Roger Edmondson: back in charge
During Daytona Bike Week, the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) announced that it has entered into an agreement in principle to sell the sanctioning, promotional and management rights for its AMA Pro Racing properties to the Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG), based in Daytona Beach, Florida.
This means that Jim France (of the NASCAR Frances) and Roger Edmondson (currently running the Grand American Road Race sports car series and the Moto ST bike twins endurance series) will take over all aspects of professional AMA motorcycle racing other than Supercross and Arenacross (already sold to Live Nation). The AMA will continue to run its amateur and junior levels of racing.
The sale has to be particularly sweet for Edmondson, who created the CCS motorcycle series back in the 1990s, was hired by AMA to restructure its racing in the same mould, then was summarily fired when the AMA decided things were looking good and they could start making money. Edmondson sued and after a bitter court battle won a multi-million dollar settlement.
And now he’s back in charge of the whole deal.
Kudos to new AMA CEO Rob Dingman, who has been trying to drag the AMA out of the 19th century since his appointment about 18 months ago. Not only is he accomplishing wonders in cleaning the organization up, he had the class at the press conference to apologize to Edmondson for the AMA’s past treatment of him.
