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Honda pulls out of superbike?


Casper
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To clarify a bit, they're pulling their factory support, but privateers will still run them, so you'll still see them race. It isn't like F1 where the car will just disappear. But, from what I've heard Kawi and Suzuki are thinking about pulling their factory support also.

Thanks for clarifying, I had no idea what they were saying.

kawi dont really have much factory support anyway really........

Do you guys even know what a factory team is? Kawi has just as much factory support as any other Manufacturer. Who do you think Rodger Lee Hayden rides for? Monster?

Question is will Neil Hodgson take Hayes' spot over on Erion?

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Thanks for clarifying, I had no idea what they were saying.

Do you guys even know what a factory team is? Kawi has just as much factory support as any other Manufacturer. Who do you think Rodger Lee Hayden rides for? Monster?

Question is will Neil Hodgson take Hayes' spot over on Erion?

No problem, I realize how hard it is for you to grasp certain ideas, so I'm here to help!:rolleyes:

I don't think the racing will be greatly affected by the withdraw of factory support. Yoshimura is a company separate from Suzuki with the R&D capability to both run a team and build a top notch race bike. As are all of the other teams. So their funding my be reduced a bit, but I don't think the quality of the bike will be drastically effected.

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Guys, factory team means they get factory direct support. That means:

-HRC US is factory (Neil and Miguel)

-Kawasaki USA (Rog and Jamie - Monster has nothing to do with factory support...)

-Yosh Suzuki (Spies, Mladin, Hayden)

-Graves Yamaha/Yamaha USA (Herrin, DiSalvo, BBoz, EBoz)

-Erion Honda (Zemke, Hayes)

Support teams get support via the marketing side of things and get direct factory support in the manner of bikes and even certain parts. The factory teams get to share R&D info with the factory, their high end divisions of developement and also get first crack at unique parts, etc.

Support teams like:

-Corona

-Pegram

-Jordan

-Attack

These are the teams from last season as this year is a cluster fuck. The teams have pulled for many reasons. Some due to rules, some due to the economy. I know Suzuki and Yamaha have pulled their Amateur MX Team support and not sure where the others lie.

What it boils down to is that marketing is where the budget comes from for the sports support side of things in a company. Usually, when budgets get cut, they hit marketing first. The company I work for slashed marketing money in the terms of sports marketing. It happens and will be a tough year for US racing.

The thing you'll probably (and hopefully) see is more factory support teams rising and becoming essentially factory teams. Think Hans Spree, Fuchs, etc...

The US market is not as direct to R&D as say MotoGP is. That focus will continue at least through 2009. 2010? Who knows. You might see teams cutting the number of riders, etc... Can't tell at this point...

Edited by Desmo-Brian
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^ Couldn't have said it better myself.

+1 but i would say as much R&D comes from WSBK as motoGP. i like to go to mid ohio every year and enjoy the experence but hardly watch the Superbike racing cuz it has sucked for the past few years, just been run aways. (esp. in comparing to WSBK) ill go to mid ohio this year as long as they have a race weekend just to go!

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Attack is extremley close to factory Kawasaki just like Erion is to honda . Factory kawaski and Mike Preston do all of the hiring of the riders for Richard Stanboli. He gets machines and big $ from the factory. Will they be out this year? As of now theyre finished building 5 new 2009 zx6r's but will they spin a wheel ? Stay tuned

Edited by attackpainter
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does this mean Honda's R&D is going to go down hill on the new bikes because they got no experts racing for them directly anymore?

For the CBR600 and 1000, R&D come more from WSBK than AMA. Traditionally, Honda's US racing was an in house deal as of the last couple of years anyways. Not much to gain from it... They used to get info from WSBK much like Yamaha does currently...

MotoGP R&D has nothing to do with WSBK or other SS based events or series. Sure, the trickle down of info occurs, but MotoGP isn't a test bed for WSBK...

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So does this mean that Hodgson and Duhamel are out? I saw where Neil was fastest at Daytona tire test..

Miguel's been out. They finally got rid of the old guy. Of course, now that he's gone, there's no real seats open for the deserving guys out there!

Neil will be on an Erion or Corona bike. I am betting on the Corona machine...

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