No Change To MotoAmerica Superbike Gridding Procedure

From a MotoAmerica press release:

MotoAmerica will continue to use its current qualifying procedure to grid riders in 2017, but the AMA/FIM North America-sanctioned MotoAmerica Superbike Series will continue to monitor its World Superbike counterpart to see how its new system of gridding race two based on the results of race one is received by fans, teams and riders.

Earlier this week the World Superbike Championship announced a revision to its race-two gridding procedure with the second of the two World Superbike races to be lined up based on finishing positions in race one – in reverse order, for the top nine. In other words, the podium finishers from race one will start race two from row three. The three who finished fourth, fifth and sixth will start from the front row; and those in seventh, eighth and ninth will grid on row two.

The announcement caused some controversy and led many to believe that MotoAmerica would follow suit. That’s not the case says MotoAmerica partner Chuck Aksland.

“We went to the two-races-on-one-day concept that was used by World Superbike at the time, and we’ve switched back to a two-day format with the Superbike races for next year after monitoring World Superbikes lead for a year,” Aksland said. “For the new World Superbike grid system, we will take the same look, review how it works over the year and then assess if we move forward or not. It’ll be interesting to watch and we look forward to seeing if the benefits make it worthwhile for MotoAmerica to move in that direction in 2018.”

The 10-round MotoAmerica Series kicks off in Austin, Texas, at Circuit of The Americas, April 20-23, followed the next weekend by round two at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, April 28-30.