Spies turns down ride at Assen

 After Capirossi injured himself yesterday, Ben Spies was offered the
ride on the Suzuki, but turned it down. Randy Mamola said he could
understand why, and it would certainly have been a bit of a hiding to
nothing, but I would have thought Ben would have been keen to get as
much time on the bike as possible. Paul Denning sounded a bit
disappointed in Ben's decision when they interviewed him on Eurosport.

Cheers,
--
"I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy ...
 and I'll punch the man who says I'm not."

 Chris Paine wrote:

What he said was the decider was the weather report, and that turned out
a good call, with a wet P3 today and a dry Q. Had he gone out, his first
dry laps would have been in the Q, and he'd have to be very concerned
about not getting in anyone's way once the qualifiers went on. At
Donington he said one of his big concerns was not getting in anyone's
way, not messing up any of the regulars, which is a very responsible
attitude. That would have been much worse this weekend, of course.

Listening to Denning after last weekend, it seemed he wasn't entirely
happy that Loris decided to make a go this weekend, and he ended up
entirely right about that. Too bad that Loris didn't mess up in P1
instead, I'm sure Ben would have been out there in P2.