[KPaulCook]

Historic race: Roberts first win and the RC-51s last win.

All good things must come to an end twin heads. Next year the CBR1000RR will be the Honda flagship. Great win for Roberts. I predict many more for Kurtis. He is a class act and has shown that he can win on a inferior bike.

 

[1163]

Pfff...

Kurtis needs to get a clue. He'll still lose on the new bike.

He was impressive at VIR but I've got to believe it was a fluke. It helps me sleep at night if I do.

Not a KR fan can you tell.

 

[nokneedragin]

Does anyone know when Speedcrap's broadcast rights are up. I am fed up with them, they pulled out on sunday (according to other sites). Thats disgusting treatment of a national racing event, hell they set around dragstrips for a week or more to show the entire event, and they are happy to braodcast a 4 year old car race, but hang around one more day to actually have coverage of a motorcycle race is impossible for them to do.

Some company needs to get the broadcast rights away from Speed, and get these races there due broadcast time. A well covered event could provide 3 hours of entertainment, between the superbike, and supporting classes, with interviews, histories, track info. Just look at a Nascar broadcast, they cover the entire race event, not just the start and finiish.

Rant off.

 

[25850]

i agree; they suck. but in the u.s. they are the only game in town (and they KNOW it).

 

[Buzglyd]

The real question is whether SpeedTV owns the rights or AMA Superbike just bought airtime. With popular events (NFL, NASCAR, etc.), a network buys the rights to broadcast the event and gets to profit from the ad time sold.



CART for example, actually buys the airtime from CBS and Speed and sells its own commercials. No network stepped up to buy the rights to CART. That is why the races are typically presented in two hour windows and why there is usually very little time for interviews at the end of the race. I suspect AMA superbike is in the same boat.



I agree with your rant but let's face it, our passion for the sport doesn't equal ratings. You'll notice there are very few advertisers during the races and the ratings are dismal.



Hopefully the AMA can use Supercross as an example and Superbike will grow the same way.

 

[nokneedragin]

I know were all in the minority on this, but I think that AMA needs to look at there sucess with Supercross, and take notes from Nascar (flame away but read on).

Nascar in the 60's and 70's was very little TV time but they brought the big races in. They made it manditory for all drivers to be fan friendly, had the anouncers that knew what they were talking about, actually tell the viewing audience what just happened on a pass, pit stop, whatever and made it sound huge in the terms of the race.

When I can get a local sports bar to show a race, the Nascar guys bit*h about losing a TV to watch, but after the race starts, they start paying as much attention to the MC race as they do the Nascar, even asking me questions about whats going on.

This is my personal experience, that leads me to believe with better TV coverage, and some subtle tweaks by AMA or the broadcast rights holder, could vault the MC racing up another level.

 

[Buzglyd]

I totally agree with you. I think I made a similar point previously.



Look at the difference between NASCAR and CART. The NASCAR guys are friendly and approachable where when you attend a CART race the drivers act like the fans have Kooties!



At the Laguna Seca CART race last year I could scarcely get a word out of the current drivers yet I sat and chatted with Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti who were both perfect gentlemen and made the current drivers look small by comparison.



The problem Superbike has unlike Supercross is that once a racer starts to get popular he ends up going to MotoGP. Since Supercross is the highest level the stars stick around for a while. We really need a MotoGP race in this country.

 

[BRIAN_1]

Where is E-bos?



I probably sound like a complete idiot, but when did he drop off the planet?

 

[nomad76]

VIR is crap

I was at the races this weekend, and having never been at VIR before, I can certainly say it's a second-rate facility. Besides the fact that it took them over THREE HOURS to clean up the oil on Sunday (and nobody's reporting on that yet, it seems), just long enough for the rain to start up, then rushed through the last three races Monday morning, there is hardly anything to cater to race fans who actually WANT to follow the race.

The track is in the middle of nowhere, the speaker system is bad, there are no TV screens to show the rest of the course, the "grandstands" are in three locations and can only seat about 20 people each, there's no access to the front straight, and there isn't even a place to go to see the start/finish line!

If you guys are serious about racing, write to AMA and tell them to dump VIR as a venue. The only good thing about it was lots of porta potties, and let me tell you, that's what the rest of the experience was like: full of ----!

Congrats to Kurtis, though, and I hope Jason Pridmore is OK after that get-off in Formula Xtreme.

 

[nomad76]

I hear he's been hurt since Laguna Seca.

 

[32849]

he was taken out by yates in the first wsk race at laguna. he said officially that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. if he meant yates tried to do something that was impossible, lost control and took eric with him, then he is correct. eboz tried to ride a t mid ohio, couldn't and had surgery on his shoulder. so next year we should see him ahead of the suzukis on the zx10.

 

[brickl]

Even worse is...

...the fact that the AMA's coverage of VIR Race 2 on their web site was non-existent until well after the race was complete. The race had been complete for some time, yet nobody knew that the race had actually happened, or who had won until around 11am. The normal race update/lap time pages were not operable, either.

I fired off an email to the editor at www.ussuperbike.com to complain about it but received no reply. I can see sh*t-canning the net coverage on Monday morning if it were being televised, but to refrain from normal ops when the race is not on the tube is ridiculous. I mean, how do you expect to market (and grow) a friggin' racing series if nobody knows what's going on?

The first news I could get of the results was on the Roadracing World site, which seems to have most other racing oriented sites by the throat RE fresh content.

 

[23063]

Re: VIR is crap

I was wondering where the start/finish line was. It look like it was as far from the fans as possible.

The oil problem was apparently that they used some kind of dispersant and ended up spreading the oil all over the track and then it rained on top of that making a real mess.

I think Sadowski said they should finish the racing at the Barber facility.

If Roberts is going to have a chance next year isn't he going to have to stay on the bike?

VIR looked like a pretty area. Was the food good?

 

[nomad76]

Re: VIR is crap

I agree the area is pretty, way out in the middle of nowhere. The food and drink was plentiful and not so bad -- a bottle of water only cost $2 -- but if you want to actually watch the race, stay home and pray Speed decides to show it.

Maybe they should move the race to Virginia Motorsports Park, about 50 miles east and near I-85 and Richmond, or just have another round at Barber or Road Atlanta. Now *those* are good tracks.

 

[zx-6r_maniac]

Roberts a class act?

Roberts a class act? hes a cry baby....im happy to see him win. but some of the moves he makes on the track at times are very irresponsible if not dumb.

 

[zx-6r_maniac]

why cant the ama buy some air time on espn 2? hell, if the "worlds strongest man competition" can get on espn 2 the ama could have their races on prime time

 

[39970]

TOTALLY AGREE! The Nascar Channel (Speedcrap) SUCKS! Boy do I miss Speedvision! I'm actually kind of interested in NASCAR (less and less) but another 10+ channels seem to cover it WAY more than sufficiently for me. Hopefully someone else will get the rights for FIM, AMA, and all the other staples Speedvision used to be about (Bikes, Cars, Planes, Boats, ie the pursuit of SPEED) from them and do it right. Speedvision was right on for me, it seemed to be run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. I still can't get over their (Speedcraps) pulling coverage from a live (hotly contested!) event to do a Nascar race wrapup. They have no passion and should be *****-slapped!

 

[KPaulCook]

Have to agree with you Buzboy. AMA needs to reach out.

This really hurts. Buz you are right. Even though we love motorcycle racing we are such a minority that Speed would probably do better dropping Motorcycle racing all together. AMA needs to speed less time on non issues (helmet laws) and more time on growing the sport. Maybe AMA racing needs to pick a charity to sponsor. The NFL did this with the United Way and it helped build the good will . It creates free publicity and would show the human side of the racers. People like the Bostroms and Haydens would be great

at attracting folks

 

[nokneedragin]

Thats my point!!!!!

It turns out that a company called "Chet Burks Productions" has the rights to the series (wonder who in the AMA he paid off). Sorry its not an active link, but here is his lame excuse for SPEED pulling the coverage:

http://www.amasuperbike.com/2003-Sep/031002w.htm

 

[nokneedragin]

OOPS!

He just produces the show, sorry. Still a lame excuse, your in position anyway. The crew is put up through monday night. I know this from friends that work as lighting and sound crews for shows, the production company will usually hold them over a holliday night due to the higher cost of travel on those days.

But my point is still that The worlds strongest man gets on ESPN2 then buy time there to get more coverage for the sport.