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Single Class Focus

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Perhaps the best way to kill two birds with a single stone -- creating a more competitive Superbike class while eliminating unnecessary confusion for potential fans -- is to make the premier AMA Superbike category essentially the single focus of the championship.

All of the advertising, media coverage, and public awareness should be centered on Superbike. All of the top teams, riders, and mechanics should be ushered into Superbike. Nearly all of the television programming should be focused on Superbike.

The Supersport category would exist simply as a Superbike-feeder series: a place for young riders and new teams to prove their mettle and graduate to the Superbike category the following season.

A casual fan shouldn’t even realize any class other than Superbike exists until they dig deep and start becoming a more serious student of the game. I envision this Supersport class as an equivalent to minor league baseball in that regard. Hardcore fans may follow it just to identify the newest prospects, but knowledge of it isn’t necessary for those who just want to cheer for the Yankees.

Meanwhile, the spec class would provide a relatively hassle-free (run by its backer) series that keeps things active at the track during the weekend, preventing too much dead time, while providing an avenue for the freshest faces and/or the long-time racers who just don’t have the talent or money to compete in Superbike or Supersport under the new system. The racing would be close and exciting and might even bring in some money for DMG based on the contract with the backer and the entry fees imposed on the riders.

As an example, if this system existed in ‘08, you would have riders like Blake Young and Josh Herrin winning races and establishing themselves as the hot Superbike prospects in Supersport, while established talents like Josh Hayes, Jake Zemke, Geoff May, and Steve Rapp, and teams like Erion Honda, Jordan Suzuki, and Attack Kawasaki, would be firmly entrenched in Superbike (yes, riders would be limited to a single class).

An extremely deep Superbike field combined with spec tires and tighter technical regulations should result in exciting and unpredictable racing. The class’ greatly enhanced profile too would change perspectives to the point where a team could be proud of, and even advertise based on, top fives and top tens. Certainly, under this system, a top-ten result in Superbike should be carry more prestige than a Supersport podium.

Obviously -- and DMG has already announced an intention to do this -- Superbike must return as the face of the Daytona 200. Already a confusing situation, it’s nearly impossible to coherently explain to an uneducated potential fan why the year’s biggest race is contested by the class that arguably sits on the bottom of the totem pole and doesn’t include the championship’s top two talents.

The approach to television should follow the same model. Whereas today a typical AMA Superbike race weekend results in four hours of programming split up into two hours for the Superbike races, one for the Supersport race, and one for a combined FX/Superstock show, in ’09 I would recommend leveraging the allotted hours in another way entirely.

Emphasizing the single class focus, there would be two hours dedicated to Superbike races, just as there is now, but also one hour for Superbike qualifying, and one hour dedicated to a magazine show that predominately works to introduce and build the profiles of the personalities in the Superbike class. The magazine show could include a short segment containing a Supersport (and possibly spec class) highlights package.