The day American Superbike racing died

Dean Adams reported today in superbikeplanet.com, that the deadline imposed by Roger Edmondson and the DMG for the open RFC has come and gone with silence from the manufacturers. This means no Factory Superbike for the 2009 series.

I believe that this is the beginning of the end to factory supported motorcycle roadracing in America. On John Ulrich's site, Alan Wilson, a well regarded motorcycle racetrack designer and operator noted that without the manufacturers, there is no real money available for the series, and without money, it's hard to operate a series.

There's much more to this morass than I can get into here and now, and I'm glossing over some of the important details. But in short, I feel that Roger Edmondson, with the help of the pariahs of the outgoing AMA who handed him the series on a silver platter, have steered this ship aground. In an act of desperate, foolish pride, they set it ablaze and told everyone that it was too far gone to be saved.

When Roger E. came in, he didn't ask the OEMs for input on how the series should be run. He dictated his masterplan of a NASCAR-style marketing campaign where the riders came first, the sponsors, second and the manufacturers, third. No one cares that Tony Stewart drives a Toyota. He's still a crybaby. That doesn't work in motorcycle racing -- it can't work.

In motorcycle racing, none of the technology is lost on die-hard fans. Among my favorites was Honda's fabulous RVF750R RC45. It oozed with technology, and even though it enjoyed limited success on the racetrack compared to the equally fabulous VFR750R RC30 it replaced, what the bike stood for is what made it special to me. It's hard to argue with 190 hp out of a 750cc motor configured in a way that no one else (until the MotoGP machines came out) thought was worth the trouble.

I don't disagree that the AMA series needed to be changed in some fundamental ways. But it's now been changed in such a material way that I doubt if anyone will even care that it exists.

Roger Edmondson has proven once again that he ought to seek employ in another industry. Fifteen years ago he was at the heart of another sickening battle within the AMA. What made it worse is that his tiff with the AMA fleeced its members out of millions of dollars, proving that the AMA isn't good for much of anything -- riding, rights or racing.

Sound v1.2

I think that truly, few people really know who I am and what makes me tick.

Tick.

Hmmmm.... I'm not sure that that even does it justice.

Tick. No, tick definitely isn't the right word.

Pulsate? Vibrate? Hum? I wouldn't so much call it a tick. Ticking, as a clock does, is rhythmic. Predictable. Boring. I think the *it* we're talking about -- that thing that defines existence as we know it -- is much more pervasive.

Go to the quietest place you can find. Close your eyes. Lie very, very still for a few minutes.

Tel me what you hear.

No, it's not nothing. Listen. REALLY listen. Find that sound and latch on to it. If you can suss it out and isolate it, it'll drive you mad in a minute or so.

Do you remember what televisions did from the 1970s?

They made a high-pitched sound; it was something to do with how the electricity behaved inside the cathode ray tube. Some people's hearing isn't fine-tuned enough to hear it. I've always had very acute hearing, even though I've abused it over the years.

That sound -- the high-pitched sound -- could be a peripheral descriptor of what I hear when it all gets quiet. But that's just the beginning, because what I hear... It's so much more. Take that high pitched, constant broadcast, and put it somewhere you can find it.

Now go to a piano. Step on the Sostenuto pedal -- or, the one in the middle that *would* be the Sostenuto pedal on a Steinway. It may just be a half-blow pedal, but for our exercise, it'll work just as well.

Step on it.

Now, as much as you can, press all of the piano keys at once -- firmly. If you can't press them all at once, press as many as you can at one time, then press the remaining ones.

Keep the pedal depressed.

Wait for a minute or two.

Wait for the sound to quiet down. Wait until it almost completely dies out.

Try to weave your mind in and out of each key as the sound dies out. Try to isolate each key. You can do it if you focus.

SEE the sound. Visualize it.
You have to be able see the sound three-dimensionally.

Now go get that sound I told you to put aside just a little while ago -- the high-pitched broadcast. Mix it in with the Sostenuto-pedal-damped piano's cry. Take that.

Magnify it.

Magnify it.

Make it 1000-times louder, and then triple it.

And that's close. That's close to what I hear when it all gets dark and quiet inside my head.

It's never the same, but it's always there.

I'll know when I'm dead, because it will be gone.

When I try to describe to people, they usually say, "How sad..."

I think it's quite the contrary. I can SEE sound -- anticipate it.

I watch it rise and fall, breath and grow on the black palette of my mind. The colors are more brilliant and vibrant than any you can find in the visual spectrum.

It's a gift.

It's how I'm able to fully enjoy Vocal Trance.

Certainly, that's not the only outlet, but an excellent example of the very thing that drives my being.