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MOTOGP: Noyes Notebook: MSMA’s Cloudy Vision
Dennis Noyes comments in his latest notebook that the MSMA seems to lack a coherent, shared vision for the future of MotoGP.
Dennis Noyes  |  Posted April 22, 2010   Borrego Springs, CA
(Photo: Ducati Corse)

The ash clouds over Europe that caused the postponement of the Japanese Grand Prix may have given the MSMA (The Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers Association) some much-needed time to think. What is it that the MSMA really wants?

There was a time when the MSMA spoke with a single voice -- or at least seemed to. Back at the dawn of the change from 500cc two strokes to 990cc four strokes, the old GPMA (Grand Prix Manufacturers Association) changed its name and its role.

Originally, as the name indicated, the GPMA was involved only in the Grand Prix series, but in an attempt to create a coherent rule-making system, the FIM, Dorna, and IRTA (The GP teams association), along with FGSports (now InFront Motor Sports), and the World Superbike Teams Association agreed to establish parallel bodies, the Grand Prix Commission and the Superbike Commission to govern the two roadracing world championships.

The FIM and the newly-named MSMA would sit at both tables -- the FIM as the sporting authority and the MSMA given the privilege and responsibility of making the technical rules. Dorna and IRTA partnered with the FIM and MSMA in the GP arena while FGSport and the Teams Association did the same in the World Championships for production-derived machines.

The experiences of the promoters were very different. While Dorna was pleased with the original MotoGP regs for 990cc four strokes, the Flammini brothers 'fired' the MSMA midway through the 2003 season and scrapped the regulations that, although already approved, allowed extensive engine modification but then reduced performance by introducing restrictor plates.

The reason that World Superbike dumped the MSMA and its regulations was simply that of the 'Big Five' racing factories that were true participating members of the MSMA (Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki, Kawasaki, and Ducati) only one, Ducati -- the only non-Japanese member -- was actually committed to racing under the regulations that the organization had drafted.

As a result of the rejection of the MSMA rules, the MSMA leadership issued an angry statement saying that no MSMA teams would compete in World Superbike. That statement had to be amended when Ducati, obviously not consulted when the press release was made, announced that they were, in fact, planning to continue in World Superbike.


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