| Author | Message | ||
     Liquorwhere |
Not sure if I will be able to provide a link. I am pretty sure that I read it in Road Racer X. I will have to go back through the ones I have at home and see if I can find it. Please do and thank you in advance. I have read other people quote the same line and I have never been able to find anything written in the press or as a press release that this was the case. Thanks. | ||
| Backcountryme |
No worries. I just hope that I still have that issue at home. | ||
| Elvis |
The way I remember it, the class was originally horsepower limited. So a wide variety of bikes were allowed with the idea that they'd be held competitive with horsepower limits. The established teams (all riding 600's) complained and got what they asked for. The horsepower limits were removed. Be careful what you wish for. | ||
| Trojan |
What rules changes through the 2009 DSB season occurred that were not typical of any other racing series? What are you talking about? Only on a Buell board? What rules were changed in Daytona SportBike that you find so outrageous? I was actually referring to Superbike rather than DSB. Honda etc were not bothered about the format of DSB but the final straw was the inclusion of the 1125RR into Superbike mid season and without any consultation with other manufacturers. It doesn't really matter if the badge on the tank was Buell or Hyosung, but the way it was done that has irked a lot of people (not just me by any means). If Honda had come along mid season and said 'We are going to supply a non road legal 'modifed' Fireblade to racers that is clearly NOT the same as our road bike, and would like it included in the regs from mid season onwards' What do you think the reaction would be on this board? Just because teams are allowed to modify their bikes within certain parameters this is not the same as supplying a race ready bike to teams in the first place. If it was then they would all have done it years ago. Correct me if I am wrong, but DMG did ask all the manufactures what bikes they wanted to race. According to Honda and Suzuki there was little or no consultation between DMG and the manufacturers regarding the AMA Superbike class other than being given the ultimatum of 'this is the way it is going to be, take it or leave it!' That doesn't qualify as consultation in my book. | ||
| Vagelis46 |
"There is a massive and discernible difference between the FIM and DMG, and that is that decisions made in WSB are made AFTER discussion and general agreement with other teams/manufacturers/competitors and usually set in stone before the season starts. " That is not 100% true. There was a lot of complaining when Ducati were given the 1200cc limit, and it definately were not well accepted by other manufacturers. Some jap teams said they would quit. Even most of the racing fans did not like the rules and there was a lot of contraversy. But FIM, that support Italian interest (ducati, pireli....), changed the rules. Manufacturers will always complain about new rules.... When Spies won the title this year on the R1, proved that the rules are reasonable. | ||
| Trojan |
That is not 100% true. There was a lot of complaining when Ducati were given the 1200cc limit, The difference was that the complaining/discussions were done over the course of a whole year, and the rules were eventually agreed by everyone prior to teh start of the new season, not just imposed by the organisers. The WSB 1200cc rule aplies to any manufacturer who wants to race a twin cylinder bike (it just so happens that Ducati are the only contenders so far, but KTM may well join them). In AMA Superbike the rules were applied specifically to Buell ONLY, which is also a very different proposition. | ||
| Fast2win |
Trojan not trying to bust your balls but do you not see an 1125RR as a highly modified 1125. As long as all the parts are legal I dont see anything wrong with it. As far as the jap factories go they bitch because they dont want the competition to have their bikes. And it's all kinda irrelevant when the class is limited to 190 HP anyway. I hear a lot of complaints on this issue, but its not like Buell unleashed a GP bike on these guys. I dont think the degree to which its modified is, other than what I previously stated is any more out of the rules than the other superbikes. I really believe they(jap.factory) dont like privateers getting a truly competitive bike, with factory support which they held a monopoly on. | ||
| Trojan |
I think you are missing my point, which is that it doesn't matter if the bike is a modified road 1125R (which it strictly isn't, but I won't be pedantic), the point is that it would be against the rules for a manufacturer to supply a bike like this regardless of badging or manufacturer were it not for the fact that the rules were 'eased' in favour of Buell. One question worth considering is this: Could a person buy a road legal 1125R and convert it into an 1125RR himself by buying ALL of the required parts over the counter retail? If the anser is yes then it is just a matter of the rules being bent slightly to allow the 'race only' 1125RR into the competition. If the answer is no then it should never have been allowed at all, regardless of who builds it. What if Yoshimura decided to sell race ready Mladin/Spies replicas mid season and tried to enter those in AMA SB. Do you think that other riders would be happy? | ||
| Eboos |
Also, the spirit of the rule is to prevent the one off, unobtainiam parts going to the special riders and therefor giving them an unfair advantage. There is nothing unobtainiam about the 1125RR. It is available for anyone to purchase at a fairly cheap price for a competitive bike. It is based on a production street bike, probably more so then the XBRR was. | ||
| Eboos |
If Yosh did it for $40,000 and it was exactly the same as what Ben and Matt rode, I think the entire racing world would buy one. | ||
| Eboos |
Here is a comment by John Ulrich from the WERA board. http://forums.13x.com/showpost.php?p=2764288&postc ount=84 | ||
| Trojan |
It may be in the Spirit of the rules, but factories tend to try and work to the letter of the rules. If everyone was to interpret the 'spirit' of the rules for themselves it would be a completely different race class to the one that is there now. Just because a bike is 'based on' a production street bike doesn't make it legal unless special consideration is given, as in this case, and th erules changed to accomodate it. And that is where all the argument lies. It isn't about whether people like or dislike Buell as a make, but about what should happen to the rule book. The WSM MotoGP bike was 'based on' a Yamaha R1 (and was subsequently banned from MotoGP because it was based on a production engine), but you couldn't take an R1 and make a WCM in your shed unless you were a very skilled engineer/machinist/engine builder/magician. The whole point of production based racing is that you buy a road bike and convert it yourself. This applies to factory teams as much as privateers. if you allow factories to sell pukka race bikes (regardless of what it is based on) it is no longer a production race series. Where does it stop? | ||
| Eboos |
Buell did follow the letter of the rules when they said what they wanted to do, and AMA ruled this is what you can do. | ||
| Trojan |
Buell did follow the letter of the rules when they said what they wanted to do, and AMA ruled this is what you can do. As I said before, I can't blame Buell for racing to the rules they are presented with. The fault lies with the AMA/DMG for even considering changing the rules to allow it in the first place, and it is that has caused the uproar since. The bike itself is a sideshow to the main argument, which is: Should an organising body (whether DMG/BSB or WSB)be allowed to change the rule book mid season to favour one manufacturer only, following pretty secret discussions with JUST that manufacturer and without consultation or prior notice to any other teams? Surely the answer to that must be no, or the rules are no longer worth a damn? The rule book is a double edged sword, and is there to protect competitors against the organisers just as much as the other way around. | ||
| Buellishxx |
With all the controversy in DSB, I would have thought the easiest thing for Buell to do would have been to produce a road going version for sale to the public like the 1098R. That would have been the end of it, by the book, nothing for anyone to complain about, move on to racing it. I would think the last thing any manufacturer would want is negative publicity, but then again I've heard that any publicity is good. Regardless of DMG, Buell should have played the upper hand in this one, as they were already being perceived as "cheaters" in DSB. In reality the RR is (was) a modified R, and this could have been explained fairly easily by comparing it to one of the Jap superbikes. Start with the stock bike and compare what parts have been changed, and I think you would see they're pretty close in their modifications. And to make it really easy I don't know why they (DMG) just didn't go with the way Canadian superbike runs as Colin Fraser knows that it works. Here the classes are all HP regulated. That makes it easy, especially when you look at the "sportbike" class. The twins get a little extra "hp" leeway, and people understand that, but when they think 1125 against 600's then there's an uproar. It all depends how you look at it. The Deeley team did very well in sport bike, but they didn't podium against the 600's. Just goes to show that displacement is not the basis for some race classes. | ||
| Eboos |
The problem with that is that, obviously, the market wouldn't support creating and selling such a bike. | ||
| Davegess |
MC road racing in the USA is hoepfully at the lowwest point of it trajectory. It has been in a death spiral for decades so DMG is not really to blame for this. They do have a plan to pull it out and grow it BUT will it be enough? Is it the right path? Only time will tell. For 30 years we have done what every other national series has done and and it has not worked. The factories were happy but attendance has been stagnent or dropping for years. Race fields have been getting thinner and thinner. I think the DMG deal is about the only chance of RR survivining as a big time sport but thye are getting hit hard by the economoy. Sponsors are dropping out as it is getting hard to prove it is money well spent. Even NASCAR is being hit hard by this. The racing the present last year was the best we have seen in the US in decades. Prior to laast year a race where there were any passes for the lead after the first few laps were very rare. Most classes were processions. | ||
| Blake |
The Ducati 1098R F-series Factory produced racing machines, which are actually 1198cc, are provided to the WSBK racing teams by the factory. No WSBK Ducati team took a Ducati street bike and modified it themselves to create an 1198R. No different from the Buell 1125RR. Yet Matt seems intent on bashing DMG for allowing the very same scenario in AMA racing. Strange that. Double standard it seems to me. Homologating a new machine into a racing series is not changing the rules. It is following the rules. It is simply adding a new machine to the field. This happens all the time in racing. Whether you argue that a particular homologated racing machine is afforded special consideration or not is another matter entirely. No rules were changed in ASBK, so going around claiming that they were is simply false.
You say now that you were thinking of ASBK, not DSB. Which is it? Regardless, please tell me what rules were changed in AMA Superbike in during the 2009 season. Regardless of anyones personal thoughts on the merits of Buell racing, DMG made a serious miscalculation by favouring a factory (any factory) so heavily when they made 'minor parts homologation' amendments to allow Buell to compete in DSB and then in Superbike with the 1125RR. Bullshit. You are making up stuff to suit your own personal view. There is no fact there, only your own personal opinion. All racing series are facing significant setbacks. Kawasaki didn't pull out of MototGP because of any "miscalculation" by the sanctioning body. Nor did Honda pull out of AMA roadracing on account of anything other than their own pathetic performance and inability to be competitive. They sucked and they knew it and they used a very lame excuse to avoid any further embarrassment. Getting beat by a brand new team on a brand new bike in the last races of the season was just too embarrassing for the great Honda. Good riddance! No other organiser worldwide would have bent so far backwards to facilitate one manufacturers presence and it has lead to other (bigger) manufacturers pulling the plug on their US racing concerns." Bullshit. Allowing Ducati to race a bike that had never seen the light of day as a street bike and that had an extra 100cc versus it's street going relative is a lot more "bending over backwards" to suit Ducati than anything DMG did for Buell. Pretending that the 1200cc rule wasn't put in place for Ducati is silly. There are no other twins racing in WSBK and haven't been for a very long time. Allowing BMW to race a bike that hadn't seen the light of day as a street bike in any form is "bending over backwards" a heck of a lot more for BMW than anything DMG did to allow Buell to race competitively. What was it that the WSBK folks did back a few years ago that caused the mass exodus of the Japanese factories from the series? Yeah, they consulted and got everyone's approval, sure they did. The simple fact is that all racing series are taking a hit due to the economic downturn. Trying to blame the subsequent and inevitable effects in AMA roadracing of that economic downturn on the DMG/Buell issue is nothing but a straw man. You might as well say that WSBK and MotoGP are suffering the same downturn because of DMG. Kawasaki left MotoGP on account of DMG allowing Buell to race in America. Again, there were no rules changes like you claim. It didn't happen. You are making that up. You claim that discussions between Buell Racing and DMG were "secret" which seems intended to paint the scenario in a nefarious light. That is simply a false and very misleading characterization. Buell approached DMG asking to homologate parts so they could competitively race their 1125R in ASBK. What do you expect, that the conversation should be shared among all of the paddock? That happens in no professional racing series I know. It sounds ludicrous to me. If DMG had sought comments from the Japanese factories prior to announcing the homologation of the 1125RR for ASBK, I'd put good money that not one of them would have objected, not one. Just like in DSB, they would all have dismissed the Buell Racing effort out of hand. The truth is that they just like to complain and find any reason to attack DMG for taking away their monopoly on professional motorcycle roadracing in America. The stand up teams don't care. Michael Jordon doesn't care. John Ulrich doesn't care. Only the poorly performing factory teams raised any kind of ruckus. An American racing organization giving special consideration to the first modern era American sport bike to allow it to race against the monopoly of Japan Inc in American road racing? DAMN RIGHT! If you don't like it, don't watch it. Walk away! So long Honda! Good #@$&ing riddance! I'll be watching it! I sure won't be watching the Hondas in Moto2. | ||
| Court |
Matt: Don't let the Aluminum slide down over your eyes.  Someone is likely to wander in here and believe some of this . . . Court | ||
| Backcountryme |
Trojan, to answer your question on turning a road going 1125r into an 1125RR. Yes, you can take a street 1125 and put the parts kit on it to make it an 1125RR. The kit does not have that many parts. You claim that the RR is not a modified street bike. It is. There are no changes to the frame. It still has a vin number like every other frame out there. I agree with Blake. The whole 1125RR debate is because the factory teams like to complain. Grew up factories. This isn't the grade school playground. | ||
| Eboos |
Under the old system, and this has been said before, the factories merely just had to show up and they had their respective championships locked. It was a guaranteed return on investment. Now that they actually have to compete, there are no guarantees. You can't just buy your way into a championship anymore. | ||
| Fast2win |
What country said.And since when do factories want to stick to the letter of the law. They want their bike to pass tech inspection, screw the law and letter. Superlight wheels for 600ss bikes that look like a stock wheel down to all the correct casting #, mladin crankshaft, no pun there boy's. And the list goes on. | ||
| Backcountryme |
I just re-read an article in RRX mag. Edmonson pointed out that the in the past each factory picked a class to win the championship. Superbike had Suzuki, FX had Honda and so on. Now the factories have to race bikes that the privateer can run. The 1125 is one of those bikes. ANd the factories don't like that. | ||
| Eboos |
While I am sure that it wasn't as deliberate as that, but that certainly was the result. | ||
| Diablo1 |
One difference between WSBK and DMG is that WSBK only homologates production bikes from the current year. And in 2010, you must produce a minimum or 2000 bikes to race in WSBK. BMW was legal to race their bike in WSBK in 2009 because they met or will meet the minimum production number (1000) by the deadline of Dec, 30, 2009. DMG did change the rules in the middle of the 2009 season, simply by homologating a non-production bike. The 1125RR was not production (street legal), but it was homologated. DMG didn't homologate any of the other brand's racebikes - they homologated their street-legal production bikes. Then they were allowed to modify their homologated streetbikes "within the rules" to build their racebikes. | ||
| Blake |
You are incorrect. The rules were never changed. The AMA Pro Racing officials have the authority to homologate as they see fit. They exercised that authority. They did so based on the simple logical reasoning that the 1125RR is the Superbike racing version of the 1125R and with the stipulation that it must be made available in sufficient quantity to professional racers for no more than $40K and supported by Buell in parts and such. They didn't change any rules, anywhere. They exercised their authority and discretion which is their prerogative. WSBK only homologates production bikes from the current year. That's odd, since I recall seeing racers on prior model year machines. It was when the Ducati 999 first hit the market. Some racers didn't like it, and so continued campaigning the prior model year 998. Maybe the rules have changed since then. Yes, only manufacturers producing 2000+ machines now need apply for WSBK. What a shame. Stupid in my view. I feel some consideration should be given the smaller manufacturers to improve interest and appeal of the series. You know, like DMG is doing. | ||
| Liquorwhere |
There are no changes to the frame. It still has a vin number like every other frame out there. I agree with Blake. The whole 1125RR debate is because the factory teams like to complain. Yes all of that is true, the only problem is that in the AMA rules the bike must be street legal at the time of sale before homologation. I and others have point this out in the past. I really didn't care that the RR was allowed to race, the point is it was not within the rules as an "off road use only title". The bike must be a production motorcycle, street legal that anyone can buy, not anyone can buy the RR you must have a racing license, before approved homologated parts are added. It is really that simple. If the title read that it could be street legal or for on road use, and for the $39,995.00 the kit to return it to street legal trim was provided, and Buell had simply did the race kitting for you, but you could change it back, therefore ANYONE with a race license or not could have bought one, I don't think anyone could have bitched. End of problem, but that was not what happened. | ||
| Eboos |
There would be no point to that. Nor would it be possible to sell a kitted bike with a street title due to all of the DOT regulations. Also, there isn't anybody that would want to convert this bike back to street, and it would only increase the cost if it was in fact possible. Then there would be warranty issues as well. | ||
| Diablo1 |
They didn't change any rules, anywhere. They exercised their authority and discretion which is their prerogative. That's semantics. OK, they exercised their authority to allow one bike to race that didn't meet the rules that were in place when they started the season. Maybe DMG didn't change the rules....they only ignored their own rules.} | ||
| Diablo1 |
Yes, only manufacturers producing 2000+ machines now need apply for WSBK. What a shame. Stupid in my view. I feel some consideration should be given the smaller manufacturers to improve interest and appeal of the series. You know, like DMG is doing. The purpose of the 2000 bikes/year rule is to insure that everyone is racing production based bikes, not limited edition special vehicles designed to a higher level of technology and cost. My guess is that WSBK will have more manufacturers in the series next year than DMG will. And which small manufacturer would like to compete in WSBK but can't build 2000 bikes for sale and homologation in 2010? None that I know of. In 2011, four small manufacturers will compete in WSBK - BMW, KTM, Aprilia, and Ducati.} |
