MotoAmerica 2022 silly season

Usury: The illegal action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest.
Where is this happening in the racing world?

 

Which one of the top 5 do you think spent less then 100

 

I take that back. Just looked at the final results.

 

Its possible to run upfront on Stock1000 for less than 100k. But everything has to align, cant have any major mechanical or crashes.
One of the best things about it is the contingency manufacturers have, and if you do well on SBK cup (I think top 5) you get a set of free tires.

 

I know there are some BIG cultural differences, as well as other things such as types of tracks, insurance policies, litigation, and potentially medical costs (EU countries with socialized healthcare). As well as marketing strategies and motorcycle sales/demand in general. We can also account for travel costs here if we want as moving around the UK is prolly cheaper than navigating from coast to coast in the US..

BUT!

It baffles me that a series like BSB can pack a small track full of fans, and field a 30+ bike Superbike grid FULLL of $75-$100K bikes. With absolutely no filler bikes from the support classes (OBV ECU rules wouldn't allow this) Not only that, but the teams are well funded, plenty of sponsors, plenty of vendor support, and they get plenty of air time.

Basically ALL these bikes all have WSBK spec (or better) hardware.
Forks $10,000
Brakes calipers/pistons/dry brake/rotors/rear setup $8,000
Swingarms- $8,500
Wheels $5,000 fully setup
Shock $8000
5 speed billet trans (usually) $5,500 with external neutral selector
Spec MoTeC with dash -$6000'ish wiring and sensors
fully built engines with 215-235hp easy.. -$i dunno
triple tree setups $2000
CNC Billet Masters $1800
a slew of carbon/titanium and other neat little tricks $I dunno.

Furthermore, almost every big bike manufacturer is represented here. Aside from Aprilia (they current only have an 1100cc 4 pot IIRC) and MV Agusta.. They are also represented well, with every manufacturer leading laps this season. 5 manufacturers took wins. Yamaha, BMW, Honda, Ducati, and Suzuki... Kawasaki was the only manufacturer without a win. It was some of the best racing to watch all year.

What's the recipe here?...

25-30 spot SBK grids, 40 spot Stock1000 grids, packed support class grids, no mixing support classes with premier classes for sake of filler, DAMN good racing, and excellent manufacturer representation..

IMO, its parity, and its parity with electronics. Never in my life have I met anyone who knows how to set up and tune Magnetti Marelli. However, I have met a lot of people who are very familiar with MoTeC. I know Stanboli did an article with RRW a few years ago basically cutting MoTeC up due to his experiences with them. However, BSB doesn't seem to have any issues, Italian Superbike is running it (although Pirro destroyed everyone in Jake Gagne fashion)

BSB went spec MoTeC in 2011 and its produced amazing results. They have looser technical regulations than a lot of other orgs, yet the parity is better than almost all production bike orgs..

MotoGP went Spec Magnetti in 2016.. Racing got closer.
WSBK Went Spec Magnetti a few years ago, racing is closer.

MotoA has approved ECU's from MoTeC or Mag, or you can run a KIT/Flash setup... with a bunch of other "we want to align with FIM WSBK regs, but not really" rules... It's a two team championship with lapped traffic, and 2 MAYBE 3 riders gapping the rest of the field by 4-5 seconds. . Maybe 2-3 riders are making a living.

This sucks. I want the series to do well. I want to see close racing, multiple manufacturers up front, lots of fans, some air time, and maybe some of these kids getting paid enough to not work for Fedex if they get dropped at the end of the season, because there are 2 teams in the paddock...

That's my novel for the weekend. lol

TL;DR Easily obtainable, spec ECU, that has a larger pool of able and willing software engineers, has made a difference in a lot of orgs. I think it would work for MotoA as well.

 

You cannot even compare the UK to America. I lived there for ten years. There were 3 national tracks within 3 hours of my house and and another few within 6 hours. There is not 1 track including Assen which is more than 12-14 hours away from London. Motorcycles are more popular and accepted as well, there were often over a thousand fans at the local club races (Snetterton). There are also a bunch of rich guys willing to dump money into racing with no return other than they love motorcycles, racing and winning.

Hopefully MA by having stable and consistent rules and officials will grow the series. I am stoked to have Petrucci coming over and hopefully the rumors are true about another big two rider Superbike team!

 

Yeah, that's what I was getting at with my first paragraph. lol

The amount of rabid motorcycle fans they have is really incredible. My wife and I were watching the first BSB Brands Hatch round this year, and she was like "Holy shit, that's Paul Hollywood!" (Guy from British Bake Off) I guess he's into bike racing and has a really incredible collection. I would have never known. ...He was hanging out in the PBM Ducati garage.

Also, quick sidenote.. if any of you HAVEN'T watched any of those BSB Onboard videos from the BSB YouTube channel, you're really in for a treat.

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Back to MotoA..

I'm excited for the new rumors of more superbikes. I really hope it pans out, and gets more manufacturers involved.

 

While BSB is in a much better position geographically and demographically speaking, it ain't all rainbows and unicorns throughout the grid in Superbike.

There's teams that can't afford to take full advantage of the rules, riders paying for their seat, and teams regularly rotating in and out of the class or withdrawing entirely. Over the years, I've regularly heard the announcers discuss the day jobs of guys in the top ten as well as outright appeals for funding for others further down the grid. Having said all of that, it is the best domestic series going.

 

I remember them saying something about Danny Buchan running home from one of the tracks (forget where), grabbing some plumbing equipment (He owns a plumbing biz) coming back, and doing some repair work on one of the facilities. I thought it was pretty neat.

 

There is a tonne of good ideas in here. BSB is not perfect and it is true that many riders have to work. But they are doing something right with full grids, sponsors etc. If I were MOTA I would be dissecting what is going on there.
You can't have a series with 5-10 bikes. Especially with 1 or 2 dominating.
I really hope they can figure it out. Hopefully Petturci helps get attention. But also, the the new Amazon series about MotoGP may build new fans in the sport and those could trickle down?

Fingers and toes crossed

 

The old days are gone. Nothing will ever bring that back. It’s all cost driven. Like gas prices, they’ll continue to rise, never drop

On the posts about the “pros” having to have real jobs. You do realize that’s 99% of the riders in MotoAmerica paddock? I’m not including the “kids” still at home with mom & dad.

I don’t see why this is so hard for people to accept. It is what it is. Enjoy it while it lasts and everything goes electric

 

BSB is in trouble as well. Most of their riders pay for rides and a bunch have a full time job just to get by. It might look better from the outsiders point of view but it's just a larger show with the same problems we have.

But that's a nice novel.

 

If my piddly lineman job didn't take up so much of my time, I was fast enough, and a team would have me, I would pay my expenses just to see if I could finish well enough that maybe the next year things would be different.

 

This is interesting, wonder what he will go with? Im guessing either BMW or Honda.
Last year he was with Honos, him and Escalante on Kawi. With Escalante going to M4, I wonder what will happen here. Would be cool for Cory to go SBK, he had some good battles with those guys on his Stock bike.

 

Probably a Zook. Michael Gilbert running a M4 built GSXR1000R and since Corey runs in that same paddock (JP43 Training etc, Chuckwalla Raceway Etc), he's probably making the jump.

Wishful thinking.

 

"BM" is the brand from sources across yond pond. Europeans like to leave the W off for some reason.

 

You answered your own thoughts right there. All it takes its $$. It is somewhat of a chicken-and-egg situation. Did BSB have the sponsors first, then got everything else? Or did plenty of teams/talent/fans make it easy to find large sponsors? Has BSB ever been poorly attended and funded like MA in recent history? MA would probably look A LOT like BSB if nearly everyone had 10x the sponsor $$. MA (the organization) seems to be is bringing more $$ annually with new sponsors. This is all but proven with annual increases in the purse and subsidies. But it doesn't seem to be enough to noticeably grow the SBK class. Perhaps it's not yet matching the hole left by Yam and Suz.

 

I mean, essentially it was the answer to the question it was asking. lol HOW did they pack fans, grids, bring sponsors, etc. What was the recipe? Or is it a chicken/egg situation like you said, and no one knows. It is without a doubt the absolute BEST domestic series.

Moving around the UK is a bazillion times cheaper than the continental US, but those 25-30 $80,000 avg superbikes and spares definitely aren't purchased/built off the spare gas money and hotel rooms they don't have to have in the budget.

I totally get that BSB/MotoA comparison is VERY Apples/Oranges for so many reasons. So I'll save everyone another ridiculous ramble from me.

Racing motorcycles is cool as hell. I want MotoA to be successful. Hopefully they figure out a good recipe. I'll keep subscribing the the video pass, and trying to spectate a race or two as much as I can..

We all know that filling the SBK grid with STK1000 bikes and calling it SBK Cup was a ploy just to pack the grid.. However, it also makes me wonder if Superbike is even worth it for these teams. Imagine building a $70,000-85,000 SBK. Then having some kid that took a year off and worked for FEDEX?UPS? be right on your guys tail the whole time.. All while on a 5-6 year old 'Zuki with subpar almost everything in comparison. Or take Scheibe for example. Thats what, a 2015/16 S1000RR? Seems to be holding its own just fine.

Why even build a SBK at this point? you cold build a nice STK1000, hire a good rider, and get just as much airtime for your sponsors.

 

I’d watch stock1000 if they got rid of that incredibly irritating announcer. Dude must have some serious blackmail on MA execs to keep his job.