If you saw last year's AMA Superbike race at Road America, you'd understand the need for handguards. At the start, one of the bikes did a huge endo at 90 mph. Apparently the rider misjudged his closing speed, and ran into the back of another bike - front brake lever first. The brake locked, and the guy did a spectacular endo. The accident took out a handful of bikes, but there were no serious injuries.
There were tons of old-school riders in that race. I was surprised to see Jeff "Chicken" Matiasevitch out there without Damon Bradshaw to run over.