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Mladin Loses Appeal – Spies Wins Championship

By Paul Crowe

The disqualification of Mat Mladin for a crankshaft violation was on appeal until today when the AMA announced its final decision:

AMA Pro Racing announced today that the appeal of the disqualification of Mat Mladin on the #6 Suzuki from the Superbike races at Virginia International Raceway on August 16-17, 2008 has been deemed without merit and has been denied. The original penalty remains as previously announced and becomes final with this decision.

As a result, Spies wins the championship since his points lead cannot be overcome. OK, bring on the no rules racing.

Link: AMA

Posted on September 5, 2008 Filed Under: Motorcycle Racing

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Comments

  1. JB says

    September 5, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    whoopee. The AMA series has been so dreadfully boring over the last 6 years or so. It’s not even worth watching I gave up on going to Mid-Ohio about 5 years ago for their race. Who wants to pay $45 to watch the same 2 guys dust the whole field after 2 laps. Next year, the AMA might be full of unknowns, but at least there stands a chance of being some closer racing…..

  2. Skizick says

    September 6, 2008 at 11:07 am

    Will we learn what advantage this crank had over another. Is just being different enough? Has anybody checked out the shaft in Spies bike? Can’t ya just run what ya brung? Where’s that open class?

  3. ModenaWest says

    September 6, 2008 at 6:12 pm

    I wonder how long the cheating has been going on? Usually the only way something like this is identified is that someone left the team and did a bit of “whispering”…

  4. Roderick says

    September 7, 2008 at 4:02 am

    Matt Mladin and Ben Spies were dominating the championship, certainly among the best racers ever to come out of North America. Between them they have dominated American superbike racing for the last 5-6 years.

    Ben is probably leaving for Moto GP next year, and Matt has been a harsh critic of the proposed rules for the new series run by Roger Edmundson. If you do the “follow the money” math, it does seem obvious that Matt is being silenced.

    I think the whole situation is a power struggle and unfortunately, Matt is being singled out aa an example. The cost of speaking out against Roger Edmundson is high!

    I can’t say that I find the new series exciting, the rules sound too restrictive. What works for a bunch of cars running around an oval isn’t going to work for the premier class of American motorcycle roadracing.

    Like Nicky Hayden says, “The baddest bikes and the baddest riders”.

    A bunch of horsepower limited bikes sucking air through restricter plates……..yawn……what’s on Superbike…..Moto GP….250 GP…….British Superbike?

  5. Tinker says

    September 7, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Let’s see now…
    Top three bikes in the race from same team.
    Checked valves of all three and determined to be legal.
    Took crank out of only one, the winner, and most outspoken critic of changes being made.
    Only the rider penalized.
    Who thinks Mat had ever seen the crank on that bike?
    I think Roderick is on to something here.

    Though I will wait and see on the new rules, getting the top class into line with WSB should not be a bad step.

  6. B*A*M*F says

    September 8, 2008 at 7:48 am

    What bothers me most about this whole thing is that there hasn’t been any statement on what exactly was done to the crankshaft.

    Also, I haven’t heard about any other engine tear downs. I think it should be standard policy with any racing organization that if you inspect the winner, and that engine fails inspection, the runner up gets inspected before being declared winner.

  7. sanglant says

    September 8, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    Has anyone noticed that the appeal was denied in 30 minutes, and via press release? Did the AMA even bother to look at the material Suzuki submitted? http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=34046

  8. James says

    October 1, 2008 at 9:15 pm

    HELLO…
    I think Tinker got it right here. Yea, Mat was singled out. Roderick could have done the sport one better than getting back at Mladin. He should have had all three bikes inspected for the same defect. The big question here is simple. Why do we have someone capable of having a personal vendetta in a position to make motorcycle racing fair?

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