The AMA track inspection follows two recent visits by FIM Safety Director Claude Danis, who identified certain upgrades to meet the needs of the Hannspree FIM Superbike World Championship, with whom the AMA Superbike Championship will share the facility over the weekend of May 29 – June 1, 2008.

The positive changes which have been made are increased asphalt runoff, improved curbing at a number of corners and modifications to the runoff at the final corner and the entrance to pit lane.

Zemke, who will move from the factory Honda Superbike and Formula Xtreme teams to the privateer Erion Racing Honda Supersport team in 2008, was very pleased with the changes that have been made.

“It looks good,” he said. “It's not going to take much to get it ready for us to race on, just a couple of little changes here and there. Obviously, Alan and Larry (Miller, track owner) go out of their way to make sure that we get what we want here. It's great to see their enthusiasm to make this the safest track that we go to. Obviously, they've also worked on the last corner, which was the only problem we ever had with the Outer Course, and the fix looks really good. It's really great to see a track that wants to be on the forefront of safety for motorcycle racing.”

The track will operate a unique dual-pit-lane concept, it will be set up so that the World Superbikes and AMA Superbikes each have their own distinct pit lane, with the World Superbikes working out of the Grand Prix garages and a hard barrier placed to separate that area from the AMA Superbike team working area and pit lane.

Each series will have its own pit-out, with the AMA using the existing pit-out, which has been modified for better flow and higher speed, and the World Superbikes using a new extended pit lane with pit-out at Turn 1. This arrangement will allow fans to visit the World Superbike pit lane while the AMA bikes are on the track, which will provide unprecedented access right in the middle of the action.

“I think the pit lane setup is going to be really neat,” Zemke said. “It's going to be a unique opportunity for the race fans to actually get down there and see what's going on. Especially while we're out on the track, they're going to be able to be peeking into the garages at what the World Superbike guys are doing as well as being able to see what we're doing out on the pit lane. It's going to be an incredible opportunity to get access that you can't get at any other racetrack in the country, so I think that's going to be really exciting for the fans, and it should be really good.”

As for the prospect of going from the 3.08-mile Outer Course to the 4.5-mile Full Course, Zemke, who scored the most recent Honda Superbike win here in 2006, said that a 50-percent increase in lap length would add more excitement to the racing.

“You know, I think the racing's going to be quite good,” he said. “It looks like the infield section of the track that we hadn't previously run will give us a lot of good passing opportunities and overtaking areas. As hard as it is to believe, I think we're going to see better racing than we had here previously.

“I really, really enjoy this racetrack, and I think it's going to be even more fun than it used to be with these new corners,” he added. “It's going to be great because it's going to be new for everybody again, and it's adding twice as many corners to the racetrack as we used to have. So it's going to be a lot of fun, and it'll be good because a lot of the guys won't have any previous information coming into this race like we have the past two years”, he concluded.