Needle matches, grudges, enmity, vendettas, revenge: MotoGP looks classic this year - Page 3

 

Julian Bond wrote:

I'm not forgetting anything, it's you who has suddenly turned forgetful.
Hopkins' injuries have mostly been the result of pushing bad bikes
farther than where they are meant to go. In fact, as I recall, you have
lauded that attribute many times in riders, and you specifically
condemned Roberts by comparing him to Hopkins and that sort of effort.
So he didn't show up one morning, I have never seen what was behind that
episode, just a lot of what looks like baseless rumors and stories. At
that juncture it was very clear the Kawi had gone in a bad direction and
they weren't doing what the riders wanted to fix it, so Hopkins and West
were left riding probably the worst bike on the grid overall (and yet
Hopper finished ahead of Melandri on the factory Ducati). There may have
been a frustration/protest angle to that, Hopkins is hardly a guy with a
reputation for not caring or not trying. In any case, Kawasaki didn't
fire him or buy out his contract, they fully intended to have him back
in '09, up to their withdrawal from the series. Which makes him
different than Melandri; Ducati wanted to be rid of him even before the
season was over.


And that's pretty much all bullshit, of course. Hopkins has never ridden
a superbike, never ridden on Pirelli tires, he got one half-assed test
(his first on a racebike in 2009) before showing up to race it, did that
one weekend, and at the next weekend he got seriously hurt in practice.
Did he absolutely light it up the moment he hopped on the bike? No, but
it was a rather ridiculous expectation to expect him to. Of course you'd
love to set that sort of expectation, because you could then dismiss him
as quickly as possible. To say he's lost it for good at age 26 just
because he had a lousy year on the lousy Kawi and then went through what
he did last year is to betray a certain premeditated intent, I think.
And to compare Hopkins to Gobert is just absurd.

 


Really. And there was me looking forwards to a Haga, Fabrizio, Toseland,
Crutchlow, Rea, Haslam[1], Biaggi slugfest. With Camier, Vermeulen,
Corser, Checa, Byrne one step behind them. And of course Xaus falling
off spectacularly every other weekend. Maybe none of them will be as
fast as Spies was last year, but the racing will be better for it.

Hmmm. Crutchlow, Rea, Haslam, Byrne all trying to prove they're better
than Toseland. That should be fun.

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster:          http://www.ecademy.com/       T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog:    http://www.voidstar.com/      skype:julian.bond?chat
                 The Power To Kill Twice As Many Fleas

 

Julian Bond wrote:

Last year Rea beat both Haga and Fabrizio 4 times in 28 races, and
DNF/DNSs contributed 3 times. Biaggi beat both of them 5 times, also
with non-finishes contributing 3 times. Haslam did it twice, with
non-finishes contributing both times (although he certainly should be on
a better bike this year). Crutchlow has never raced regularly in WSB,
right? Sounds like typical offseason blue sky thinking to me. Not that
there's anything wrong with that...


Or two, or three...


I don't see how you can say that, numerous times Spies was the only guy
on fours who could run with them, but he wasn't crushing them with
regularity by my recall.


In the UK, that is. As I said, more target-marketing by the moneymen in
charge...

 


Sometimes I'm convinced that you don't actually follow M/C racing but
just read stats pages.

While we're on Americans (we were weren't we?)
- RL Hayden to Pedercini Kawasaki WSB
- Jason DiSalvo to BE1 Triumph WSS replacing Gary McCoy and partnering
Chaz Davies

--
Julian Bond  E&MSN: julian_bond at voidstar.com  M: +44 (0)77 5907 2173
Webmaster:          http://www.ecademy.com/       T: +44 (0)192 0412 433
Personal WebLog:    http://www.voidstar.com/      skype:julian.bond?chat
                    The Force Is Strong In This One

 

Julian Bond wrote:

And sometimes I'm convinced you follow bike racing on television (you
only rarely seem to actually attend races) and only see what you want to
see. Statistics are one of the few undeniable realities of racing, and
as such are one of the few tools available when discussing matters with
those who insist on seeing only what they want to see...


It's interesting to see that teams in Europe so consistently only hire
guys who have some sort of name in Europe, who they have seen race in
their championships. A bit like professional sports teams in America
conducted themselves in the player drafts a half century or more ago,
before actual scouting and networking made a bit more of a science out
of such matters, when watching athletes' performances on film was just
in its infancy.

That said, it's good to see that some of these guys are actually able to
find work (such as it is), and outside of DMG's new national club
championship...