Ducati leaves AMA Superbike

[Karaya One]

They are taking their ball and going home.

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2006/Aug/060822a.htm

[Tabby]

Breaks my heart! Take your whine and cheese with you. I have never liked having rules so certain bikes can remain competitive.
Either make a design that can compete straight up, with the same rules applying to everybody, or get out. Political Correctness has invaded racing too F'ing much.

[odduc]

Well, it really is too bad that Ducati will be out of AMA racing for at least a year. This will make factory participation even less than what it was, this year. How long before the AMA gets it's collective head out of it's ass ? How much longer can the series survive without more participation ? Now, with fewer factory supported teams we will see the same three guys on the podium at every race.

BRILLIANT planning AMA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[benVFR]

I wish they'd consider going back to the 750cc limit for 4 cylinders, and restrict the mods the twins have.

Advantage - slows the 4s down
Advantage - Ducati is more restricted, causing them to spend less money

Letting Ducati go to 1200cc would have been a bad move.. I personally do not want to see sportbikes keep getting bigger & bigger on the street.

But I could partly agree with "Shut up Ducati and make a V-4 for superbike". As long as they don't make an exact clone of the GSX-R motor they will still have plenty of "character" to differentiate them from the Big 4, and they don't have to stop making V-Twins for the street.

[Tabby]

Hey, here is a totally UNoriginal thought. Do away with superbike altogether. Go to superstock as the premier class. Superbike originally was much closer to superstock. Hell, they even had to have stock "looking" exhausts on them. The racing was,,, well it WAS racing. It would slow things down, cost less, at least until the factories started sneaking money in the back door again.

[benVFR]

I could agree with that... all of our US racing is pretty crappy right now.

If the I-4s are too fast for Daytona how long till they are too fast for a bunch of other tracks too? How does going to a 1200cc Ducati solve that? Will we let the I-4s go to 1200cc too in 5 years after Ducati cleans up with 1200cc?

Heck eliminate the big-bike thing completely and make the Japanese run their 600s against the Ducati 750.

I find it hard to believe Ducati riders are as shallow as H-D riders and they'll all sell their Ducatis and stop watching racing if a V-4 Ducati Superbike platform surfaces though.

[Tabby]

quote;
I find it hard to believe Ducati riders are as shallow as H-D riders and they'll all sell their Ducatis and stop watching racing if a V-4 Ducati Superbike platform surfaces though.


I don't find it hard to believe. Ducatis for years have been known as the "thinking man's Harley", LOL!

[benVFR]

Here is the funny/stupid thing I think secretly both H-D and Ducati have tried to encourage people to have the whole "only a twin" attitude, as it feeds back into the company and allows the company to coast along engineering wise and save as much money as possible.

Only issue is if you get SO entrenched with one design that it eventually falls flat on it's face and then it's harder for the company to adapt.

I think both H-D and Ducati are facing that... Ducati in that they have started to run into the limits of how much HP can be extracted from a given size V-twin and H-D in that the air cooled motors are getting harder & harder to make meet emissions while still making decent power & riding OK. If they had diversified earlier and not become so dependent on one design their current situations would not be so difficult.

[lucentone]

the article mentioned something about electronics and traction control. Are they not allowed to run with that stuff?

can someone explain what the rules are in the AMA that are causing Ducati to leave? I'm curious...

[benVFR]

Summary:

AMA allowed traction control in this year, partially as a gift to Ducati. It didn't really help.

Ducati used to be allowed a 250cc displacement advantage.. they kicked major butt when they had it.

AMA took that away a few years ago and since then Suzuki has dominated.. Ducati wants their displacement advantage back, despite the fact that Honda/Yamaha/Kawasaki haven't been able to do any better then Ducati. (In fact worse!)

[Tabby]

Hmmm, I don't think they did that overtly. I think alot had to do with various financial constraints {mostly Ducati}, and how the market evolved {mostly Harley}. They both helped or hurt this in their own way. The japanese, when they came into the US market, tried harder to find and/or create their markets, so "change" was more readily accepted. I do agree though, that they both may face problems because of the lack of engineering diversity. Ducati may fare better in this respect. They definately have good engineering capabilities. For Harley, Buell will be their back door savior. Buell can play around more with engineering diversity, and applicable stuff will trickle across to Harley after it has been proven and accepted by the faithful.

[Karaya One]

Money isn't the issue. If Ducati was winning they would spend the money.

Making the bikes cc's smaller won't slow them down, and limiting the mods won't stop them from spending money. They will just spend the budget on other things.

Look at F1.

[highsider]

Hey, if anyone who works for Ducati is reading this -

BUILD A BIKE THAT WINS, AND STOP FUCKING WHINING.


That is all.