The AMA/DMG road racing series sure got interesting this year, and Buell’s divisive 1125R fueled the flames of controversy, culminating in the big-engined American bike winning the 2009 Pro Daytona SportBike championship.
Buell’s race-spec 1125RR for the American Sportbike class had also raised eyebrows earlier in July, triggering American Honda Senior VP Ray Blank to declare—with no lack of sarcasm—that “It is very difficult for me to comment on the AMA/DMG acceptance of the Buell in question as ashamedly it is evident we had an erroneous interpretation of both the rules and the homologation process,” and that “This is an exciting new opportunity for all manufacturers and I am ashamed to have missed this chance through our inability to accurately analyze the current rules. Frankly, this could really be fun.” About - News & Issues
The manufacturer announced Sept. 18 it will not participate in the series, saying “the current AMA/DMG racing environment does not align with our company goals.”
Honda scaled back its AMA Pro Racing efforts in December 2008, pulling its factory program and contracting team resources including crew and contracted rider Neil Hodgson to the Corona Extra Honda team. Motorcycle.com
“Nothing is changing and with nothing changing we’re not going to change,” Blank said yesterday in a phone interview. “We race motorcycles for the enjoyment of the customers who buy them and as a marketing platform to sell the bikes and, probably most importantly, as a way to develop the bikes in an on-going fashion. Under the current rules, we can’t have that. As soon as the statement was made that things are going to stay pretty much the same, it led us to a status quo position. Of course, with the economic pressure that we have, means that every marketing dollar has to be very well spent. It means you have to be careful with everything you do and it has support one of those major objectives. Either it makes customers really happy, it improves the breed, or it helps sell the product. I don’t see customers real happy, we’re not permitted to evolve in techology, and we’re not given a platform to really sell the product. It isn’t any different than what it was in March of 2008 when we first sat down with Roger [Edmondson] and were told this is how it was going to be.” Cycle News
