Fania vs. Yates article (from Cycle News.)
KSW Racing's Anthony Fania Jr. says he is pressing charges against Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates following their post-crash fight in the second horseshoe in the closing stages of today's Daytona 200 By Arai.
After Fania and Yates crashed out of the race together on the 49th lap of the 200, television footage shows Yates kicking and head-butting the New Jersey resident, the incident somewhat overshadowing Mat Mladin's third victory in the prestigous race.
“It was just like the tape,†Fania Jr. explained. “I was going for the horseshoe, right in the middle of the track, still on the brakes. I wasn’t even fully committed, still on the brakes. I think if I wasn’t there, he still wouldn’t have made the corner by the impact of how hard he hit me. He collided into my left side and when I got up and came to and he’s kicking me as I’m lying on the ground. He’s screaming and yelling that it’s my fault, it’s my fault – he hit me. So as we were yelling at each other, that’s when it started. He got really angry because I told him that he hit me and it was his fault. Then he head-butted me. It just continued and it got worse. We screamed and yelled at each and we came back to the pit area and his team, the Yosh team, were in my pits screaming and yelling at my guys – obscenities, name calling and all the rest of it, and they knocked our TV monitor on the ground. It was quite a spectacle.â€
“I’m his dad and I’ve told the AMA officials that this Mr. Yates has to be punished,†Anthony Fania Sr. added. “Mr. Yates has a reputation as a hotshot, quite a while ago he got punched in the jaw down at Main Street. Then there are his antics of lying on the track. Mr. Yates may be a star here, but on the outside he’s just Mr. Yates. I’m going to file criminal charges and I’m going to go after him. The AMA gave me the indication that something will be done. I told them that whatever you do to him, I really don’t care. I’m not going to call them up and tell them that they should suspend him. As far as I’m concerned, do what you have to do to keep the balls in the air. I realize he’s a star and you have to run the show. Their answer to me was, ‘Why do you think we’re not going to do anything?’ I told them to do what they do, but I am looking for punishment and I’ll take care of really punishing him. What should really be done is he should have his license suspended and never race again, but they are never going to do that. That’s never going to happen. By me filing criminal charges and then after that is finished, I am going to sue him. We’ll see where it goes from there.
“As far as him running into him, I at one time had an FIA international license," Fania Sr. continued. "Let me tell you the way it works: it is the responsibility of the driver or rider passing the other guy, it’s his responsibility to make a clean pass. So if you run into somebody, I don’t want to hear that it’s just racing. It’s basic racing 101. He made a mistake and made an improper pass and then he blew up. For someone at Suzuki to grab our sponsor by the neck and throw him out of their pit… we went down there to speak to whoever is in charge at Suzuki to ask them what is going on here. Why do you let this behavior happen? And they throw us out. It’s not right. I also had sponsors in our pit that watched all this stuff go on, and I don’t know where that’s going. They were stunned. I would say that we probably lost that sponsor.â€
Yates gave his side of the story after the race in the Yoshimura Suzuki garage.
“We caught up to those guys, I came out of the turn on the inside, the dogleg, and tried to shoot down there on the outside," Yates said. "I got on the brakes and was turning it in a little bit and ran it in with the guy I was trying to go around. And he kind of stood up and I saw that and stood up a little bit and get on the brakes and he hit me and we were just hooked together. I was trying to get stopped as good as I could before I got to the grass. It slammed me down and I looked where we was going and it was a wall and I thought I was fixin’ to get into that wall pretty hard and get hurt.
"There’s a lot going through your head. I jumped up and I was pretty upset and I just felt like I needed to do something. I just kind of gave the guy a little nudge. I didn’t go over there and push him or nothing. I went through the actions of trying to kick him, but I didn’t really kick him. I was kind of walking off and he kept waving me on, like come on, come on and he was messing with me. I got in his face and I guess I gave him a little bump in the head and he just kept making motions at me. He just kept antagonizing me, messing with me. I just said screw off.†Yates said the AMA is reviewing the incident and he's certain some punishment will come his way.
“The AMA is looking into it,†Yates said. “The guy is pressing charges and I had to fill out an accident report or whatever with the police. I don’t know what’s going to happen with that. We looked at the video and I didn’t try to hurt the guy or anything. I was just going through the actions. They [the AMA] are going to do something, I’m sure. I definitely regret it. I’m embarrassed by the whole situation, but I’m racing for the win in this thing. And I have to get taken out by some guy who can’t get stopped for the turn. Sometime during the whole thing, he kind of half-assed admitted that he got in there too hot. He said, ‘I admit I got in there too hot.’ â€
Stay tuned.