Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Ducati takes its toys and goes home crying

Ducati have pulled out of the AMA Superbike championship, effective 2007. They say it's because they can't use their WSBK and BSB spec-bikes, and have to build special bikes to conform with the AMA rules. In addition, those AMA rules make it difficult for twins to compete with 4-cylinder bikes, and since they won't change until at least 2008, they're leaving.

This is a bummer, since it looks like Yamaha will be back in AMA next year, and we could have had factory presence from the top five manufacturers for the first time in ages. It also means we'll lose Neil Hodgson (but that was highly likely anyway).

I can't for the life of me figure out why the British, American and World series won't align their rules. I'm sure it's an ego and power thing. Whatever it is, the AMA need to figure something out, because it's getting REALLY tedious watching their races. In contrast, the second British Superbike race from Croft was one of the best superbike races I've seen in ages. If you haven't seen it, let me know, I'll point you in the direction of it.

1 comment:

Nicebloke said...

AMA Superbike is the national Superbike series in the USA. Bikes are based on production bikes, although rules allow significant modification. The AMA series is seen as one of the top 2 national superbike series in the world, alongside the British series.