Mladin and Hayden DQ’ed From Friday Qualifying
The decision by the AMA not to allow the appeal gives Mladin's teammate Ben Spies an insurmountable points lead going into the final round of the series at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca next weekend. Going into Laguna, Spies now holds at 101-point lead over Mladin, 620-519. It also gives Spies both of Mladin's wins from VIR, with the Texan now getting credit for 10 wins on the season to Mladin's 8.
Mladin, however, will end up second in the title chase as he is 79 points clear of Jason DiSalvo with just the Laguna round remaining.
American Suzuki Motor Corporation and Yoshimura Racing were shocked and dismayed when, less than 30 minutes after they submitted, on behalf of Mat Mladin, the written evidence demanded by the AMA, the request for an appeal of Mladin's disqualification from the VIR Superbike races was summarily rejected. Both companies believe the decision is arbitrary and unreasonable, and flagrantly ignores the letter and spirit of the AMA rules.
On Saturday, August 30th, AMA Special Projects Manager Bill Syfan informed Don Sakakura of Yoshimura Racing that they must produce supporting documentation and crankshaft production records and information by 5:00 p.m. (EST) today. The written submission, along with an opinion from an independent crankshaft expert, was faxed to the AMA shortly before 5:00 p.m. (ET) this afternoon. In addition, early this morning Yoshimura Racing and American Suzuki Motor Corporation delivered to the AMA offices in Ohio an exemplar crankshaft for inspection and comparison.
Shortly after 5:00 p.m. (ET) today, less than half an hour after the written submission was timely sent to the appropriate AMA officials, Don Sakakura and Mat Mladin were notified by phone by Bill Syfan that an appeal board would not be convened. However, it took a posting on roadracingworld.com for them to learn that the AMA had, within minutes after receiving the written submission, concluded that the appeal was "without merit."
A spokesperson for Yoshimura Racing stated that the decision stunned everyone, and team officials were bewildered as to why the AMA would make such an onerous request for evidence on short notice and then refuse to consider any of it. "It makes us question the integrity behind the enforcement of the rules and suggests that there was never an intention to assemble an appeal board to conduct an objective and impartial hearing. From all appearances, the AMA had clearly made its decision well before 5:00 p.m. The 'deadline' was obviously a ruse to create the impression of fairness."
Mladin has asked the AMA to immediately provide a written statement of the basis for its summary rejection of his appeal.
[Editor's Note: Too funny. Did Mladin actually think he could speak out vehemently against the France Family owned AMA and not get his wrists slapped and basically told "Son, keep your mouth shut and just race. We're boss around here and you had best mind your manners."]
08/30/08 For the second race in a row, The France Family of Daytona owned AMA Pro Racing tech inspectors have alleged that the crankshaft in Mat Mladin’s Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 was illegal, only this time they alleged the same of Tommy Hayden’s machine. Recall that Mladin has spoke out against the series recently on a number of issues, so they are making him pay for this by inspecting his machinery very intensely with the goal of finding him to be illegal every race.
Following Friday’s qualifying session at Road Atlanta, in which the Rockstar Makita Suzuki team of Ben Spies, Mat Mladin, and Tommy Hayden qualified one-two-three, the engines in all three race bikes were inspected. AMA tech inspectors, after a preliminary inspection, didn’t find a problem with the crankshaft on Spies’ machine, but did with the two others. Hayden's and Mladin's were torn down and the crankshafts removed.
Hours later, a press release issued from Daytona Beach, Florida said that all of Mladin’s and Hayden’s Friday qualifying times would be disallowed “for use of non-homologated crankshafts." Both will be allowed to take part in the Saturday morning qualifying session prior to Saturday’s 17th of 19 Superbike races.
The teams didn’t get both of their machines back until around 7:00 p.m., after which they had to begin to prepare them for Saturday’s races.