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The silly season is officially here….

“Que Sera, Sera,

Whatever will be, will be

The future's not ours, to see

Que Sera, Sera

What will be, will be.”

The song reflects what our 2009 season is all about. There are so many rumors, talks going around I just do not know what will be of it. But not for one second shall that slow you down. Business as usual.

What do we know? Well for starters we know that DMG a well recognized group has taken over what we knew as the AMA Grand National Series and that Mike Kidd the former Formula USA Series President is now in charge of the flat track portion of the acquisition. We also know that Kidd held a meeting prior to the Hagerstown race assuring people that the show will go on. We also know that several tests have been happening regarding proposed rule changes. So at least they are doing some research before implementation. But let me tell you who in fact is in favor of these rules…. Suzuki, Aprilia, Kawasaki. So with that said, I am assuming that Kidd’s vision in leveling the playing field would also lead to these manufacturers putting up the money for the series, outstanding monies for contingencies and rider support deals through their dealers. All I have heard was that those said companies are all in favor of the new rules. With these new set of rules would be a said crippling of the XR 750 Harley Davidson’s. This sport which has been dominated by the HD for such a long time….

As of today the new rules committee has been named.. Let’s take a look … Steve Morehead (AMA Flat Track Manager… Good call), Pat Moroney ( owns multi brand dealership also sponsors HD Wrecking crew rider Bryan Smith… Interesting?), Travis Smith ( Suzuki man), Kenny Tolbert ( Carr’s Tuner), Mike Kidd ( the head guy will now be on the rules committee also?) Gary Kidd ( yes, let’s keep it in the family), Bill Werner ( infamous tuner of HD Factory rider Scott Parker and now with the Kawasaki family) and Steve who? Carnegie? Not a clue.

Here is my gripe… I have let it known that the sport needs to change and while I agree with “leveling the playing field” I do know it’s not by as much as you think. Some facts came my way.. A Suzuki without restrictors comes off the dyno at 80-85 hp while a HD restricted comes off at 77hp. I am not the techno guru but don’t we also need to look at riders talent as well to level such playing field, not just the machines? I don’t know. But let’s go in deeper.

What you may or may not know is that Harley-Davidson for years has supported this sport both individually, team and sport as a whole. Support by means of contingency and Sport $$$$ not just a couple thousand here and there. If in fact we level such playing field will we also be leveling off support $$$. Why would we level something and take away the dollars for the sport, which would leave us with a majority of riders with XR750’s a handful with other bikes and no $$ for the sport. Would you race as a profession/career for a 5k purse? I would think not.

Now let’s look at this another way.. You have HD Factory who sponsors a few riders from the corporate level, with their involvement as a whole 90 percent of those XR racers in the sport carry a HD dealer in their program as a sponsor and the race rolls on. Now you cripple the HD and bring in other bikes, can you guarantee me that every other manufacture ( Kawa, Aprilia, Suzuki and Yamaha, KTM, BMW ) will now have support thru their dealer programs similar to the HD dealers? Or should it be safe to say that a tricked out Suzuki, Yamaha, Kawa etc… doesn’t need a parts credit or sponsorship money to run an effective program. Not only that, but now the budgets for these such machines and our once dying sport , our riders will have to compete with the Supercross industry in getting machines for a program… who do you think will win… Exposure vs. Non Exposure? No need to be a rocket scientist on that question!