Odds 'n' ends...

A few things on the past week or so:

- SB racing at Elkhart, and the first race was just like the last few
rounds, Spies breaking Mladin and coasting to his record 7th straight
win, with Hacking at a distance in 3rd. But Sunday was a whole different
ballgame after a rainy warmup, a cold, green and somewhat damp track and
Mladin rolling the dice on setup changes. Watched the race yesterday and
it was excellent at the front, Mat and Ben swapping the lead numerous
times in the opening laps and Hacking right behind, several times
looking like he'd have a go at Spies. But the they settled in, Hacker
made a mistake and his challenge was over, and the race at the front
became a tension race, Spies trailing by a half-second or less. Then Mat
got a gap, Spies responded and set race fastest lap with one to go, then
Mat set his fastest lap on the last one while Spies finally conceded.

What looked very apparent was again how much of the Yosh dominance comes
down to the superiority of these two riders. Hacking in the early laps
showed that the Kawasaki has every capability of running with the
Suzukis, and Hodgson wasn't too far back of them early on either. But
they couldn't stick as the Yosh boys upped the pace, and at the end they
were 21 and 30 seconds behind the winner, which grossly overstates the
differences in the bikes - one small mistake and Hacking knew he wasn't
going to catch up again on that day. Didn't look like he was pushing any
harder than they were in the early laps to run the pace, but he couldn't
do that near-flawlessly for 16 laps like they did. Bikes are probably
still part of it, but only in the sense that these guys and their teams
know what to do with theirs and the other guys probably don't, not entirely.

- At the back end on that score is Yamaha, their guys in 7th and 8th
in the first race and 37 seconds back, which was at least better than
race 2 at Miller, when both finished behind May on his Jordan SSt
machine. Bostrom improving slightly in the 2nd, finishing 5th, 33
seconds back and 3 behind Hodgson. But DiSalvo was a disaster, finishing
12th and behind four SSt Suzukis. Given their historical lack of
commitment to the SB class, it's understandable that they were the ones
who bailed on the '09 AMA rules and gave DMG the cover they needed to
reform literbike in their image. In effect Yamaha would be going back to
what the were doing two or three years ago, running their 600 and 1000
in SS trim.

- Speaking of SStock, May's momentum run since winning the Miller
round came off the tracks at Elkhart, crashing on the warmup lap,
switching to his backup, running off into the kitty litter while working
toward the front and finishing 9th. In SB he'd barely been beaten
by Yates and Duhamel in Miller race two, finishing 7th and posting the
6th-fastest race lap, and in Elkhart race two he nearly beat Duhamel
again, leading him until very late and finished 7th again. May also took
SSt pole, outqualified Duhamel in SB and was top SSt in SB race one, so
he's definitely on a roll, and makes one wonder how much speed the new
FLUB class will have. But even at that he was three seconds a lap off
the Yosh pace and who knows what further damage spec tires will do to
that...

- Surprise winners in the SS classes, Rapp in SSp and Young in SSt,
the latter making up for his last-second machine failure and loss of a
podium in SSp at Miller with his first win at home in Wisconsin in the
wet after a stealth move on Yates out of the last corner. Just desserts.
But Rapp was quickly DQed with an obviously altered tire - do these guys
even read the rulebook?

- The Rolfo WSB plot thickened at Miller, apparently, with Hayes being
asked to take his place at Monza before Zemke was, and Josh had declined
based on the logistics that stopped Jake in the end. But Josh was said
to possibly have another shot in Germany, if Robby didn't heal up in
time - although he raced at Miller. Seems odd that Josh, who hasn't won
a race this year, would be given preference over Jake, who's younger
(barely), has Honda SB experience and has been winning races this year
and leading championships, but maybe that's because Josh has spent the
last few years winning races and championships in the support classes
while Jake has been beating his head against the Yosh wall in SB. And
Hayes confirmed that he's officially sniffing around in WSB for next year.

- Meanwhile teammate Zemke has endorsed the DMG vision, being one who
wants an equal shot on the equipment front and is willing to let his
ability decide it from there, and doesn't have any particular preference
in terms of class. Maybe that's the product of beating his head against
the Yosh wall for several years and then winning again this year on
600s? Maybe he's just being political, given he has to find a ride next
year? On that score, the rumor is said to be he's the favored American
on that Boulder Ducati squad in WSB then.

- On the other hand, Spies doesn't like it and isn't interested,
understanding why DMG wants closer racing but perplexed why it isn't
closer today, saying the AMA has rules and equipment very similar to WSB
and effectively a control tire at the front, everyone having access to
the top Dunlops. While he made no claims to superior talent, he doesn't
think it's the bikes. What he may not recognize is how a superior tire
shifts the balance to rider and machine, as opposed to the inferior tire
weak link in WSB. Or possibly isn't admitting to the impact of superior
electronics?

- The Spies rumor mill has spun beyond Suzuki in MotoGP, with Ducati
being the hot ticket of the moment. Sounds like it's in large part the
work of his management, and perhaps because there's been no obvious
development on the Suzuki front, beyond the confirmed USGP and GP of
Central Indiana rides. But the starting point of discussion is said to
be his current AMA salary and that's a big hurdle - he is no doubt one
of the top ten highest-paid riders in the world, and maybe well up that
list. Even with Aspar almost out with Suzuki, no new substance to the
Schwantz scenario, the team falling in love with little Loris, he seems
totally confident of leaving. Perhaps that's because Suzuki has made
promises already, or that they have committed to at least a WSB ride
with Alstare if MGP can't happen. If the latter, no doubt that Suzuki
would have to step up to help with Ben's seven-figure salary.

- Another boring race at the front, this time in MotoGP, with Pedrosa
running away again in Spain after the promise of a very close race.
Dani's best race tire lap prior to the race was a 43.173 and he was down
in the 44s in 12th in the warmup, and after the opening lap did 14
straight laps faster than that fastest practice lap, the best over .8
second better. He opened with nine straight 42s, and the only others
done were five by Rossi, three by Stoner and one by Dovizioso and
Edwards. Surprising stuff.

- The 2009 rider rumors in GP particularly involve the Americans and
beyond Spies, with Edwards, now out from under his caddy role on the
factory team, being connected to Ducati and in particular Kawasaki, and
Hayden being replaced by Dovizioso and perhaps moving to one of those
teams. What's odd and a bit troubling is that Hayden's people are said
to be actively negotiating with Honda about a contract renewal, which
strikes me as a bad idea for both parties. For Nicky, there's no
question that he'll always be second-fiddle to Pedrosa and the bike's
development will be focused on Dani, which almost guarantees it'll be
wrong for Nick. For Honda there's really no indication that they've
abandoned their compact rider strategy, and it makes no sense to have
Hayden even running the Colinesque role of testing and developing the
bike. Dovi has been a project of theirs, falls solidly in the midget
weight class and learned his skills on 125s and 250s, let him butt
against Pedrosa and Puig. At least Honda won't be wasting talent,
although I'm sure American Honda doesn't quite see it that way.

- Catalunya was supposed to be where 250's replacement was finally
decided, and I'm not sure what happened there. The talk was about
625-650cc inline fours with rev limits in 2011, assumedly built on
production motors, but there there's stuff out there saying FGSport won
the production battle and the motors can't be production-based. The
MSMA's recommendation now is 600 motors, but I see no specifics on where
those come from. So the debate continues, I guess.

- Finally, CN's HR Abrams actually put up a meaty column this week,
ostensibly about the Miller AMA/WSB round. (He says Miller next year
will be run entirely on the outer course, which is a disappointment to
me but seemed inevitable. But it's mostly about DMG's "vision", and he
lets 'em have it with both barrels. What he mostly does is attack
the horsepower cap approach and how flawed that is - there is
effectively open tuning, which means the factories would spend on
maximizing torque and creating the widest possible power band at as
close to the max as possible. That hardly makes things equal, and it
certain doesn't reduce costs. He also touches on the GSX-R750 848 being
the favored bikes over the 600s, rumors that the 750 will be pulled, the
problem with a HP cap at a power-sapping altitude track like Miller
(teams will have to build Miller-only motors), says the Literbike rules
are essentially the Canadian SB rules (makes sense, since Fraser has
been running that series, and since the dsb rules are essentially a
blend of NASB and Moto-ShiT rules, the last two series Rod Ed has been
running), and even dumps on the purse money, finishing with Graves'
comment that if they really want close racing they should pay $50k for
second place instead. Anyway, definitely worth a read, and it reinforces
the notion that these guys are arrogantly isolated and have little idea
what they're doing, constructing rules that don't recognize what can be
done within them by teams with real money to spent instead of the almost
amateur-level privateer types they're used to dealing with.

Although Abrams fails to mention the hammer clause - they can change the
rules on anyone at any time, which means they can just toss out
thousands and thousands of dollars of hard work just because they
haven't given the rules adequate thought or have made them inadequately
vague and someone finds a way to take advantage of them, and maybe
someone thy don't like. Or as Chaz Davies says, "I still think you're
going to get bikes which are going to be clearly faster. The Ducati will
be good. I don't know. And then they're going to do something about
that. It's going to be like, 'Okay, you win this weekend - you didn't
win because you were riding hard; you win because your bike's better,
we're going to slap whatever on you'". Doesn't get much more arrogant
than that - basically three guys who are trying to take an existing
professional series and totally restructure it overnight in their spare
time, with the total belief that they are the only people in this sport
who know what they're doing and no one else counts. And as most of us
seem to recognize, Abrams says, "This isn't about racing or using racing
to improve the breed, it's about entertainment. It's about putting on a
spectacle that can be sold to a new audience, one that doesn't yet know
it will be interested in motorcycle racing, one that might be interested
in other forms of racing." As someone around here likes to say, "T3ruer
words have never been spoken"...

Posted by Champ on June 11, 2008, 11:01 am

On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:00:11 -0700, Mark N

> - Another boring race at the front, this time in MotoGP, with Pedrosa

>running away again in Spain after the promise of a very close race.

>Dani's best race tire lap prior to the race was a 43.173 and he was down

>in the 44s in 12th in the warmup, and after the opening lap did 14

>straight laps faster than that fastest practice lap, the best over .8

>second better. He opened with nine straight 42s, and the only others

>done were five by Rossi, three by Stoner and one by Dovizioso and

>Edwards. Surprising stuff.

Surprised the hell out of me :-)

As I said in my post, Pedrosa said his team had decided to change
soemthing *after* the warm up. Whatever it was, it really worked, but
it feels like the team were really rolling the dice - what if he'd
lost 0.5~1 second instead of gaining it?
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

Posted by Champ on June 11, 2008, 5:41 pm

>Yada, yada, yada, 'ya know what? I'm soo close to being over all the

>politics in MGP, as it's fairly obvious they don't feel the need for a

>"USAin" in the running for a "World title". Yeah, throw a few in to

>pump-up the gate and TV in the States, but God forbid one of those damn

>septic's actually does something!

What? Hayden's on a works bike. Hopkins is on a works bike. Edwards
has just come off 3 (?) seasons on a works bike to take a seat on the
best non-works team.

Name a MGP rider who has a ride that should by rights go to a US rider
who doesn't currently have one?
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

Posted by Mark N on June 11, 2008, 7:52 pm

Champ wrote:

> D-T3roll wrote:

> >Yada, yada, yada, 'ya know what? I'm soo close to being over all the

> >politics in MGP, as it's fairly obvious they don't feel the need for a

> >"USAin" in the running for a "World title". Yeah, throw a few in to

> >pump-up the gate and TV in the States, but God forbid one of those damn

> >septic's actually does something!

> What? =A0Hayden's on a works bike. =A0Hopkins is on a works bike. =A0Edwar=

> has just come off 3 (?) seasons on a works bike to take a seat on the

> best non-works team.

C'mon, Champ, you know what he's talking about. Has any previous
premier class champion been treated like Hayden has over the last two
years? First, he's assigned the job of doing basic R&D work for the
'07 bike while rookie Prince Dani learns the ropes on the best bike on
the grid, and Nick wins the championship anyway, even though HRC
hardly tries to fix the problems with his bike. Then as the #1 plate
holder he's forced to try to squeeze onto a bike that's so obviously
designed for a much smaller rider, specifically Pedrosa. That "compact
rider / compact bike" strategy fails miserably, but there's no
question at all that Dani is the #1 guy and will stay that way, this
year Hayden continuing to get stuff both less and later than Dani. And
who knows what favoritism former king-maker Michelin is showing.

Hopkins got where he is because the Anglo-American WCM team was
willing to roll the dice on him, and he impressed enough that the
Anglo-run Suzuki team picked him up after that. So he rode for the
worst works team in the paddock for five years, but again he impressed
enough to get more consideration - but not by the Big Three factory
teams. Now it seems Kawi has fallen to the bottom of the heap, and he
toils on there.

Edwards had to come in on the hopeless Aprilia, then did a year at the
very end of the Honda line, then got to play caddy for Vale for three
years. Tech3 "the best non-works team"? Would you have said that last
year, or the year before? Please. Edwards first real luck in GP is
that Yamaha managed to get to the top of the bike heap this year and
Vale's jump to Bridgestone meant he'd get more consideration and
better treatement from both Yamaha and Michelin, and Toseland has done
the same. Tech3 steps up for the same reasons - and perhaps
because Herve was smart enough to hire outside the usual ex-250
EuroMed pool?

And then there's the sad tale of ex-champ Roberts, seemingly despised
by all of Europe...

> Name a MGP rider who has a ride that should by rights go to a US rider

> who doesn't currently have one?

Oversimplification. It's a system that drives the top EuroMed riders
in 125 and 250 into the top seats in MotoGP, and at least gives shots
of some kind to riders Dorna chooses to support, purely because of
nationality. Hayden may have only gotten a GP ride because of American
Honda, Roberts certainly did only becauser of his old man, now WCM and
Team Roberts are both gone, pretty much everyone accepts that the
riders in MGP are shrinking rapidly, and Spies stares in from the
outside. The championship is coming down to Rossi vs. Pedrosa, just
what Dorna has wanted for at least for or five years. Honda may well
climb back to the top by next year and their guys could easily be the
likes of Pedrosa, Dovizioso, de Angelis, de Puniet, maybe Bautista,
and Yamaha will counter with Rossi and Lorenzo. Meanwhile Hayden,
Hopkins, Edwards and Spies may be toiling away on no-hope lease or
second-tier factory teams. In other words, just the way Dorna, the big
EuroMed sponsors and the core fan base want it. It doesn't always work
perfectly, Hayden and Stoner won championships after all, but it's a
preference of material impact that has existed since Dorna first
arrived way back in 1992. Really the only break of any kind was in
03-04, when some teams and factories suspected ex-superbikers might do
better on the new four strokes.

Posted by T3 on June 11, 2008, 10:06 pm

> Champ wrote:

>> D-T3roll wrote:

>>> Yada, yada, yada, 'ya know what? I'm soo close to being over all the

>>> politics in MGP, as it's fairly obvious they don't feel the need for a

>>> "USAin" in the running for a "World title". Yeah, throw a few in to

>>> pump-up the gate and TV in the States, but God forbid one of those damn

>>> septic's actually does something!

>> What? ÊHayden's on a works bike. ÊHopkins is on a works bike. ÊEdwar

> ds

>> has just come off 3 (?) seasons on a works bike to take a seat on the

>> best non-works team.

> C'mon, Champ, you know what he's talking about. Has any previous

> premier class champion been treated like Hayden has over the last two

> years? First, he's assigned the job of doing basic R&D work for the

> '07 bike while rookie Prince Dani learns the ropes on the best bike on

> the grid, and Nick wins the championship anyway, even though HRC

> hardly tries to fix the problems with his bike. Then as the #1 plate

> holder he's forced to try to squeeze onto a bike that's so obviously

> designed for a much smaller rider, specifically Pedrosa. That "compact

> rider / compact bike" strategy fails miserably, but there's no

> question at all that Dani is the #1 guy and will stay that way, this

> year Hayden continuing to get stuff both less and later than Dani. And

> who knows what favoritism former king-maker Michelin is showing.

> Hopkins got where he is because the Anglo-American WCM team was

> willing to roll the dice on him, and he impressed enough that the

> Anglo-run Suzuki team picked him up after that. So he rode for the

> worst works team in the paddock for five years, but again he impressed

> enough to get more consideration - but not by the Big Three factory

> teams. Now it seems Kawi has fallen to the bottom of the heap, and he

> toils on there.

> Edwards had to come in on the hopeless Aprilia, then did a year at the

> very end of the Honda line, then got to play caddy for Vale for three

> years. Tech3 "the best non-works team"? Would you have said that last

> year, or the year before? Please. Edwards first real luck in GP is

> that Yamaha managed to get to the top of the bike heap this year and

> Vale's jump to Bridgestone meant he'd get more consideration and

> better treatement from both Yamaha and Michelin, and Toseland has done

> the same. Tech3 steps up for the same reasons - and perhaps

> because Herve was smart enough to hire outside the usual ex-250

> EuroMed pool?

> And then there's the sad tale of ex-champ Roberts, seemingly despised

> by all of Europe...

Sorry Neal and as much as you know it pains me he pretty much
center-punched that whole deal, at least as far as I see it..

Btw, here's a hot one, Team Roberts to DSB next year... (could it happen?)

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