Odds 'n' ends...

Does this help any?
http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2008/Jun/080616os.htm

"Batta commended on a variety of different subjects including the
potential make-up of his 2009 team, stating that, "three riders in
Alstare, the ideal composition would be: one rider, Japanese; one rider,
American; and one rider, European - Max Neukirchner". Batta was
commenting hypothetically, already stating that Fonsi Nieto is essential
to his team FOR IMAGE AND SPONSORSHIP PURPOSES... In Spain, though, this
is near front page of the sports page/web site news. His Uncle, Angel
Nieto, called Suzuki, apparently on the verge of a freak down, and fans
all over the bull-fighting country stopped and pondered the humanity of
it all. Sort of like the Hindenburg exploding in mid-air, only minus the
explosion and and people leaping to their deaths."

Oh, the humanity...

Posted by Champ on June 17, 2008, 6:40 am

On Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:14:23 -0700, Mark N

>> You know that there's nothing at all in that Batta interview that

>> supports your point of view?

>Does this help any?

>http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2008/Jun/080616os.htm

>"Batta commended on a variety of different subjects including the

>potential make-up of his 2009 team, stating that, "three riders in

>Alstare, the ideal composition would be: one rider, Japanese; one rider,

>American; and one rider, European - Max Neukirchner". Batta was

>commenting hypothetically, already stating that Fonsi Nieto is essential

>to his team FOR IMAGE AND SPONSORSHIP PURPOSES... "

Ah, ok, well, that's something rather different, isn't it. Factories
go racing to promote their wares in their key markets. It's hardly
any suprise that there are few bike racers from, say, Angola.

But as the US is a huge market, why wouldn't US riders be reqd?
--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

Posted by Mark N on June 17, 2008, 10:46 am

Champ wrote:

> Mark N wrote:

>> Does this help any?

>> http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2008/Jun/080616os.htm

>> "Batta commended on a variety of different subjects including the

>> potential make-up of his 2009 team, stating that, "three riders in

>> Alstare, the ideal composition would be: one rider, Japanese; one rider,

>> American; and one rider, European - Max Neukirchner". Batta was

>> commenting hypothetically, already stating that Fonsi Nieto is essential

>> to his team FOR IMAGE AND SPONSORSHIP PURPOSES... "

> Ah, ok, well, that's something rather different, isn't it. Factories

> go racing to promote their wares in their key markets. It's hardly

> any suprise that there are few bike racers from, say, Angola.

>
> But as the US is a huge market, why wouldn't US riders be reqd?

But that's not all that's at play here, is it? If Suzuki wanted certain
riders to promote their products in WSB based on where those riders are
from, then riders from America, Japan and Spain would make little sense
- the series doesn't run in Japan, the series didn't run in America
until a couple weeks ago, and the series has always had a hard time
establishing a serious beachhead in Spain, where seemingly GP is all
that matters. And Spain is hardly a huge market for the big sportbikes
anyway, is it?

An American now does start to make sense from that perspective, and it's
also good for WSB in general to have American riders if they're making
inroads back into this country, same thing as MotoGP. But I also think
Batta is saying the series is missing something in the prestige area,
given all the success American riders have had in that series in the
past, something is simply missing. That's kind of the same thing as a
Brit, although there's also the matter of the UK having three rounds in
the series, one of its two core markets. Why the Japanese, I don't know,
it may be because Suzuki simply wants their guy, perhaps to get better
feedback from the team, perhaps because WSB needs to reenter that market
as well to reestablish their status as major league.

Nieto is different, and Batta says it plain - he brings the team itself
sponsorship and therefore money, so effectively he's paying for his
ride. (I'm not sure what the "image" thing means, but assume it's about
the Nieto name.) That he can be valued for doing that, in a series which
is decidedly second-tier in his home country, shows the influence of
rider nationality in these times. Now flip this over to GP and being
Spanish gets even more meaningful.

What this shows is how complex and material rider nationality is to ride
decisions, and it's clearly been a much bigger issue in GP than WSB over
the years (where major sponsorship has been a bigger deal). If you go
back and look at all the rider decisions made in 500 and MotoGP over the
last 15 years, how many have been influenced by nationality? My guess is
the vast majority have been.

Posted by Champ on June 17, 2008, 11:36 am

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:46:55 -0700, Mark N

>>> Does this help any?

>>> http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2008/Jun/080616os.htm

>>>

>>> "Batta commended on a variety of different subjects including the

>>> potential make-up of his 2009 team, stating that, "three riders in

>>> Alstare, the ideal composition would be: one rider, Japanese; one rider,

>>> American; and one rider, European - Max Neukirchner". Batta was

>>> commenting hypothetically, already stating that Fonsi Nieto is essential

>>> to his team FOR IMAGE AND SPONSORSHIP PURPOSES... "

>> Ah, ok, well, that's something rather different, isn't it. Factories

>> go racing to promote their wares in their key markets. It's hardly

>> any suprise that there are few bike racers from, say, Angola.

> >

> > But as the US is a huge market, why wouldn't US riders be reqd?

>But that's not all that's at play here, is it? If Suzuki wanted certain

>riders to promote their products in WSB based on where those riders are

>from, then riders from America, Japan and Spain would make little sense

>- the series doesn't run in Japan, the series didn't run in America

>until a couple weeks ago, and the series has always had a hard time

>establishing a serious beachhead in Spain, where seemingly GP is all

>that matters. And Spain is hardly a huge market for the big sportbikes

>anyway, is it?

No idea of numbers, but you see a *lot* of big bikes in Spain. And,
admittedly 15 years ago, when I went to the French GP at Paul Ricard
(south of France), there was an amazing number of (big) Spanish bikes
there.

--
Champ
neal at champ dot org dot uk

Posted by Julian Bond on June 17, 2008, 12:23 pm

>No idea of numbers, but you see a *lot* of big bikes in Spain. And,

>admittedly 15 years ago, when I went to the French GP at Paul Ricard

>(south of France), there was an amazing number of (big) Spanish bikes

>there.

Sat night in Barcelona, the Place de la Catalunya was full of them.

So part of the game now is to supplement or get your personal income
from personal sponsorship and to help the team secure sponsorship by
being a big marketing draw. And this is new?

Having said that Fonsi Nieto is not *that* impressive as a racer. So it
is mildly irritating that he's a huge star in Spain with a celebrity
girlfriend and his face permanently in supermarket tabloids.

What I find curious is the relationship between factory development for
the Suzuka 8 Hours and the various national and international SBK
championships. There's a whole bunch of Japanese and non-Japanese in WSB
and BSB who are jetting back and forth to Japan for testing in the run
up. AFAIK, Mladin has always refused this and Spies has never been,
which seems strange. I suspect that Kagayama's place in Batta's team is
partly a reward to a hard working company man and partly a reward for
his win there last year.

ps. Atsushi Watanabe has been pretty unimpressive so far in BSB.

--
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
High In Fibre

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