AMA Resolves Scheduling Conflict with its Mid-Ohio Round and the Laguna Seca World Superbike Round

There are days where we truly wonder about the future of AMA Pro Road Racing. Like the rest of the motorcycle industry, America’s premier motorcycle racing series was devastated by the recession and tough economy; that is factor external to the series, and no one could fault AMA Racing for facing some challenges because of it.

However beyond the tough economy, the national-level series has perpetrated so many unforced errors upon itself that when it comes to its management, you sometimes have to wonder if there is anyone awake at the switch.

Take the latest gaffe from AMA Pro Racing: the scheduling of the Mid-Ohio round during the World Superbike weekend at Laguna Seca. We can only imagine the surprise of riders, teams, and sponsors when they realized that the recently announced Mid-Ohio round was in full-conflict with World Superbike’s stop at Laguna Seca, a round that the AMA has typically been the support class of.

AMA Pro Racing has traditionally run as a support class for the WSBK weekend, as World Supersport is too expensive to bring to California, and AMA Pro Racing’s position at Laguna Seca is an almost forgone conclusion for riders, teams, sponsors, and fans. But even that most basic assumption proved to be too much this year.

For the past few months, AMA Pro Racing has been doling out each round this holiday season, one-by-one, in separate announcements, as if revealing the schedule via some sort of motorcycle racing advent calendar. During the same time, the World Superbike Championship released its provisional calendar, with Laguna Seca overlapping the weekend with AMA’s Mid-Ohio round.

Thankfully despite promoting and already selling tickets for both events, Mid-Ohio has been able to swap the dates for its AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days (now being held July 11th-13th) and Buckeye Superbike Weekend events (now 19th-20th), creating an opportunity for AMA Pro Racing to run at both Laguna Seca and Mid-Ohio.

There is no word yet that AMA Pro Racing will seize the opportunity to race at Laguna Seca, though the most basic of assumptions would suggest that is the logical reason behind Mid-Ohio’s event swap. Even AMA Pro Racing can’t screw this up, right?

Source: AMA