Daytona, Dimming

Daytona, dimming

UP FRONT

David Edwards

You DO THE MATH. SOMETHING LIKE 500,000 people attend Daytona Beach’s Bike Week, that annual rite-of-spring run to the sun that occurs every March. But less than one-tenth that number, maybe 40,000 if you believe optimistic organizers, attend the so-called “Big Race,” the Daytona 200.

By the time the 200-miler is flagged off Sunday afternoon, most Daytona-goers have stuffed dirty skivvies into leather saddlebags-or tied-down their trailer queens-and hit the road. Come lap 24,1 wished I was one of them. That’s when Kurds Roberts, apparently heedless of a tortured rear tire, had the thing completely frag itself going into the Chicane-at about a buck-50! Somehow, Roberts didn’t go down (speaking of dirty skivvies), but from there on the remaining 33 ho-hum laps belonged to Nicky Hayden, thankfully devoid of the leopard-skin hairdo this year and riding with a measured maturity well beyond his 20 years. His biggest concern in the closing laps was a contact lens that popped loose.

“A dream come true,” Hayden told reporters after the win. About his cruise to the checkered flag he said, “I didn’t think it was going to end, the race seemed so long. I was just waiting for it to be over.”

Join the rest of us, kid.

Truth is, Daytona the race has become all but ancillary to Daytona the place. Bike Week would be almost as popular and almost as profitable to local coffers if nothing more racy than the tourist trambus ran at the International Speedway.

Problems are many, solutions thorny. Let’s start with the track, not exactly a spectator-friendly venue vis-à-vis motorcycles. Essentially a banked speed bowl with a flat, unchallenging infield portion, plus the infamous Chicane, it’s 3.56 miles around, an average lap taking about 2 minutes. From the main grandstands, say, you see the bikes hove into view along the East Banking, rip past start-finish and dive into Tum 1. So far, not bad, but then the machines rapidly diminish to flyspeck status as they work around the enormity of the course.

The simple addition of a few Jumbotron television screens—one each on the front and back straights, another two at the infield Horseshoes-showing the live Speed Channel feed would go a long way toward keeping fans informed and entertained. We have the technology; it’s routinely done at GPs in Europe and at Laguna Seca.

“No, Daytona wouldn’t do that,” one insider told me. “They don’t want to spend the money.”

Big-screen TVs or not, it helps to have a good show, and here’s the real bugaboo. The Daytona 200, supposedly America’s most important professional motorcycle race, is basically a club-level event. Of the 55 bikes that took the green flag, fully 46 were Supersport-quality Suzuki GSX-R750s piloted by guys who normally fill the grids at your local track. No disrespect intended-back when I was club roadracing, had I the chance to compete in the Daytona 200, bet your life I’m there-but some of these tailenders were 15 seconds a lap off the leaders’ pace. Backmarkers were being lapped every eight circuits or so. Only six bikes, all factory-backed, finished on the lead lap, meaning in effect that Hayden finished first and seventh.

The current state of Superbike racing is not helping matters. On the street, the 750 class has become largely redundant, thanks to powerhouse 600s and flyweight 1000s. Only Suzuki makes a viable 750cc Four for use as a Superbike starting point, hence their proliferation at Daytona. Honda has none, Kawasaki’s ZX-7R is older than your Aunt Hattie and Yamaha’s limited-run YZF-R7 is all but unobtainable-heck, there’s just one factory-supported version in all the world. On the V-Twin front, only Honda fielded RC51s-the $125,000 cost of an HRC race kit apparently scaring privateers away. Ducatis may be omnipotent in World Supers, but not at Daytona. The semi-factory HMC outfit had the only red bike at Daytona and it let rider Pascal Picotte down 19 laps in.

The solution may be the death of the Superbike as we know it. The AMA, unhappy with the current situation, is looking at revamping the rules for 2003. The revisions would permit the running of lOOOcc Fours, with a cap on performance mods so as to not show up the current 750cc Four/lOOOcc V-Twin all-out Superbikes-and to keep costs down. This puts the AMA in step with the FIM, which will institute similar changes for the 2004 World Superbike season.

Backdrop to all of this, of course, is the arrival of big-bore four-strokes in Grand Prix racing. Given the immense budgets needed to develop and field competitive works teams in both WSB and GP racing, it’s not hard to imagine the factories wanting Superbikes to become Supersports, while GP1 bikes become hightech flagships (from which big-buck, street-going replicas can be marketed).

Back to the Daytona 200. Here’s what needs to happen if it’s to become what it once was-the single most prestigious motorcycle race in the world—instead of a conglomeration of earnest but amateur droners being buzzed by a dwindling field of factory Superbikes. First, adopt the lOOOcc Supersport rules. That way, you’d at least have faster YZF-Rls, GSX-R1000s, CBR954RRs, etc. out there mixing it up. Next, do whatever it takes to make Daytona part of the World Superbike Series. This may require a change in format (two 100-kilometer legs?) and alterations to the track (less time on the banking, more infield comers?). Do it. Pit Hayden vs. Haga, Mladin vs. Bayliss, Gobert vs. Edwards, Bostrom vs. Bostrom, Yates vs. Hodgson, Duhamel vs. Xaus, Picotte vs. Chili, etc. and Daytona would at least stand a fighting chance of putting 100,000 butts in the bleachers. To bring the world to Daytona, though-and this is the most difficult of all-would require a change in attitude from Daytona’s controlling and xenophobic France family. “We don’t want a domestic Grand Prix,” Jim France told me last year.

Speak for yourself, Mr. France.