Odds 'n' ends

 

Aside from the racing - it seems in many ways this year that racing is
all about aside from the racing - a few important or not so important
announcements this weekend, and with only mild surprises.

First, the latest on the 250 replacement in GP, now officially 600-4s in
'11, but of course no details. Gives 'em a year or so to work out how
production they can be with the FIM and FGSport, I guess.

Then the single tire rule for MotoGP next year, which was disappointing
to hear. Not spec tire, mind you, and I'm not sure that's a good thing
at all. My guess the winning proposal will start out something like
this: "We will focus development on Rossi/Yamaha, Pedrosa/Honda and
Stoner/Ducati, and will build and supply the best tires to Rossi and
Pedrosa, with Stoner getting tires good enough to win occasionally but
not to dominate the championship. Next in line will be Lorenzo and
Dovizioso."

Seriously, the thought of a non-spec tire monopoly brings back notions
and memories of institutionalized abuse of the Michelin monopoly days.
One of the things that has been good about the last few years is that
Ducati and Suzuki and Kawasaki had somewhere else to go, and how much of
their success the last couple years has been based on Bridgestone tires?
I've argued that a spec tire in MotoGP doesn't make sense since tires
are specifically crafted for individual riders (if you're high enough in
the pecking order), and that means a huge opportunity for abuse in the
specification of the spec tires. But is this even worse? I for one will
be hoping it ends up being Bridgestone, because Michelin has a long
history of this sort of sleaze.

Then there was the DMG announcement at Laguna yesterday, which ended up
mostly just being about the schedule. It includes everyone from this
year, so one can infer from that there will be no MIC series next year
and there will be a compromise with the OEMs that will keep them in it.
The mild surprises are that Miller will continue to include the AMA in
their WSB weekend and the addition of Heartland Park. New Jersey is also
added as expected, no Homestead, and no Daytona "decider" at the end.

Now we wait to see what Rog Ed can work out with Honda and Suzuki, and
then the complete picture. I suppose something might come out of this
weekend yet. But based on the Infineon announcement that was released on
their round yesterday, at least some of the letters of intent from the
tracks are caveated on the factories taking part. Rog has his marching
orders.

And he did allude to the addition of a Sportbike novice class, which
sounds like the added 600 class I was suggesting/predicting. So one can
assume that this class and Superbike bracket will DSB, with the real
matter at issue being what that class ends up being, how much will Rog
concede on his big concept class to make the OEMs happy (enough).

But I think Mladin said it best when he said to Soup yesterday, "To be
honest with you, in twenty-four hours I'll be very happy. The debacle of
this year has put a damper on everything. That's it. There's really not
much to say about it because it doesn't matter what anybody says, the
iron fist has ruled. That's just the way it goes. So, as I said, I'll be
happy at this time tomorrow, first or last, it makes no different. I'll
have some time off with my family and get away from this place."

 

Mark N wrote:


Yea, save for the "Sportbike", and the joint GP and SBK rounds, there's
no news here as of yet. The tracks have had letters of intent for
awhile, but, as with everything else, nothing is settled yet. We'll just
have to wait and see what happens over the next couple of weeks.


It's just been a crummy year, at least for me. As always, the first
couple of rounds (as they swing west) was really good, but at that point
we had zero information (beyond, say, what happened to Hayes in SSport
qualifying at Sears). Then the year went downhill in all the bedlam.

Next years schedule I find kind of interesting being as they mentioned
before that the new schedule was going to be better for the teams and
what not with travel. I guess perhaps that's the "every 2 weeks" meme
(save for when it's not every two weeks), but it has the teams going
from Florida to California to ATLANTA, then Bamaham and BACK to
California. Seems like a the long way to drive around the country to me.

But even then I count on nothing. I have no expectations. The schedule
has a huge "IF" stamped on it and is as tentative as anything else.

And next year starts on a FRIDAY, as they move the Supercross in to the
prime time spot on the calendar of Daytona, thereby reducing the
"biggest race of the year" even further. "Under the lights" on Friday, I
imagine they'll have Truckasaurus there during the half-time/pace car show.

Good luck competing against the bars for that. But maybe I'm wrong,
maybe that's been the money slot all along. But, I don't think so.

Regards,

Will Hartung

 

Will Hartung wrote:

Totally agreed. That last weekend I missed a bike weekend at Laguna for
the first time in 24 years sums it up for me. Just couldn't work up the
enthusiasm with all the DMG stuff and the only thing decided being the
SB championship. Just grim.

Btw, noting this year's penalties meted out by the AMA, I remember those
given to Hayes (Honda), Rapp (Kawasaki) and Mladin/Hayden (Suzuki), but
  they took a pass on Bostrom (Yamaha). Strikes me that this is an exact
mirror of the political realities at play, and it's also interesting
that Stanboli's appeal request on Rapp's tire deal at Elkhart ended up
with the same outcome as Mladin's - it was deemed "frivilous" by the AMA.

Kind of sad that perhaps the greatest rivalry in SB history ended the
way it did on Sunday, with the race almost over before it started and
Mladin sniping at Spies for claiming he was "more not guilty" than
Mladin on the crankshaft thing. Maldin just wanted to go home, although
he cared enough to smoke the field, and Spies just wanted out, which he
has managed. Nothing like last year. But some things to remember about
these guys as they head their separate ways:

  - Mladin's SB win was the 74th of his career (72 if you recognize the
AMA DQs), which is 42 more than 2nd-place Duhamel, and all those 42 wins
have come in the last four years - Mat and Miguel were tied on the
all-time list at the end of 2004, and Miguel hasn't won since. And those
74 wins probably make him first among such premier class leaders in all
the major series, with Rossi's 70 in 500/MotoGP 2nd and Fogarty's 59
wins in WSB 3rd. No idea who is first in BSB, but I'll guess the total
is lower.

  - Spies has tied Merkel and Chandler for 2nd in championships with
three, and ends up in the books with with 28 wins (26 if you give VIR to
Mladin), 3rd in class history. More impressively, he's finished  either
1st or 2nd in 55 of the last 58 races, and in his full-time SB career on
the podium in 68 of 74 races, and in the other six he was 4th four
times. Nobody has ever approached those kinds of numbers at this level,
and he's done it by age 24. As a (the?) point of comparison, Nick
Hayden's three-year full-time SB career numbers were 42 races, 30
podiums, 17 wins, 1 championship - only his 40% winning percentage was
better than Spies' 38% (or 35%).

  - Mladin and Spies ended this year with 46 straight wins between them,
and in the last three years they have finished one-two in 46 of 57
races, and have been on the podium together in races in 59 of 74 over
the last four years. Between them they won 68 of the 74 races over four.
  So in those four years of racing each other Mat came out on top in
wins with 42 to Ben's 26, but Ben on top in championships three to one.

In the other three classes we had well-deserved championships by
long-time veterans, 34-year-old Yates taking his 4th in SStock
(previously in 750SS, 600SS and SStock), 32-year-old Zemke taking his
first in Xtreme, and 34-year-old Bostrom his first since the SB
championship in '98 in SSport. Not only are these guys experienced, but
they are all accomplished factory SB racers as well, and they all
established themselves as the favorites early in the season. And along
the way there was a lot of good, close racing at the front.

Among the guys doing it was the breakthrough guy of the year, Blake
Young, who just celebrated his 21st birthday at Laguna with his first
SSport podium and win. He finished 4th in both SS classes and had a win
and six podiums in SStock. And can we call that win the first for a
non-factory rider since Nicky at Willow in '98 (HyperCycle Suzuki), or
maybe the first since Zemke at Brainerd in '02 (Bruce Transportation
Honda)?

But this year won't be remembered for any of that, it'll be remembered
as the end of an era, and an ugly end at that.

 

Mark N wrote:


Well, a week has passed since the last rounds, and not much has
happened. The biggest development has been in the MotoGP tire
controversy, with Michelin deciding to pass on providing a proposal. Now
I'm very cynical about their motives, and didn't want them to be
selected anyway, but they do make a good point. That being that going
racing is about competition and R&D and improving the breed.

So why is Dorna taking this route, and what will it achieve? The problem
being solved is the sum of these parts:

1) The tire companies had agreed to a lame-ass tire rule intended to
reign in costs. That didn't impact both companies equally.
2) Separate from this, Bridgestone finally caught and probably surpassed
Michelin, on average.
3) Because of this, and how quickly it happened, the best two factories
in the series - and the two most-important riders from a commercial
standpoint - got caught on the wrong tires.
4) The switch to 800cc machines compounded the problem, because Ducati
got it very right and Honda got it wrong and the bikes are fundamentally
less exciting than the 990s they replaced.

#3 had mostly been resolved, after Pedrosa's side of the Repsol garage
switched after Misano. That happened because of a string of races where
Michelin blew it, but probably because they brought the wrong tires and
not that they couldn't build a good enough tire. Why that is, I have no
idea. But it appears that Pedrosa blamed his tires after making the
biggest bonehead move of his career since taking Hayden out at Estoril,
that being crashing out in Germany in the rain with a 7+ second lead. A
convenient excuse, I guess.

The other development seems to be about safety, with the notion being, I
assume, that the tires have simply gotten too good, they have too much
grip and that allows/requires riders to go through corners too fast.
Hmm, I thought we were blaming that on the safety-driven switch to 800s.
And it's not like tires are exploding, or even a replay of the Michelin
light-switch grip of the early '90s.

So what will the single supplier do to the tire picture? The tires won't
get worse, they'll just get faster slower, as it were. Will the racing
get closer? Who knows, but not necessarily, as there is nothing that
requires Bridgestone to make equal effort with each factory and each
rider. It may in fact be that lease teams will have to make due with
"production" tires, as BS doesn't have the budget to supply everyone
equally well. And BS will have the power to decide who wins and who
loses, to some extent (as Michelin used to).

The racing will get more predictable, however, as there will be no more
dice roll on allocation and and holding of breath on Friday as we see
who got it right and who got it wrong. If, say, Alice gets shitty tires
one week, they'll get shitty tires every week. Will the racing get
safer? Please.

So what would happen if they left things as they are? At various points
Michelin demanded that they not lose all their top teams, but they are
no longer in a position to make such demands. So how bad is it if lease
teams at Honda, Yamaha and Ducati mostly run Michelins and all the
factory teams run Bridgestones? Occasionally the other half might have a
tire edge and can run at the front and maybe win one, but it won't have
much impact on the championship, which will be decided between the
factory teams as always, and they'd all be on Bridgestones.

That of course assumes Michelin doesn't come back and take over the
lead, which would throw everything back into chaos again. So maybe where
Dorna is is that they're just tired of talking about and dealing with
tires. Works in the short run, I guess, but it pretty much guarantees
that Bridgestone, good or bad, will continue to be the supplier, as no
one else can even establish a toe-hold under this rule. But there is order.

And then there is this notion, expressed by Julian's man Kropotkin: "If
the French tire maker had been awarded the contract, then open rebellion
would have broken out among the riders currently contracted to
Bridgestone, and riders such as Valentino Rossi and Dani Pedrosa would
have put pressure on Dorna to reverse the decision. Michelin may have
decided to withdraw with honor, rather than go through the motions for
what was essentially a sham."

The logic of that escapes me completely - how will any of the riders
know that Michelin got it wrong if there is no Bridgestone to compare
to? The quality of a tire is entirely relative, unless it's
fundamentally unsafe (picture exploding Dunlops on the Daytona banking),
and even that is in question - think of the "grip, grip, grip, spit"
Michelins of 15-20 years ago.


Another week, and total silence. The logic of this sordid affair suggest
this is a good sign, as if things were falling apart again it would be
all over the press. Edmondson promised details on various things in the
next week or so, so if we're in the same position a week from now, it
starts to look not so good.

 


http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2008/Oct/081004g.htm

Suggests that Bridgestone will make some efforts to effectively provide
a spec tyre. Like WSB, there'll be a big pile of tyres in A, B and C
compound rather these tyres for you and those tyres for somebody else.
And no more qualifiers which is a bit sad but then the last 5 minutes of
250 and 125 qualifying are usually still pretty intense.

Or not. Maybe Rossi, Stoner and Pedrosa will still contrive to get
special "Rossi", "Stoner" and "Pedrosa" Bridgestones.

What might have been better is if Bridgestone had also refused to bid.

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