Tucked in behind the windscreen at 170 mph, on the banking of Daytona International Speedway, a motorcycle racer knows the irony of the “soft walls.” They’re made of steel. They’re not soft. But it feels safer when riding up close up close to them, at the top of Daytona’s steep banking. That’s because, being next to them, it will hurt less if things go bad. Being already there, a racer can hope for a glancing blow, rather than plowing iron. The best things about the Daytona 200 are the big speed and the high banking. There’s no place like it. But the worst things about the Daytona 200 are the big speed and the high banking. Risk isn’t just a matter of odds. It’s matter of perception and culture, of choice and commitment. Time hasn’t much changed the dangers of racing motorcycles at 170 mph around the steep banking of Daytona International Speedway. But time has changed what’s acceptable risk for many racers. Can we again learn to love this race that once was the Bomb? The Daytona 200 has history, lots of history, but does it have a future? For the last 15 years, no one has been a bigger critic of the Daytona 200 than me. Off and on since 1989, I’ve been to Daytona as a spectator, racer (1990 AMA 3-Hour endurance), team owner (1996 Daytona 200, with Frank Wilson riding; 12th overall, first privateer), journalist, marketing manager, PR consultant, vendor, and general good-for-nothing. I’ve witnessed the Daytona 200 transform through four different classes: 750 Superbike, 1000 Superbike, Formula Xtreme, and Daytona SportBike. I’d loved the Daytona 200 since the days I saw King Kenny Roberts do the world’s first televised stoppie, at a pit stop. But for the last couple of decades, I’ve not loved the Daytona 200. 
A bit of history. AMA Pro riders’ opinions of the 200 have changed since the late 1990s, from it being a highly sought after win, to becoming an event that many of them, if not most, dread. Numerous professional riders have told me that their only quest in the 200 is to simply survive it, and be able to get on with the rest of the season. In 1996, nearly two-dozen factory teams were on the grid for the Daytona 200, including riders from AMA Superbike, World Superbike, Grand Prix, Japanese Superbike, and British Superbike. Journalists from all over the world crowded the media room that year. But that was the last year it mattered as a world event. In 1998, Kel Edge, a photographer from the UK, looked around the media room and noted to me that he was the only foreign correspondent at the event. He said he wouldn’t be back. He hasn’t. Neither have any of the rest of the non-North American media. Or riders, excepting one or two. I’m not sure that I know, even today, why that was when Daytona’s steep decline in international appeal began, in concert with fewer US privateers competing. The grid hasn’t been filled since. Was it the basic impossibility of a non-AMA factory competitor winning the race? Was it the ever-increasing number of high-speed tire failures? Was it the walls? The hotel prices? One thing is for certain—the Daytona 200 was in decline long before the class structure changed, or changed again, or the AMA changed ownership.
After the turn of the century, the goals and needs of the AMA and Daytona became increasingly incompatible. In 2001, AMA riders revolted at Loudon’s New Hampshire International Speedway over concerns of rider safety, which was the culmination of a roiling three-years of unrest, inspired by the crashes and horrendous injuries suffered there in 1998 by Miguel Duhamel, Brett Metzger, and Thomas Wilson. There’d been rider revolts for safety at various tracks in prior years, but this was the first time the riders won the fight. Loudon has been off the AMA Pro Racing calendar ever since. Owners of other tracks on the AMA Superbike Series calendar noticed. At the time, an AMA board member told me that many tracks called the AMA, in a bit of panic, to ensure that they’d not suffer the same fate. They invited safety inspections and made changes in good-faith efforts, showing support for rider safety. Some made significant changes to their tracks, some didn’t, and the calendar in subsequent years came to exactly reflect that. Even DIS made changes. But they weren’t happy about it. To keep Superbikes in the 200, the West Banking was eliminated to reduce the endemic tire issues that had been plaguing the big bikes because of overheating on the banking. But DIS wasn’t pleased with that solution; Daytona is all about the banking and having motorcycles race where NASCAR races. So the next compromise was reducing the size and power of the bikes, and putting both bankings back into the 200’s laps. But no one liked having Formula Xtreme, a lesser class, be the star race at DIS. Plus, riders voicing concerns about the risks of racing in the 200 was gaining traction. Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG), which operates DIS, solved dissent by purchasing the rights to operate AMA Pro Racing. Daytona SportBike, a medium-weight class, was then created to be the official Daytona 200 class. In essence, the series was now owned by the one single track that, according to many racers, shouldn’t even be on their calendars. If a racer wanted to compete in the AMA Pro Road Racing Series, she/he could do little more than shut up and race at Daytona. Some didn’t shut up.
A suddenly bad economy, an unsound if not vindictive upper management at DMG in its early years, failed rules, tactical errors, and bad press generated by some riders, manufacturers, and media, crippled the DMG-owned series. Not only did the Daytona 200 become threatened, the entire AMA Pro Racing Series went into a steeper, faster decline than ever before. Motorcycle road racing ceased to be a viable national sport. DMG was left to manage a series without sponsors, without TV, with only a few racers, and a diminishing front gate. Despite the AMA Series having awesome racing and great relationships between riders and officials for the last few years, DMG couldn’t fix these issues. Too few enthusiasts cared. And the too few enthusiasts became fewer and fewer. The fan base was all but gone. Damaged and defeated, despite the great racing and level playing field, the DMG-owned AMA series was irreparable. Bashing the series on social media became a more popular sport than the sport itself. Sure, most “haters” weren’t attending events to see how good the show actually was, but that’s the power of social media; facts don’t really matter much and perception is nine-tenths of the law. So, the rights to run the AMA Pro series were handed off to new owners MotoAmerica, overseen by well-known Grand Prix star Wayne Rainey. Was it any shock that the new forces behind Pro Racing, MotoAmerica, didn’t come to terms with DIS to include the 200 on its 2015 schedule? An insider told me that there were no strings attached to MotoAmerica’s deal to manage the AMA Pro Road Racing Series, and it was free to include Daytona from its calendar. The 200 was given serious consideration; after all, Rainey had raced there when it was a world-class event so it wasn’t something he was going to be flippant about. But today’s realities are different. Concerns included the fact that DIS looks empty even when there’s a good-sized crowd of enthusiasts attending the 200, so it isn’t a good venue to maintain sponsors from outside the industry; 25,000 people sitting in grandstands built for 168,000 just looks bad. Even the Speedway doesn’t like how it looks with only 100,000 seats filled for NASCAR, and so right now it’s tearing some down.
Also considered were the costs for teams and racers, and, yes, the dangers. Adding to that last concern was the fact that DIS had planned on requiring the big bikes to be competing in the 200, which just isn’t technologically possible today, unless pit stops for new tires are mandated every 10 laps or so. As you know, MotoAmerica chose to leave Daytona off its schedule. No 200? Talk about needing to be careful about what you wish for. Well, again as you know, DIS took over the 200, and contracted the CCS/ASRA (Championship Cup Series/American Sportbike Racing) series owned by Kevin Elliot to manage the race. Suddenly the Daytona 200 was a stand-alone event, open to any and all racers who might want to compete in it. Suddenly, the Daytona 200 was what it should have become years ago: a racer’s choice. This chance parting has shown that it’s the best thing that could have happened to this race on the banking. For the 74th running of the Daytona 200, there was not a single rider there who didn’t want to be there. So no one racing there had any issues with the risks involved; they all knew the risks, accepted the risks, and voluntarily wanted to race. The Daytona 200 is now like of the Isle of Man TT, which until 1977 was a round of the World Grand Prix championship, and is today a crazy, dangerous, wonderful event on its own. Or it’s like Loudon, which has its own unique culture of risk. Or like the Macau GP. Because the 200 is now a racer’s free choice, my opinion of it has totally changed. I’m all for it. Once again, I love it. This year’s race was awesome. The competition was high, the grid was larger than last year by a dozen, and the Daytona 200 was able to establish its identity.
AMA Hall of Fame inductee, and 1972 Daytona 200 winner, Don Emde, summed it up best. "It’s a race. The history is here. I think it will survive. It will be like the TT, its own event. It's never been an AMA race, it's always been a Daytona race. And now it's just that." Did Emde always know this, that’s it’s always been just the Daytona 200, despite for decades being attached to a national series? He’s a smart and insightful man. I had to see this new year of independence happen to figure it out. And one should note that Emde is not partisan; he supports MotoAmerica. Stalwart race announcer, and former racer, Rich Chambers, said, “The headline is: ‘Start of a New Era.’ There was great racing and more things for me to talk about than in recent years. Jason Farrell led the race for a while after needing to buy an engine on Ebay yesterday, picking it up in Tampa [some say Miami.] and swapping out his top-end onto it. “Also, it looked like there were more spectators than last year. No control tire was great. It was a war out there. This is why we come to the races. ASRA did a remarkable job.” The podium finishers were there because they each felt they needed this race. Danny Eslick, who won by 0.086 seconds, said: “Two weeks before the race, I didn’t know what I was doing. Eric called me, got me signed up, and everything happened in just two weeks.” Second-place finisher Josh Herrin said, “It was important for fast guys to be here. Important for its history, and our history. It’s great for me to be at the front after last year. As you know, last year was a very bad year for me.”
Third-pace finisher, and pole winner, Geoff May said, “I had a terrible season last year. I had to show others, show myself, that I’m fast. You think you’re good but you have to know. I needed this race. I’m not getting younger. It would have been painful for me not to be here. “We were having fun, racing close, fighting for the win. I had an issue with the fuel cap. I never gave up, but that was the difference. This was the one that got away from me. Prior to that, it was the most fun race I’ve ever had.” And even Barrett Long was happy to be there, even though his bike blew up on the grid and he was unable to post a single lap. When I asked Long his thoughts about entering the 200, he said, “I looked outside; is the sky blue? It’s time to go to Daytona.” For announcer Chambers there were the story lines above, plus Slovenian racer Bostjan Skubic, who’s been under the radar for his 12 years of racing in the 200. He led on lap 12 and finished fourth; Jason Farrell crashed out but rejoined. There were five starts and no scheduled pit stops under green until the last dash for gas; Stefano Mesa’s battery went dead and he missed the third restart after running in the lead pack all day; Dustin Apgar had the race of his life, at times into the lead group and posting a best-lap time faster than the fifth-place finisher; front-runner Steve Rapp had his clutch replaced, suffered an oil leak, and was black-flagged for starting from the wrong place (not even close); Joel Lenk, with a pit crew that included some personnel from his Oskar Blues Brewery sponsor, started 45th and finished 23rd, having an awesome time. And there’s something to say for the race being won by Eslick, who won it last year, linking the Daytona 200’s future to its past. The race was no gimme for him, and it was far closer than last year’s event. CCS/ASRA owner Elliot said, “We had a great race. We’ve got a great champion. There were too many red flags, but when there’re a number of riders down we have to take care of them. I’m already working on doing this race again next year.” At least for one year, for this one race, the 200 had greatly reduced politics, less corporate influence, and little hindrance of greed. Sure, it still had its usual dangers, but now that risk a virtue, not a vice. Maybe you need to be a racer to understand that. The Daytona 200 does not need MotoAmerica. MotoAmerica does not need the Daytona 200. Both are better off, much better off, without their cords intertwined. So, Barrett, I’ll look for you next year, when the sky is blue. 
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