Giuseppe Luongo Interview

            Just in case you haven’t been paying attention to the site this past weekend, Motocross.com was invited, along with some other notable MX media outlets, to attend the 2007 FIM Off-Road Awards in Monte Carlo. We stayed at the high-class super-nice Monte Carlo Bay Hotel right next door to where the event was to be held at the Salle des Etoiles. Everything went great. We met with Youthstream’s Giuseppe Luongo and the FIM’s Motocross President Wolfgang Srb, went to a pre-banquet press conference, and attended the event, all between site-seeing trips around the expensive city. It was a blast, and a huge thanks goes out to Youthstream for the opportunity to take part in something like this. But the real news of the weekend was that Youthstream had put their hat in the ring for the possibility of becoming the main promoters of the U.S. National Series.

Back in September, the AMA’s Rob Dingman announced that the AMA would no longer be in the promoting business of racing, and instead they would just be focusing on what they had originally set out to do—sanctioning races and upholding the rules. In the past, the AMA had partnered with the National Promoters Group—a group of track promoters from around the United States that run the various National tracks on the circuit—for promoting the National MX series. It has been that way for years, but with the change in the AMA’s mission statement, things were bound to get interesting. With the new focus that the AMA is taking on being more of a sanctioning body than dealing with promoting the races, they decided to open the bid up to other outside companies—this is where Youthstream comes in.

            Youthstream has been around since the mid ‘90s and has been the promoter of the FIM World Motocross Championships as well as the European Championships for quite some time now, while their partners the FIM handle all the rules and sanctioning of the racing in both of the Championship series. Moreover, Youthstream has a staff of 80 people from 15 different countries with president Giuseppe Luongo heading everything up. At this year’s Motocross of Nations, the talks between Youthstream and the AMA began, with the two parties meeting numerous times over the course of the weekend. Since then, though, we don’t know much about what is happening behind the scenes between Youthstream, the NPG, the AMA, or any other company that has it’s name out there for consideration—and yes, there more than likely are others. What we do know, though, is that Youthstream has some big plans for the Nationals, if they get the job, and the AMA is willing to consider other options for the promotion of the sport.

             While we were in Monte Carlo, we sat down with Youthstream’s president Luongo for a quick interview about Youthstream, the awards banquet, and of course the possibility of the company coming over to the U.S. in some shape or form in the years to come. We will continue to keep you updated on things that are happening with this story, and as we hear from other sides in the matter, we will report it in full.