was a general sense that Facebook posts were quasi-private as opposed to quasi-public.

My reason for posing the question was to make my 'friends' question their own values. That required the question to be framed in a provocative way. Had I written, 'I don't know or care if Rossi's gay, but hypothetically speaking, how would that make you feel?' no one would have noticed.

The question attracted over 20 responses in a few hours -- a record for me at that time -- and triggered vitriolic backchat. So much so that for the first (and, I think last) time, I actually deleted a post. People basically told me, “You’ll never work in this town again,” which was relevant since I was earning most of my living writing about motorcycles. Only Simon Hargreaves, at the great UK magazine Bike, seemed to understand the spirit in which it was asked.

Anymore, I don’t give a shit. But I always wanted to clarify my own position – not on the question of Rossi's sexual preferences, but on the reasons I had for questioning it. And, I thought of all this again when MotoMatters opened Pandora's Box at Jerez.

The (mostly) negative reaction to my Facebook question could be divided into two categories: comments from people who felt the question was simply off-limits, and from those who felt that even the implication was an insult to Rossi and basically anti-motorcycling. (One member of the AMA Hall of Fame accused me of trying to destroy the whole sport.)

Before I address those two categories of response, I'll give you full disclosure: I slept with him.

Just kidding. He's not my type.

But seriously... When I posed that question, he was keeping MotoGP afloat, and every MotoGP stakeholder should’ve contributed to a billion-dollar life insurance policy on him, to cover their losses should anything happen to him – because if anything had happened to Rossi, the sport's whole fan base  would have evaporated.

But was the question per se off-limits?

One point of view is that public figures are still entitled to private lives. I'll call this the Sean Penn argument. And I don't buy it.

When you accept the rewards of celebrity – money, preferential treatment, etc., – there's a quid pro quo, and it is that many of the fans who fund your infinitely-better-than-average lifestyle are, in fact, justifiably curious about lifestyle. Of course they are, they paid for it.

This was especially true, IMHO, in Rossi's case. His elaborate, choreographed victory-lap celebrations were part of a conscious plan to blur the boundary between on-track and off-track fame.

It was especially, especially true given his tendency to play unseemly (and in his case unnecessary) head games off the track. Both Max Biaggi and Sete Gibernau were dogged by 'gay' rumors at the time when Rossi delighted in skewering them.

To the best of my knowledge, Rossi never said, to the fawning, sycophantic journos and paddock insiders who fomented those rumors, “Hey you guys, that's over the line.”

The rumor-monger my friend ran into at Indy was not alone. Other MotoGP insiders kept their thoughts to themselves (in public, though not in private) because #46 was MotoGP's Brahmin and it was a career limiting move to say anything that could be perceived as harmful to him.

Some people felt my question was off limits because they'd adopted the don't-ask-don't-tell position taken (until recently) by the U.S. military.

Although I'd probably come down on the it's-a-personal-decision side of that argument where private citizens are concerned, there is a well-developed philosophical position that holds that gays in general, and role models in particular, have a moral imperative to come out. Watch 'Milk,' starring the noted paparazzi-puncher Sean Penn, for more insight into this position.

Finally, some people felt the question was off limits because they interpreted it as an anti-gay slur from me. Since anyone who knows me or has closely read my work over the years knows that's ridiculous, I won't bother debating it.

As for the people who felt that even posing the question was a slur, all I can say is that the tone of the responses suggests that I was correct to assume it would prove provocative.

Like David Emmett, I find it ironic that a sport that's wrapped up in notions of rebellion and individualism remains, in fact, staunchly conservative.

Frankly, I never got over Wayne Rainey's accident, and have had only an outsider-looking-in/comparatively dispassionate interest in 500GP/MotoGP since then. That said, I'm a committed supporter of underdogs everywhere, so while I now feel a bit sorry for Vale, in 2008 I rooted for the field, not Rossi.

Back then, he made winning look too easy, too often. I watched too many elaborately planned victory celebrations that made me realize that in Rossi's mind, winning was a fait accompli.

If I had known he was a closeted gay, I would have liked him a lot more, because it would suggest that he carried a burden off the track. He'd seem more human, less godlike. (I admit that there's a good chance I'd find him quite human in person.)

If he was gay and came out, it would make millions of homophobes, around the world, question their own values and prove that Rossi was as brave off the track as he is on it. That would cost Rossi in particular and MotoGP in general a lot of fans, but it would gain Rossi one fan: me.

For the record, I don't think it's ever gonna' happen.

Tour de Media: Ups and downs

Honda takes on title sponsorship of Pikes Peak hillclimb

I see that American Honda will become the official sponsor of Pikes Peak, entering a bunch of cars, bikes, and a quad. The entries include an electric car but no electric motorcycle. (I guess they couldn't arrange to borrow the Mugen bike that will race again at the TT in June.)

The driving/riding duties seem to be handled by a Honda's American R&D staff. Jeff Tigert, a 'known fast guy' on the West Coast, will be riding a CBR600 in the 750 class.

I didn't see a Honda motorcycle entry in the big bike class, so I guess we won't see a Honda-Ducati showdown for the outright course record. I have to wonder, though, what this means for Ducati. For the last few years, they've done a great guerrilla marketing job at Pikes Peak. They've been the de facto title sponsor, without paying for official status, just on the strength of a well-managed PR program. They may not manage to 'own' the event this summer, if -- as I expect -- Honda backs its title sponsorship with a soup-to-nuts PR program.

I think that my friends at Faulkner-Livingston Racing did too good a job managing the Ducati Pikes Peak program; they proved that racing there could generate great exposure for a relatively small investment.

Barring a high-profile PR disaster (read: fatality on the all-paved, fast, and as a consequence more dangerous course) Honda's involvement signals a quantum jump for the hillclimb, in terms of returning it to past glory as one of America's highest-profile motorsports events.

Fisker proves Christensen's theory again

I've written before about the way disruptive change comes up from the bottom of the market, not down from the top. And now, I read that Fisker -- the high-dollar electric sports car -- is about to fold. I suppose the guys who now run Mission Motors are looking at Fisker and thinking, at least we didn't do that.

Every now then I try to arrange an interview with the people at Vectrix, who have partnered with Daimler's Smart unit, and are developing a cheap & cheerful low performance electric scooter. That's where I expect real success for an EV two-wheeler. (But somehow, Vectrix senior management seems to be avoiding me. I guess I've got a reputation as a bushwhacker.) If I ever get them to return my calls, you'll hear about it here first.

AMA Pro Racing finds its long-lost Superbike TV deal

Last but no means least, AMA Pro Racing just breathlessly announced that the rest of this season, and all of next season's Superbike and DSB-class road races will be broadcast on the CBS Sports cable network.

That's a lot better than no TV deal, and most of the series' stakeholders are probably eager to trumpet it to existing and potential sponsors. But don't kid yourself; the racing's not on CBS, it's on CBS Sports, a cable channel that is, like, Channel 521 out there in far reaches of obscure cabledom.

Actual audience figures for CBS Sports are hard (read: impossible) to come by. The channel is not a Nielsen subscriber, so I could not get an independent estimate of viewership. The network coyly says that it is "available to over 100 million households" [my italics].  That does not, however, mean it's available in 100 million households. It means that it's carried by cable providers that serve that number of homes. A better guess is that about half that number of homes actually subscribe to a package (i.e., a 'sports tier') that includes CBS Sports.

If you want a working figure, you can say that somewhere between a third and half of American homes currently subscribe to a cable package (or something like the Dish Network) that gives them access to CBS Sports network, although most American households could get access to the network if they were willing to spend an extra few bucks a month.

That's a lot of potential viewers, but it hasn't translated into many viewers for most of the content carried on the channel. I've read estimates in the advertising trades (the ad industry, of course, makes audience estimates its business) suggesting that even popular CBS Sports shows measure their audience in the tens of thousands. This is not a return to the days when motorcycle racing occasionally showed up on Wide World of Sports and was exposed to millions of people who weren't even looking for it. No broadcast of this year's AMA Superbike series will even be seen in 0.1% of American households.

I don't want to be a 'Morose Mark' on this topic. Like I said, this deal's a lot better than no TV deal. But my message to AMA Pro Racing is: You can not -- and must not -- assume people will find, and watch, the Superbike series now that it's 'on TV'. It's available to a wide audience. Now you have to convince that wide audience to watch it.

What I mean is, now that people can watch it, we need to tell them where they can find it, and why they should go to the trouble. AMA Pro Racing needs to develop a social media campaign that leverages everything all the many stakeholders, especially riders and sponsors, are already doing on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. They should be advertising online, where a lot of the young action-sports enthusiasts they could capture already spend a lot of time. There should be beer coasters in sports bars, telling patrons to ask bartenders to switch one of the televisions to our network. There should be ads at every AMA race and handbills in every motorcycle dealership, telling people in that particular market what channel number they need to program into their remote. Because the only way we'll build an audience is by telling people how to watch us, and why they should bother.

We've got a TV deal. Big whoop. Now, let the audience outreach begin.

Notes from the Blue Groove: It's twins!

I think that the newly announced Basic Twins class for 'Pro' riders is, basically, a good idea.

Under the current class structure, Grand National Experts race twins on half-miles and miles, and race 450cc stock-framed, motocross-based machines on short tracks and TTs. In the only support class, up-and-coming Pros race on the MX-based bikes on all tracks. When this format was introduced a few years ago, many people decried the loss of the 'framers' on short tracks. There were also complaints that the 450s would be far too slow for the Mile races.

'Too slow' is arguable, but the singles races on Mile tracks turned out to be thrilling drafting battles in which -- even by flat track standards -- the racing was a little too close for comfort. It would be a little different, maybe, if the tracks themselves were old-school, deep cushion deals... but they're not; nowadays, they mostly groove up into one-line affairs.

Jesse Phibbs, 21, died a month after crashing in the 2010 Indy Mile. And while I think he was the single class fatality, there have been a few too many close calls. I think twins will prove safer on the Mile tracks -- spreading riders out a little and allowing for slightly different corner lines, even if they're marginally faster. After all, the idea is to bring up promising young riders, not maim or kill them off.

It remains to be seen how the rules will shake out in detail. I presume the new twins will replace singles at all Mile tracks, but what about half-miles? Will some of those be designated 'Twins' tracks and others 'Singles'?

I know it won't make me popular, but I think some consideration should be given to making the Basic Twins class a 'stock frame' class. Go ahead, roll your eyes, but hear me out: When the 450 MX-based bikes came in, people bitterly complained that they were, basically, pieces of shit compared to real 'framers'. But the fact is that while they are slower, cruder bikes, the racing hasn't suffered. More grassroots sponsors -- dealers who sell 450 motocross bikes -- were brought into the sport. And the cost of fielding a competitive machine fell at least a little. Remember the old 883 Sportster class? Those stock-frame bikes were pigs, but the racing was great.

I think the same thing could happen with a Basic Twins class that specified stock frames. Bikes would cost less to build; they'd look more like street bikes and be more attractive to dealer sponsors; they'd look visibly different than the Experts' bikes, which would reduce the prestige erosion at the very top.

I'm just sayin'...

A note from the Dept. of Modest Proposals: Cancel Daytona

I was going to write a blog post bemoaning the 2 1/2-month gap between Daytona and the next AMA Superbike race weekend. I was going to ask, "Is there really no Speedway availability later in the spring?"

Ago won the 200 in 1974. And damned if I don't have trouble remembering who won it last month.
Daytona is dead. Long live Daytona.

The early start/long gap schedule forces teams to rush preparations Bike Week; that's a bigger problem for the smaller teams. Then, the marketing of the series loses momentum during the hiatus; that takes the wind out of the promotional sails (and sales) for the bigger, commercial/factory squads. Nobody thinks the current schedule is good.

A March event made sense decades ago, when Bike Week in general and the '200' in particular attracted an international field. The race had to be scheduled before the Grands Prix season, and before the big Easter meetings in England (then the de facto head office of the racing industry.) It was an informal trade show and industry conference; everyone who was anyone was there. That's no longer true of the year's first AMA 'National'.

So I was going to say, reschedule it. But as I started composing this post, I realized the answer isn't rescheduling Daytona. It's canceling Daytona.

Let's face it: Daytona's not just an outlier on the AMA schedule, it's an outlier, period. No matter what you do to the course infield (and there have been several changes to the layout and course distance over the years; remembering when qualifying ran on the oval alone?) the banking still makes it so unique that the tire supplier makes special tires for it.

Face this, too: It's all about the '200'. Every other class is just an appendage to the main event, which has lost so much prestige having been downgraded to the second-fastest class that now there's hardly a main event at all. But, whether teams are competing for less prestige or not, machines still have to be built with special refueling and tire change components.

I don't think it should be part of the AMA Superbike series at all. I'm not saying they shouldn't hold it; I'm just saying that it shouldn't be a points-paying race in the American national championship.

I think, instead, that DMG should take a page from the Isle of Man's book.

DMG should study the way that the Isle of Man has steadily gone about restoring the TT as a stand-alone event that is not part of any championship.

Like the TT, Daytona was a world-class (and sometimes actually a World Championship) event, attracting the world's top riders, until some time in the '70s. Then it fell on hard times, and for years -- for decades -- when old hands gather to talk about it, the talk is only that it's a shadow of it's former self.

Since 2004, when the Manx government took over the TT and created a strategic plan to grow the event's prestige back to long-lost levels, they've done a great job. It was achieved, in part, by actively going out and recruiting riders and/or teams that the organizers thought would add to the event. The TT Press Office works year round to build the event's profile.

In fact, top TT teams (who already refuel, albeit not with dry-break equipment, and change tires) could probably be lured over to race the 200. Some World Endurance teams might come, too. (I would have said, make it a part of that championship, but the FIM would never homologate DIS for a world championship event.)

As a first event on the AMA Pro Racing schedule, Daytona sucks. But the Daytona 200 would make a great one-off race. What do you say, DMG?

No kidding. Mike Kidd gets the heave-ho from AMA Pro

I see on the Roadracing World web site that Mike Kidd's been fired from his job as head of sales at AMA Pro Racing. You can read RRW's post for yourself, but between the lines it seems that RRW feels, as I do, that Kidd was a competent guy in an untenable position.

I doubt that Kidd was surprised by the axe, given the absence of a TV package for AMA Pro's top 'summer' product, the Geico Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Championship. (I hope I got that series name right.) Whether Kidd failed to put together TV coverage, or whether the failure was the fault of his employer, or can be blamed on the product itself probably depends on who you ask. Many would blame today's television industry per se.

Anyway, despite the sport's obsession with TV, the entire medium may be passé. I don't even own one.

People interested in learning more about Kidd can read this interview that I conducted with him after the 2010 flat track season. It was originally posted on the old Road Racer X web site, but that's long gone. Luckily, I was able to dig this out of my archive...

Originally posted in November, 2010

When the Daytona Motorsports Group took over AMA Pro Racing a couple of years ago, they drafted Mike Kidd to run the Grand National Championship. He was an obvious choice – an ex-GNC champion who had gone on to a successful promotion career, developing the sport of Arenacross. On the Superbike side, Roger Edmondson came in and, at the very least, ruffled a lot of feathers (some would say he weakened the series just before the economy tanked and delivered it a body blow.) 

The sport Kidd took over, flat track, was on far shakier ground, but he came into the paddock with credibility and vastly better interpersonal skills. The good news, if there was any, was that flat track had nowhere to go but up. The bad news was that while DMG wasn't necessarily planning to milk the cash cow completely dry, there was no indication that Bill France was planning on solving flat track's problems by throwing money at them, either. It would be up to Mike Kidd to pull his sport up by its own bootstraps.

As an outsider looking in, I think that he's gone a long way towards doing that in the 2010 season. New winners like Lloyd Brothers (with Ducati) and Werner-Springsteen Racing (with Kawasaki) have attracted fresh interest; the racing's been great; new promoters and venues have (re)introduced the GNC in markets where it had long been absent.

A week after the season's final race, I had a long chat with Mike about where the sport is right now, how it got here, and where it's headed. This is Part 1 of that interview. While I haven't tried to capture all of his Texas drawl, as a journalist it's always a pleasure to talk to a straight shooter.

Backmarker: I think that the last time we spoke was shortly after the DMG takeover. I don't think it would be much of an exaggeration to say that flat track was at a low ebb. I remember talking to Chris Carr, that first DMG season at Daytona, and he told me, “We've got nowhere to go but up.” Now, two seasons into it, how do you feel about it?

Mike Kidd: When this whole thing started, when DMG took over the road racing, and the flat track, and all that, I flew down and spoke with Roger Edmondson, who was in charge at that time and I had a five-year plan drawn out. We've kind of been following that plan. 

Of course, you get sidetracked as you go along, but after that meeting I spoke to the riders and teams. I told them, Changes are coming, those changes aren't going to please everyone, but those changes have to happen if we want to get our sport back to a point where manufacturers could take a look at it, and use it to market their products.

BM: You've done a lot of things that you said [in our last interview] you'd have to do; you've done a lot of things that other people in the paddock told me you'd have to do. For example, everyone agreed the series had to get back to California, and this year you had a new event in Calistoga that was really well received. How do you feel about the calendar, and how that's shaped up, and event attendance?

MK: We've been watching attendance over the last three years, and in general we and our promoters are pretty happy. In a tough economy, we're either holding our own or even increasing our gates. So that aspect is pretty good. As for going to the west coast, that's where the manufacturers are based, there's a strong motorcycle base out there, and of course there's a strong fan base out there. Bob Bellino, who's been a friend of mine since the Camel Pro days found Calistoga Raceway and it was a perfect fit. The west coast fans were eager to see us come back. Northern California was a hotbed, with the old Sacremento Mile, San Jose, Fresno... it was good. It was a great event. The only downside was, it was in the middle of the season and we had to go to the west coast for one event and then go right back to the east coast. That was stressful on the teams.

BM: Are there good new promoters coming out of the woodwork and saying, Hey I want to get a piece of this action? Or are there, maybe, good promoters who'd dropped flat track years ago, coming back into the fold? How much change is there from year to year in the group of promoters you work with?

MK: Getting new promoters up to speed is difficult. When I say 'promoters' I mean promoters that put on a variety of different kinds of events; monster trucks or concerts or auto racing. When they look at motorcycle racing they see it's a passionate sport. Putting on a Grand National race is expensive, and to make it work for them they need a deal.

So, as I heard that, we created a deal where a new promoter gets a 20% discount on sanction fees and purses in their first year, and a 10% discount in their second year. By the third year, they should be up to speed. And it's worked. That's probably a program we're going to have to stick with over the next couple of years, while the economy's down and we're trying to grow the sport and get new events.

BM: Are you basically working with a different promoter at every race?

MK: Springfield, the IMDA is our largest promoter because they do four events. But most of the other promoters do single events, and I have to be honest with you, that's a problem in that those promoters – although they're interested in the series – are concentrating on their single event. That's where AMA Pro Racing has got to step in, and make sure that we bring the same show to every event, that the spectators can see the same format at every race, because these promoters aren't familiar with what they can do.

New promoters are green, and we have to walk 'em through the first couple of events and that's what we've been doing. I would like to find a promoter that would take on four or five events around the country, and as we find new venues, I could pick up the phone and we could add an event – someone would already have their staff together; that would be the easiest way to add an event.

BM: When you look out at next season, or two years out, are there venues that you think, Man I'd really like to be there – either because the GNC used to go there and it's fallen off the calendar, or just because you've looked at big markets that aren't being served?

MK: We've been working since spring on expanding our presence in California.  We'd love to bring Pomona back; it was on the schedule in '09 and we lost it last year, but we're talking to a couple of promoters that would take that on in 2011. There's been several phone calls and promoters trying to touch base with Cal-Expo in Sacramento to get that back on the schedule. If we had those two, and Calistoga – and I kind of consider Yavapai Downs in Arizona to be a 'California' round – that would take care of that need. [A friend who drove out to Prescott from L.A. for the GNC finale told me that it was a shorter drive, for him, than going to Calistoga - MG]

We have had phone calls from Castle Rock to bring the short track and possibly the TT back on the schedule. That would give us four or five events on the west coast. Of course I'm from Texas, and I think we need to be here in Texas. We used to have a strong fan base down here, with myself, and Ronnie Jones, Terry Poovey, Bubba Shobert from Texas and Oklahoma... I think there are some strong pockets in the Northeast, we used to go to Syracuse, and there were several tracks in Pennsylvania and New York that we used to go to; that's an area we have to concentrate on. The Southeast – trying to get back around the Carolinas, Virginia.

We get emails and phone calls from motorcycle dealers and ordinary fans, asking us to find tracks in their areas, and bring the series to them.

BM: When you say 'Texas' I think of the Astrodome...

MK: You know, all of us that came from the old Camel Pro days; the Astrodome was such a magic event. Everyone had new leathers, new motorcycles... we were guaranteed an event because it was indoors. I'd like to bring that back, but I don't know where that facility would be. I do know that the Tacoma Dome, up in Washington... at certain times of year that's available. That's an area where TT and short track racing is hot. Maybe an indoor race in Tacoma would work...

BM: ...and Tacoma's the kind of town that might really get behind it. They don't have a lot of pro sports right there, and the Sea-Tac metro is a strong motorcycle market; you see a lot of bikes on the street up there.

MK: And Mickey Fay came from there, and Joe Kopp. There's a fan base there. If we could find a promoter, we'd sanction an event. That region has a lot of motorcycle dealers that are good marketers; when I was with Formula USA, we ran a Mile up there, and when I was with Arenacross, we ran a couple of events at the Tacoma Dome that went well. We know there's a fan base, but we have to find a promoter.

BM: The long term health of the sport hinges on money. Riders and teams have to at least hope to make money; promoters have to be pretty sure they'll turn a profit; and surely DMG – AMA Pro – must have a business plan for flat track that will eventually show a profit. So, what is the next step that will make things better for the teams, promoters, and AMA Pro.

MK: The next step is TV. Chet Burks is doing a great job for us this year [webcasting races] and I'd like to keep that going, but we'd also like to extend out and be on Speed and some other networks but that costs money, and you have to have a show worthy of being put on TV.

We started restructuring the 'show' portion of our races – running on time, determining how many laps a heat race should be; a Main... during downtimes, that we're entertaining the crowd. These are things we had to get in place before we could jump on TV. I think we've done that. We're starting on time now; the racing's excellent; the teams are starting to have a good presence. 

So, now's the time to improve out TV presence, but we're in a Catch-22... in today's environment, networks don't pay you to appear, we actually have to pay to be on there. Do you get the sponsor first, to afford the TV? Or do you buy the TV and then go find the sponsor? We're working on that balancing act. I've got several meetings planned over the next few weeks, to fly down to Florida, to meet with our senior members of DMG, to see where we'll try to go over the next couple of years.

BM: What would it cost to get on TV?

MK: It's a wide range; it's the time of day, if you're in prime or overnight, who produces it... I can tell you, because I bought my TV packages in Arenacross – we worked with Chet, and Dan Murphy, and we were the first motorcycle racing on Speed, in '96. I had a five-year deal, and I'd never heard that you had to pay to be on TV... but I took money out of the bank, and we bought the TV, and lo and behold, we made money on the TV show because we had enough sponsors to offset the cost.

Buying the TV, minimum, depending on where you are, is probably $40,000 a show; if you want to get a network, on Sunday in prime, you're probably talking $300,000. You fit your sport where it needs to be; the MadTV, Versus, Speed, those are perfect for us.

BM: Versus does a great job with the PBR [Professional Bull Riding]. The bull riders put on a great show, but Versus does a good job promoting it, too.

MK: They do, and that's another thing you want with your network. You want them to be a partner, promoting your show 24/7/365. You gotta' get a partner in to help build the sport.

BM: When we spoke at the beginning of your tenure, we talked about improving the schedule, and TV package, but I don't remember talking about diversity – getting more manufacturers interested and involved. That may have been just because I didn't ask you about it. But in the last year, wins by Ducati and Kawasaki have raised the profile of flat track in sectors of the motorcycle industry in general – and the motorcycle media in particular – that have not paid much attention to the sport in recent years. Now, I get the impression that increased diversity has become an important part of your strategy...

MK: You have to have the manufacturers involved for any motorcycle racing series to succeed. They pay the riders, they sponsor events, they help subsidize the series. Harley-Davidson has done a great job for flat track for decades, but when the economy's the way it is, everyone struggles. Harley-Davidson needs other manufacturers to be involved. Until now, the riders, the promoters... we all called Harley-Davidson for support. There's only so much money; [Harley's] gotta' sponsor a rider, and subsidize the Screamin' Eagle teams, and oh, by the way, they've gotta' sponsor the Springfields, and here comes AMA, and they need money... We need to be able to turn elsewhere – go to Ducati or Kawasaki – and that's not going to happen until they can play and win. 

I think we're there with the rules package now. People have told me, You'll never get those manufacturers involved, but I think that if they can compete and win, the dealers will get interested, and then they'll pressure the manufacturers, and say, This is something we should support. That happened last week at the Kawasaki dealer show. Henry Wiles was there, and Bill Werner was there with his twin, and they drew a huge crowd and those guys congratulated Kawasaki for being involved, and they won the 'Manufacturer of the Year' which surprised everyone. 

It's not something that, you snap your fingers, and the manufacturers come racing again. But when they come on board, they bring money to the teams and the series.

BM: I have the feeling, when I look at what's been happening on the road racing side, that on the part of DMG there's a long-term strategic goal of making all of the properties more production-based...

MK: You know, to be honest, although we're one company, road racing does their thing and we do our thing. There's a crossover with Al Luddington coming to both events, but there's never been a meeting in one room where we've all said, Let's go production racing. That's never happened. But we know production racing is what manufacturers can afford to do. When they start racing exotic machinery, costs go up. In America, we can't afford those costs. MotoGP can...

BM: I'm not so sure even they can...

MK: ...right. All that has to do with the economy, too. The manufacturers are tightening their belts. The one thing we have is, the manufacturers all love to go racing; that's bred into them. And they love beating each other. That helps us. But we have to have a means for them to promote their product and sell product.

To be honest, that's something that... flat track kinda' got left behind for the last two or three decades. The teams, all they felt they had to do was unload their Harley-Davidsons and go racing. And manufacturers were off racing motocross, supercross, superbikes; all those other things but not flat track. And there was no leadership in flat track saying, Hey we'd better make some changes if we want them to come back and look at us as a marketing tool. The teams weren't concerned about it; all they cared about was making more horsepower with their Harleys. 

They weren't looking around saying, Hey we need to get some support from other brands. They weren't going to the AMA and saying, Make some changes so we can bring other brands in. When I came on board, that was one thing I was desperate to do. 

And another thing brands do – this is the racer in me coming out – in the early part of my career, we had BSA, Yamaha, Triumph, Harley-Davidson, Norton... as a rider, at the end of the season I could get on the phone and start putting deals together. For the last two or three decades, riders didn't have anywhere to go. Jared Mees, last year, won the #1 twins plate but lost his ride with Harley. And I'm not slamming Harley – they had to do what they had to do – but he had nowhere to turn.

I know what I did with my #1 plate, I went to Honda. I won the championship riding Yamaha and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and I went shopping!

BM: As I've been mulling this over, I think of your career and remember that you experienced the last great moment of brand rivalry in flat track, when Honda put the RS750 up against Harley's XR-750...

MK: And I'm not patting myself on the back, but even before I put together my Honda deal, I put together my U.S. Army deal. But at that time, we had CBS, ABC – that was before ESPN and all these cable channels and we had a good following; we had RJ Reynolds money... I went out and sold my program to the Army, and then I rode for Yamaha, and Honda, and then I went out and said, OK I'm done; I'm going to go and promote races now.

At AMA Pro Racing, we've got to teach our teams how to sell themselves and get sponsors. It's up to us to have the package for them to go and sell. We've got to say, Here's the 24-race series, here's the attendance, here's all the manufacturers involved, here's the win ads they ran, here's the aftermarket companies involved. Pretty soon, the teams have something to sell and they get funding, the promoters get funding, the AMA gets funding... then we start attracting the energy drinks. To me, that's our tobacco money. It used to be Camel and Winston; now it's Red Bull and Monster and Rockstar.

We're not getting much of that money yet. I've been preaching to our teams and promoters that we've got to reach another generation of fans. We've got to get the youth involved, and that's what our production 450 class is doing. I can tell you that I got beat up – by the old hard-core, 60, 70 year-old fans that hate those “motocross bikes on flat track”. But what I have to explain to them is, 15 or 20 year-old kids grew up looking at those bikes, reading about those bikes, and they go, Wow, I didn't know you could flat track those – and it stirred up their interest, and the manufacturers know that they're selling bikes for [and because] of flat track...

BM: And people thought they'd suck, but the racing has turned out to be great. That helps.

MK: The first time we tried racing production-based bikes [against the XRs, about 10 years ago, in the Supertrackers class] guys like Terry Poovey told me, “Dang, these bikes are hard to ride,” and I'd walk away thinking, that's not bad. Because what I was seeing with the framers was, the bikes were handling so good that the track would groove up real fast, and they guy that got to the front first would go to the groove and it would be a one-line race track. 

If you look at our singles class now, all 80 guys that show up at a big race are having to ride as hard, or harder than the guy at the front. They're up on the gas tank, they're moving around, and it's entertaining. I've never liked it where you just run to the bottom of the race track and you pole-putt around and accelerate out. The DT tires worked so good, and the chassis worked, the powerband worked, the front forks... I'm not going to say they're easy to ride, but it looked easy and that took away from the spectacle.

I think on the entertainment side, on the marketing side, the Singles class has a lot of room to grow. I think the manufacturers are going to realize this is another venue for them to go out and sell those 450 singles.

BM: Pursuing that a little – and I have to say I'm in favor of the hard control tires you're using now – but as an outsider looking in, I wonder if the hard tire is contributing to a real narrow groove on most tracks?

MK: There's some controversy there, and some people say that but I disagree. If you've got a soft tire that sticks, you can pinpoint it to a two-inch wide groove every lap. I remember that feeling; you could run in as fast as you wanted, put the brake on and hit your mark. To my way of thinking, a harder tire makes it harder to do that, and makes the groove a little bit wider. The tire does work better, on the hard compound, when it's stuck on the groove – but it's harder to find that groove for 25 laps in a row. And that makes the racing more interesting. We saw guys slip off the groove a few times in Arizona, and with a soft tire you might not say that.

BM: I talk to a lot of riders, and ask them, What kind of tracks do you like best? And a lot of them tell me, I like a gnarly, deep cushion. I sense some frustration that that doesn't happen very often. At Indy, for example, they seemed to have more option in terms of line choices. What are your feelings on that?

MK: You can't make a cushion track out of clay, and you can't make a groove track out of sand. So, when we get to a track, we have to create the best track we can for the surface we've got that day. Even Springfield changes from race to race. A year ago, at the last race at Springfield, it rained the day before – in fact we had to cancel the short track – and the next night on the Mile the track was so tacky that riders came back and told us it was scary. 

If we could make every track a cushion, would we? No. Because a lot of these riders aren't geared up for it. If we took half these guys and threw them into Ascot, where we used to race, it'd scare them to death. You talk to the Springers, and they guys from that era – you can talk to Chris Carr – the guys who raced at Ascot... you pretty much had to leave your brain in the pits! It was brutal. A lot of these guys say, We want a cushion. We could rip up our tracks and make a cushion but the spray hurts, it's extremely fast, and if you go down, you get hurt. 

We have to make the tracks safe and fast and put on a good show. And part of that is, at 7:00 p.m., we have to sing the national anthem and then go racing. We have to build the best track we can, at 7:00. I've had people say, This isn't rocket science, you guys should be able to build that track. Well, let me tell you, when you're looking at your watch, and the wind's blowing at 30 mph, and it's 104 degrees, and you put your mag[nesium chloride] down that afternoon... you have to become a chemist; when does that last load of water go down so you can start at 7:00. I can remember going to Grand National races after I retired, and sitting there watching the water truck on the track, all night long.

We've told these riders, Guys, we're in the entertainment business. Before the National, it'd be great to put another load of water down and rip it up. But it'd be midnight before we got on the track and you know what?.. We're not going to do that any more. The track can always be made better, and we may have to touch it up every now and then, but that's where the T-shirt cannon comes in, and we've got other things going on. But if you look at us now, once we're on track, the intermission's 15 or 20 minutes max. After that, we're goin' racin'.

BM: At Prescott, I spoke to Chris Carr about the current equilibrium between the XR-750s and the production bikes [with larger displacements]. Although he's a Harley man himself of course, while he was pleased that other brands were competitive he's worried that under the current rules it might be possible to build bikes that are too powerful.

MK: Almost all our tracks have walls and guardrails around them. Tracks like Indy, Springfield... they're the same tracks that I raced on with 75-80 hp. Tracks aren't any wider or safer, and yet guys want 100 hp. We don't have two riders in the pits that can ride 100 hp flat track motorcycles, and one of 'ems getting ready to retire and that's Joe Kopp. We've got a pack of guys who can ride bikes from 80-90 hp.

We're trying to create a sport that will attract dealers. We hope the dealers will eventually go to the manufacturers and say, We'd like to get some support. I don't think we're ever going to see the full factory efforts, like we saw with Yamaha and Kenny, or Honda with Bubba and I. I don't think we're going to see that again. But these satellite teams are popping up in supercross and road racing, and they're funded teams, but they're run through [private] race teams, like a Chris Carr team. That's what Chris has his work cut out for him. He's got seven brands to pick from, come 2012, because he wants to transition into being a team owner [only].

BM: Christmas is coming. Imagine Santa coming to you and saying, Mike, what would you like under the tree? And you'd immediately say, I want all my races broadcast on network TV, I want seven factory teams with salaried riders, major sponsors from outside the industry... and Santa would say, Whoa, whoa, whoa!.. Ask for something I can actually deliver. What's the best thing you can reasonably hope for, for the sport of flat track, in the next year or two?

MK: I'll give you a go. I would like to have one race on a network – CBS, NBC, ABC, or Fox – it would probably be Springfield, because it's a day race and it's always close. Let's say we have 20 races; I'd like another ten races on Speed or Versus, five or six on MadTV, and whatever else we have, if we don't have a TV package, have them live on the Internet. 

The whole key to this thing is exposure to the masses, and to new people. The Internet is a great way to do it, and great way to reach people, but they still depend on TV to watch sports, and that's where we've gotta' go. That's gonna' help the series, the teams, the riders, the promoters and sponsors,.. everyone.

BM: Last question... that was something you wished for. What is something you're sure you can do – something that's within your control – that will make the 2011 season even better than 2010?

MK: We're working on this now... we're taking the series to some new, big markets like Pomona. I think we'll get to the 'Red Mile' in Lexington, KY. If you take a 150-mile radius from there, there's a huge population of motorcyclists. It's getting into nice facilities in major markets.

My challenge to MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3 teams: Ask, "Where's Kevin?"

Last fall, when Kevin Schwantz filed a suit against the Austin's Circuit of the Americas, I wrote,

...if I was Dorna, I'd have told COTA, "Hey, we want Kevin to be involved, not an adversary." He's a charismatic guy, well known to local Austin media and beloved by specialist motorcycle media all over the world. Why on earth would you want him as an enemy? It would have been cheaper and strategically wiser to cut him a minority stake in the event.

Unless you just emerged from a coma, you already know about the latest round of tit-for-tat press releases, sparked by COTA's threatening, bullying behavior -- Kevin showed up at a recent test as an invited guest of a participating team and was told that he was trespassing and that if he ever came back he'd be horsewhipped, tarred, and feathered.

I still say it would be smarter to have found a way to make America's most popular GP racer a part of the event. But it seems that they'll host a MotoGP round in Texas next month, and the single person you'd most expect and want to find at the event will be locked out of it.

Texans know bullshit.

I certainly don't know what really went on between Schwantz, Dorna, COTA, and Hellmund. I'm guessing it will eventually come out in court. But to the limited extent that I know any current or ex-GP heroes, Kevin's the one I know best. I don't think he's delusional; I highly doubt that he just imagined that he'd have a role in promoting MotoGP in Austin. I do think that he's a Texan, who would feel that the handshake, not the signature, formed the contract.

No matter what the deal was, it's now obvious that COTA will put on Austin's MotoGP race sans Schwantz. When it's over, they'll pat themselves on the back, and tell themselves they don't need no stinkin' #34. They'll have attracted all the riders, they'll generate global press, and motorcyclists will be impressed by the facility.

The question isn't, How much will the absence of Schwantz have hurt them, the question is, How much would the presence of Schwantz have helped them? Dorna: Only ONE number has ever been retired in the premier class, and it's 34. He's got fans all over the world, and remains one of the sport's most popular ambassadors. You couldn't manage to broker a peace treaty?!?

If the organizers won't call for justice, or even common decency, I say it is up to the teams. I say it's up to MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3 teams to ask, "Where's Kevin?" by creating stickers with this logo, and affixing them to their bikes, leathers, helmets, etc.

Considering how much effort Schwantz has put into coaching and rider development, I think that the support classes should show their support. Spies and Edwards, fellow Texans, should also get on the #Where'sKevin? tweet wagon. And so should lots and lots of fans.

Who else, on the grid, will have the balls to ask, "Where's Kevin?"

There's no replacement for displacement

Back in 2002, Kawasaki dropped a bomb on the 600cc class: it punched out a 600 motor an extra 6%, creating a 636cc middleweight. It was the equivalent of an overweight fighter convincing a rival to compete at a catch weight, instead of dieting to make the existing class weight.

36cc may not sound like much -- it's the displacement of a weed-whacker. But it made a difference; in the closely-fought supersports class, the 636cc Kawasaki soon topped Sport Rider's comparison test. 

Street riders loved the extra bottom and mid-range, and didn't give a rat's ass whether or not the machine could be homologated for road racing. Kawasaki wanted to go supersports racing around the world, however, so it also built a sufficient number of (destroked, IIRC) 599cc ZX-6RR versions. That bike was perfectly nice -- I endurance-raced it in the AFM's season-ending four-hour at Infineon, and it was a damn sight faster than I was -- but it was not measurably better than rival OEM's 600s.

When we heard that the 636cc displacement was being resurrected this model year, most sport bike riders were happy, and so what if it couldn't be raced? 

In fact, Kawasaki again released enough 599cc versions for a '600' to be homologated to race in the Japanese domestic championship. I figured, what the hell, even if Kawasaki doesn't bring the 599cc homologation version to the U.S., most of the people buying the new 636 won’t be racing at the national level, and club racers will have opportunities to race it in any number of 750 classes. The original 636 was actually pretty competitive when the AMA still had a 750 Superstock class (Tommy Hayden won on it -- at Daytona of all places -- in 2003.)

I have to say, however, that I was surprised when AMA Pro Racing announced that the full-on 636cc version would be eligible for the SuperSport and Daytona SportBike classes in 2013. Of course, DSB isn't strictly a 600cc class; the Triumph 675cc triple, and Ducati's 848cc twin are homologated.

Still, the extra displacement in a four seemed a little unfair to Suzuki, Yamaha, and Honda. I emailed a friend who prepared a privateer DSB a few years back, and asked him what he thought. He pointed out that, nominally, the Kawasaki had to compete at a higher minimum weight -- 375# to the nominal class weight of 355#. But, my friend felt that few DSB-class bikes were actually at the 355 limit; most are probably running close to the Kawasaki's 'penalized' weight of 375 anyway.

Higher minimum weights are not necessarily practical ways to level the racetrack for everyone. When Danny Eslick and his 1125cc Buell attracted the ire of 600cc competitors in DSB, the AMA responded to non-Buell teams' howls by raising the Buell's homologated weight. The thing is, even the raised weight was less than most Buell race bikes' actual weight. I.E., the penalty occurred on paper only, not on the asphalt. And, even when raised limits result in raised weights on the track, the penalizing effect of ballast is moderated when ballasting becomes another tuning parameter.

AMA Pro's decision to homologate the new Ninja 636 came too late for rivals to stage an effective protest before Daytona, but it's also too late to develop an effective bike for the race. (There'd be a whole separate storyline if anyone had known the bike was about to be homologated, and dropped a rider capable of winning into the 200 field on a fully-developed machine.) As it is, three are entered, for John Ashmead, Tristan Palmer, and Luke Stapleford. I doubt they'll figure on the podium, but as soon as one does, you can expect to hear some bitter complaints from teams running 600s.

AMA Pro seems to think that they can do this, and Kawasaki will come back with a team. But it's the kind of thing that weakens the resolve of other entrants. Are displacement limits really limits? Or are they just suggestions?

Don't get me wrong; I loved the old 636, and I'm sure I'd love the new one, too. And I think it should be raced... in, for example, the AFM's 601-750cc Production class.

In fact, if I was Suzuki, I'd immediately ask to homologate the GSX-R750 in AMA Pro's SuperSport and DSB classes. Now that's a kick-ass middleweight.

UPDATE As Sport Rider's Kent Kunitsugu points out, major teams in the affected classes would have been informed of the rule before it was made public, so my statement that the announcement comes too late to be effectively protested is not necessarily true. And the other manufacturers do(?) have input on rules. So maybe I flew off the handle a bit... That said, I maintain that if the ZX-6R starts winning, Honda, Suzuki, and Yamaha riders will start whining.