First Win WSBK, 1&2

MotoGP has become a parade. I saw these last WSB races and for the time, I'm switching away from GP.

Nope not me;

If it has wheels , make noise and goes fast i want to either ride it or at least watch the aliens who can.

BMW is not supporting any bikes in AMA as they have said they put all their money in GS advertisement in the US and their riding schools. Larry was going to remove all the BMW stickers from his bike but I guess he had second thoughts.This is according to some of his backers that I know.

Even though the AMA series is and has been a joke for several years.
I think BMW is missing a very inexpensive opportunity to market and sell more machines it the USA than they think.
The mark still carries the stigma of an old mans bike here.

RoboRider said:

MotoGP has become a parade. I saw these last WSB races and for the time, I'm switching away from GP.

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I agree, though I watch all the moto gp races. WSB and the moto 2/moto 3 class races are much more exciting imho.

40427 said:

Even though the AMA series is and has been a joke for several years.
I think BMW is missing a very inexpensive opportunity to market and sell more machines it the USA than they think.
The mark still carries the stigma of an old mans bike here.

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Is it all that cheap? The AMA sold ProRacing in part because of the cost of running a continental series. The recurring lament of privateers is the cost of campaigning in a national series spread over a continent. Combine that with a Japanese dominated class and governing body no matter who owned the series and AMA Proracing is not friendly to newcomers.

How much is the ROI? While I agree there are sales to be made but is there enough increase available to justify the expense? Will a WSBK championship do as much? What will the world wide impact of a true factory effort in MotoGP be on S1000RR and other sport bikes in the line up be?

At the corporate level the decision was to focus their dollars on Husqvarna marque development and racing in NA. BMW NA has seen the synergy in its resulting budget best spent on the GS.

Motorcycle road racing, with the exception of certain regional niches, has fallen on hard times. Regional club racing is disappearing in some areas. If US mc road racing is to return to anything close to the days that produced riders and interest as in the past it will have to happen as a grass roots rebirth.

Old Man Stigma - BMW riders are as guilty of self identifying the marque's following as being that as much as anyone else. The reality as I see it is the a bit different.

The MOA, if I am not mistaken, is the worlds largest BMW motorcycle club. It has self identified as touring camping group preferring endings like RT and GS on the end of their BMW nomenclature. That is fine because that was a membership decision. The segment of the group that likes S and RRs in their nomenclature have been amazingly quiet when it comes to supporting their leadership sponsoring a BMW road racer in any way. The BoD have listened carefully and the membership and they have listened to the silence. They have responded very appropriately by creating touring destinations to races like MMS and Indy while doing GS based events.

If you want Motorrad Road Racing think globally and race locally.

p.s. wow I didn't mean to rant but I guess I did.

I could also go on a rant about the AMA ( I'm a charter lifer member).

The AMA was doing fine up until it got greedy and went from being a sanctioning body to a race promoter. I was there, and experienced it first hand as a privateer. Not a fun time to say the least.

As for BMW supporting racing here, I doubt it will ever happen in a meaningful way and it's probably best left the way it is. I wish that were different, it is not . The Japanese mfgr's have been cutting back consistently for several years now and are support efforts to well funded smaller teams. I don't see a profitable business model for those teams so they must do it for the love of the sport.

BMW like Triumph; has a great name in the market place but does suffer somewhat from more of an older wealthier owner stigma than the English brand.
Triumph is pretty smart in its move to off shore production and most of their top end models are at a price point less than BMW. They also have a growing following of the retro styled bikes. BMW dropped the ball on that end IMHO, the only thing they have is the R1200 Classic . I have never seen one on the road.

Road racing here in the states never had all that big of a fan base. When the Japanese mfgr's got heavily involved it killed privateer interest. That's another discussion.

That certainly was heartbreaking after watching both races and to have a sure double taken from them was just wrong.

lkchris said:

And then there was Sunday ...

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