Once upon a time, there was a nice young man named AMA Superbike. He really looked up to his big brother, named World. In fact, AMA really wanted to grow up to be just like World. So he tried to emulate his big brother in every way.

His big brother had some great friends, with names like Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Kawasaki. AMA also made friends with these people.

World was really into motorcycle racing. AMA was really into motorcycle racing too.

World Superbike worked with his friends Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Kawasaki to create a racing series based on 600cc and 1000cc production sport bikes. This helped his friends to produce more powerful, better handling, higher quality motorcycles for their customers. And it helped World create a great racing series that racing fans not only loved but could identify with, because they knew they could go out and buy bikes almost just like those to ride themselves. When AMA saw how great the World Superbike racing series was, AMA worked with those same friends to create a racing series too. The AMA Superbike racing series was great also.

Everything was great. World Superbike had a great racing series, and so did AMA Superbike. World Superbike had millions of great fans, and so did AMA Superbike; in fact, they shared many of the same fans. World Superbike had many great riders, and so did AMA Superbike; in fact, some riders used to move from one series to the other.

Then, one day on his way home from school, AMA met a very bad person named DMG.

At first, he tried not to be friends with DMG. After all, he knew DMG’s reputation. He knew that DMG was responsible for turning NASCAR stock car racing, which used to race cars that were actually based on stock cars, into such a pathetic form of racing that it was the laughing stock of the auto racing world.

But DMG was persistent and persuasive. DMG kept telling AMA that it wouldn’t hurt to be friends. DMG kept saying how many fans NASCAR had, and conveniently avoided the fact that most NASCAR fans are drunk redneck alcoholics that don’t even pay attention to the race. DMG kept saying how many racers NASCAR had, and conveniently avoided the fact that none of them really had that much racing talent.

AMA knew he should not be friends with DMG. But despite knowing better, he gave into temptation. He started hanging out with DMG even though he knew he shouldn’t.

World said he should not do this. “Don’t be fooled by DMG,” said World. “He doesn’t know anything about racing — especially motorcycle racing. He will ruin your life!”

Suddenly, AMA reacted in a way he never had before. “You are not the boss of me!” he shouted. “You can’t tell me what to do! I can do whatever I want!”

AMA stormed out of the house. With nowhere to go, he went over to DMG’s house. “Wow, World must not be that good of a friend to treat you that way,” said DMG sympathetically. “I would never treat you that way.”

“What should I do?” asked AMA. “I don’t understand why World doesn’t want us to be friends.”

DMG replied, “He just doesn’t appreciate you. You’re better than him! Trust me. You don’t need that dumb old World Superbike! I’ll show you how to make a really great racing series!”

Unfortunately, AMA listened to DMG. He changed his entire racing series from a proven successful formula to something most of his former fans now refer to as NASBike. He turned his back on his friends like Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, and Kawasaki. In fact, once he moved away from World Superbike and started hanging out with DMG, Honda said that he could not be friends with AMA anymore. AMA’s three-time champion left to race for World instead, and AMA’s former seven-time champion said he wouldn’t race anymore if AMA didn’t quit being friends with DMG. A year later, he retired for good.

Despite all of this, AMA wouldn’t stay away from DMG. Before, AMA looked up to World and wanted to be like him; now, for some reason AMA thought he was better than World, and felt for some reason like this was important. So AMA wouldn’t race at the best tracks if World was also there at the same time. AMA would sometimes wait a month or more to show television coverage of their races. And the new race format was so confusing and ridiculous that nobody could understand it.

Before too long, everyone who used to be friends with AMA forgot about him. Everyone except DMG. Everyone else forgot about him, because he forgot about all of them. They all just became friends with World instead, and forgot that AMA was even there anymore.

And that was how AMA went from being awesome to nothing in just one year. And he lived miserably ever after. The End.

Moral

The moral of this story is: DMG bites.