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Posted by rambling gEEk on April 30, 2007, 4:11 pm
Is it just me, or in the last few years has this series become a boring
Suzuki commercial ?
I am seriously considering just not showing at the usual tracks this year.
Sad. I know.
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Posted by Russell Watson on April 30, 2007, 6:31 pm
On Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:11:35 -0400, "rambling gEEk"
>Is it just me, or in the last few years has this series become a boring
>Suzuki commercial ?
>I am seriously considering just not showing at the usual tracks this year.
>Sad. I know.
The Hondas were very competitive until last year, when the CBR1000RR
development was apparently surpassed by the GSX-R1000. They appear to
be coming back a bit, though, while Bozz made a good showing on the R1
this weekend.
I don't know how much of the Suzuki success is a superior bike and how
much is superior riders. It would be nice to have a true world-class
rider who didn't owe his soul to any one manufacturer or team to
evaluate all the above (and the ZX-10R) to see which, if any, is truly
superior, or alternately have all the current crop of riders run a
series of races with all on each type of bike to see if the usual
suspects on the podium change from bike to bike or stay relatively the
same.
Of course that would never happen because factory racing is all about
win on Sunday, sell on Monday and they don't WANT you to know if it's
the riders or the bikes that make the difference.
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Posted by Mark N on May 1, 2007, 12:18 am
Russell Watson wrote:
> "rambling gEEk" wrote:
>
>> Is it just me, or in the last few years has this series become a boring
>> Suzuki commercial ?
>> I am seriously considering just not showing at the usual tracks this year.
>> Sad. I know.
> The Hondas were very competitive until last year, when the CBR1000RR
> development was apparently surpassed by the GSX-R1000. They appear to
> be coming back a bit, though, while Bozz made a good showing on the R1
> this weekend.
> I don't know how much of the Suzuki success is a superior bike and how
> much is superior riders.
I think that's really the issue here. There's no question that Suzuki is
the one factory that's kept their hand in SB generally during the MotoGP
madness, and that's helped give them an upper hand. I also think that
Mladin and team have supplied a great deal of the input into the
development of that bike in the long run, hands down their most
successful team worldwide over the last eight or nine years. But it's
not just the bike, it's also the riders, and one can see that looking at
Yates, I think. He was in the mix at Yosh, but never really stepped
above the other top riders in the series, and yet now he remains in the
mix on a non-factory bike, doesn't look like a chump to me. Some say
he's motivated again, but I really don't think that's it, I think it's
in part that he didn't get quite get what Mladin got, and also that his
team kept getting switched up so it really didn't have the consistent
team mix that Mladin has always had. In the end that makes a difference,
and may be part of the reason that so far Tommy Hayden is racing Jake
and Miguel and not Mat and Spies. Realize that Spies has actually been
racing the GSX-R1000 longer than even Mladin has, every year since 2002
in FX, SStock and SB, and he's also had Houseworth as his crew chief
since he arrived at Yosh in 2003.
Mladin is also an exceptionally good rider, and fans here should feel
fortunate that they've been able to see him race here all these years,
no matter what one thinks of him personally. Now we have something much
better, a guy who is fully capable of challenging him, pushing Mat to
his limits. So now we're seeing some of the best, hardest racing at the
front in AMA SB history, and we should appreciate that. That these guys
are 20 seconds faster than the rest is just a consequence of that, and
it will take something equally as exceptional to catch them.
I've always thought E-Boz is the guy to do it, and Yamaha seems pretty
focused on the SB program now, not distracted by the support classes
like Honda has been. But it's a new effort and he's working with new
guys again. Honda slipped when they brought their program in-house, and
I really don't believe their riders are quite capable of challenging Mat
and Ben in every race, which is a necessity if you're even thinking
championship. I think it's a team that has gone a bit stale, perhaps.
Kawasaki's not quite there, probably getting less help from Japan than
Yamaha, the bike perhaps not the best foundation, and at least some
question about the riders as well. There's a reason why Tommy bailed on
a team where he was #1 to go be 3rd-wheel at Yosh.
It would be nice to have a true world-class
> rider who didn't owe his soul to any one manufacturer or team to
> evaluate all the above (and the ZX-10R) to see which, if any, is truly
> superior,
That isn't it, I really doubt that anyone could just jump on the bikes
and tell what's superior and what's inferior. It takes knowing the bike,
working with guys who know you and know the bike, and making it all
work. If the Suzuki was so superior, why isn't Biaggi dominating in WSB?
Why are guys like Kiyonari and Lavilla dominating in BSB on the Honda
and Ducati? It's how all the pieces fit together, and right now they
both all fit for Spies and Mladin. It's almost like having a pair of
Rossi-Burgess-Honda teams circa 2003 - ain't gonna be easy for anyone to
catch them...
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Posted by T3 on April 30, 2007, 6:37 pm
> Is it just me, or in the last few years has this series become a boring
> Suzuki commercial ?
> I am seriously considering just not showing at the usual tracks this year.
> Sad. I know.
If you would've said that a couple of years ago I might have agreed, but
given the *giant* leap Yam has taken and the small, but sure steps Honda
has, I do not. That said, I still believe a 'Zuki will win the title, but I
don't think they'll win every race...
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