Yamaha and Honda both lay claim to the title of best motorcycle company based on their engineering prowness in the battlefield of the MotoGP series. For the past two seasons, it has been obvious that these two companies can out research, out design, out innovate, out test and out spend all the other manufacturers in their quest to build the fastest prototype racing motorcycles in the world. The Honda RC211V and Yamaha M1 have dominated for two years and look to continue that in 2005. However, if the yard stick for measuring a motorcycle company’s success is production racing, then this year it appears Suzuki has all comers covered.

This weekend there are three different major Superbike races: World Superbike at Valencia Spain, AMA at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama and British Superbike at Mallory Park. In two of those series the Suzuki GSXR 1000 has already stamped its authority in just the first few rounds. In the third, the chances are good that Suzuki will soon flex its muscle. As I said in a posting last month about Suzuki’s strong showing early in the year the Marketing department at Suzuki is set to have a busy year.

Lets start with the bad news: The British Superbike Series. After being the fastest guy at the first pre-season test for the BSB series, Suzuki rider and defending champ John Reynolds had a serious crash which resulted in a shattered right leg. Amazingly, he has come back in an amazingly short time and ridden at the first races of the season but he has been in such a poor state of fitness that he couldn’t hang with the front runners. With each passing day, his leg is mending and he will soon be back to fitness. Whether he will be able to challenge the current season’s undefeated race winner, Honda’s Ryuichi Kiyonari, this weekend at Mallory Park remains to be seen but you can be sure JR will run up front once he’s healthy. Reynold’s young team mate, Scott Smart, still has some learning before he’ll be a title contender but what better teacher than a two time BSB champion? Expect the Suzuki name to be back on the podium later in the season.

In World Superbike action the races have been a Suzuki ad as the two Alstare Corona riders, Troy Corser and Yukio Kagayama, have lead every race by a proverbial mile. The dominance of the GSXR1000 is shocking, considering that World Superbike has been the property of Ducati for so long. That the new bike can not only be competitive but actually monopolize the results has to shake the series faithful to the core. Suzuki and Alstare team owner Francis Batta have put a huge amount of effort into this series because if you want to get your new bike noticed in the show room, having it reign at the race track is a good start. Expect the two GSXR riders to continue this trend this weekend in Spain.

Finally, there is the AMA series where the three Suzukis have been in the top four fastest in every test session and during the race at Daytona. Mat Mladin has topped everything at every track. No matter what your opinion of the guy’s personality, there is no getting around his riding prowess. The force he wields over the AMA Superbike field is incredible, both with his equipment, his skill and his psychological warfare. Last year Suzuki had a GSXR1000 Mat Mladin replica for sale, showing just how confident they were that Mladin’s win on Sunday would translate into sales on Monday. Mladin was consistently the fastest guy, sometimes by over a second, at the recent AMA test at Barber. Just like Daytona, I think Mladin will use that speed to pull away early and control the race from the front. That’s just the image Suzuki wants in people’s minds…

While Suzuki’s GSV-R MotoGP bike is getting is ass handed to it by Yamaha and Honda, they have found a different way to showcase their engineering strength and its a method that probably gets more potential buyers into showrooms. If Suzuki can sell more bikes by focusing on Superbike racing, do they really care if they stand atop the MotoGP podium?

The rest of the teams stack up like this:

BSB - Honda has kept a perfect win record so far, with Kiyonari and has captured second place two times in four races thanks to Michael Rutter’s performance. The only rider to put pressure on the two Hondas thus far as been Ducati mounted ex-WSBK star Gregorio Lavilla.

WSBK - The Hondas, Yamahas and Ducatis are all a half-step behind the Alstare squad but it looks like Ducati mounted Regis Laconi has the best chance of bridging the gap. There are a lot of young riders in WSBK this year (Muggeridge, Vermeulen, Neukirchner, Pitt, Lanzi), so maybe those guys still have some growth left in them as well.

AMA - I think Ducati’s Neil Hodgson is the only guy that can challenge the three Yoshimura Suzuki riders at this point. Honda are still struggling to build their bikes, Eric Bostrom is still trying to figure out the front end of the 999 and the Jordan Suzuki team is still trying to gel.

[image from the Powersports Network web site.]

With Kawasaki’s Alex Hoffman out with a wrist injury for the next five weeks, Team Green has found itself in need of a quality rider for the next two races. The upcoming race is at the new track in China in a little over a week with the following race at Le Mans in France two weeks later. Since every rider will be equally challenged at the new Shanghai facility, team owner Harald Eckl needed to find a rider that knows Le Mans. He has decided to turn to part-time Moriwaki test rider Olivier Jacque.

Jacque’s resume is mainly anchored by his 250GP World Championship in 2000. That season he raced his Yamaha teammate and title challenger Shinya Nakano all season long and narrowly won the last race at Phillip Island to earn the championship. Before the 2000 season, Jacque had been a talented 250 racer but had only occasional notable finishes. Following his 250 title, he and teammate Nakano where brought into the 500cc Gran Prix class on second tier Yamahas with the Herve Poncharal Gauloises team but both failed to make much of an impression. With the change to four strokes in 2002, both riders struggled with the finicky M1 for a few seasons before being let go from Yamaha at the end of 2003. For 2004 Nakano moved on to Kawasaki and is in the middle of an amazing resurgence. For 2004 Jacque moved to being a French motorcycle magazine reporter and filling in on one-off MotoGP rides for Moriwaki and WCM. Now, for the next two races, the pair will again be teammates. The sense of deja vu is amplified because ex-Yamaha GP project leader Ichiro Yoda is now the technical director for the Kawasaki team.

While the Frenchman never seemed to find his stride with the four stroke MotoGP bikes, he now seems to have found his calling as the person teams call when they need a solid rider who already knows the tracks, teams and the politics of the Grand Prix circus. In this regard, he joins the ranks of other riders who have become better known as pinch hitters than Grand Prix race winners like Jean-Michel Bayle, David De Gea, Gregorio Lavilla and even Anthony Gobert. However, it would seem that being a stand-in for injured Kawasaki riders pays off more than with other teams. Alex Hoffman got his start with Kawasaki as a substitute rider for an injured Hitoyasu Izutsu. Izutsu, in turn, did some testing work for Kawasaki when then MotoGP test rider Akira Yanagawa was injured in 2002. Andrew Pitt, a Kawasaki factory MotoGP rider in 2003, also sub’ed for the injured Yanagawa. Clearly Eckl has a history of later hiring his substitute riders…

Personally, I don’t expect great results from Jacque. Any GP bike requires a lot of testing to really master so its unrealistic to expect him to jump on the bike and immediately be up at the front. However, having a second rider, particularly one with as much experience as Jacque, is bound to help the Kawasaki team continue to improve the ZX-RR. It is always possible that Olivier’s home field advantage at Le Mans, when teamed with a strong desire to impress team owners and hopefully get back into MotoGP full time, will lead to an inspired ride in three weeks. If nothing else, the Kawasaki ride should keep his skills honed so that when he gets his Moriwaki wild card rides later in the season he’ll be ready to race.

Being the guy that gets called in as a substitute rider isn’t all bad. It certainly wouldn’t suck to be the guy that periodically gets called to fly to some exotic location and ride a 250hp MotoGP bike around for a weekend.

[image from the Olivier Jacque web site.]

As I mentioned in a blog posting last December, I’m looking to add a new bike to the garage this year. After a few months of looking, I’m still not ready to lay down cash but the field has been cut down to just a few candidates.

Before talking about the contenders, let me explain how I narrowed the field. First, I got to spend two weeks riding the new BMW R1200GS during our recent Edelweiss tour in Spain. The new GS is a fantastic bike but ultimately it doesn’t differ enough from my current R1150GS to justify an upgrade. What was most apparent is that the new GS is lighter than the older model. I’m not convinced BMW has really gotten more ponies out of the motor but with less weight it feels that way. When it does come time to replace the R1150GS, the new 1200 will be the one but not this summer…

Another option was to replace my old FT500 Ascot based track bike with something newer but that was a long shot from the beginning because of how little I use the thing. Jonna really loved the F650GS during the Spain trip and has expressed an interest in replacing her SV650 with the Beemer. That leads to a possible situation where I sell the Ascot, turn her SV into a track bike and then get her a F650. However, when we looked at the cost difference between the Suzuki and the BMW, that option seemed less attractive. Again, maybe in the future but not this summer.

So with those two alternatives postponed I’ve started seriously looking at sport bikes. Any of the liter bikes are pretty hard to justify, given that they have more power and better handling that I’d probably ever use on the street, but when are bikes really a logical thing? If I can buy a 185 hp, tire shredding, asphalt melting monster why wouldn’t I? The Suzuki GSXR1000 and Kawasaki ZX-10R top the list of sport bikes that I’ve been checking out.

But there is one bike that I’m passionate enough about that I would buy it immediately: the KTM 990 Superduke. The bike just seems perfect…light weight, upright seating, lots of power but still tuned and geared as a brutal supermotard bike. I like the bike’s looks and think the KTM V-twin motor is really in its perfect environment in the Superduke…a physically small motor but with big power. Now for the bad news: KTM isn’t importing the Superduke into the US in 2005. A few of the local shops have them but only for display purposes, not for sale. KTM USA hasn’t announced any plans to import the bike in 2006 either, so the chances of the bike being available this fall looks pretty slim. For the moment, the closest I can get is surfing the 990 Superduke web site and watching the promotional video over and over.

If anyone from KTM USA is reading, consider this one vote for bringing the 990 Superduke to the States. If there are any grey market importers reading, then forget KTM USA, lets talk!

[image from the Sport Rider web site.]

ESPN2 screwed up their grid guide this past Sunday so I was unable to watch the Seattle round of the AMA Supercross race on TV. Nonetheless, from what I’ve read it appears that the top four riders were all news makers.

First, Bubba Stewart pulled another performance like at Dallas a couple of weeks ago and simply crushed the field. From start to finish he was plainly faster than anyone else. More importantly, he kept it upright and didn’t throw the bike down the track. If he does this a few more times, maybe he’ll start making habit of it.

Second, Kevin Windham put in a tremendous ride to get a second place, his best finish since the second round of the series back in Phoenix. Beating both Carmichael and Reed is going to be another boost to his confidence and he’ll need that for the upcoming motocross season.

Next up, Ricky Carmichael rode a smart and safe race to fill out the podium and get the final points he needed to take the World Supercross GP championship. He also finished ahead of Reed and thus kept his points lead for the AMA Supercross title.

Finally, Chad Reed gets a consolation prize. After getting parked in the first turn and punted off the track by a sliding Windham and Stewart, Chad turned in an amazing ride to charge back to forth. While it doesn’t do much for his title hopes, it does show he’s got the speed needed to consistently beat early season rival Carmichael.

My thoughts from this one are pretty simple. Stewart continues to show just how phenomenal a rider he has become by effortlessly turning lap times a second a lap faster than anyone else. Windham always seems to do best when his confidence is high and he’s gaining momentum here at the end of the season but will have to deal with the Stewart show from now on which may be worse than anything Ricky has dished out thusfar. Speaking of Carmichael, RC is playing it smart but has to be worried about Stewart’s speed. With Stewart committed to running a proven two-stroke in the outdoors, Carmichael may be reconsidering his decision to run the new four stroke. Finally, Reed really needs to get some sort of award for mental strength since he just keeps coming back again and again. Crushing defeats, crashes, mistakes and getting punted off the track but he still turns in fantastic rides.

My only other comment is the near complete meaninglessness of the “World Supercross GP” title. The FIM has decided that tacking on a mandatory pair of Canadian rounds onto the front of the AMA Supercross series somehow qualifies it for a separate “world class” championship. There needs to be more non-American rounds and a lot more non-US riders to get any sort of world title status. Right now it is just a bonus the AMA Supercross champ gets for running a couple of practice events before the official season starts. Ideally, a World Supercross series would differ enough from the AMA series that riders couldn’t run both, meaning they either race for money in the US or for a world title in a seperate series. At the moment the AMA series has the best Supercross riders in the world but a World championship should at least be unique whether it has the best riders or not.

[image from the Moto X Sports website.]

Brazilian Alex Barros almost won his home race today. The fact is, he did win the MotoGP race it just wasn’t in his home country. The Brazilian Grand Prix, originally scheduled for this weekend, was dropped off the calendar this past winter due to contract negotiation problems and the Portugese Grand Prix at the Estoril circuit was added as a last minute substitution. I guess having a common language was close enough for Barros because he put on a riding lesson all weekend long by leading every practice session, taking pole position, turning the fastest lap and then winning the race.

The real story of the race wasn’t the racing it was things like the weather and rider injuries. Spitting rain all day long meant that the race was run under cloudy skies and early in the race the new “wet weather” rules kicked in allowing riders to pit for a backup bike (with different tires) if they chose. Despite some parts of the track becoming very slippery, all riders opted to stay out. The combination of slick tires, tricky track layout and misting rain meant lots of riders visited the gravel trap. The most dramatic instance being race leader and championship contender Sete Gibernau who threw his bike into the turn 1 kitty liter on the 17th lap. Also taking spills were Hopkins, Bayliss and Edwards. At the finish line it was Barros ahead of Rossi and Biaggi. This puts Rossi into the series points lead, followed by Barros, Melandri and Biaggi.

Added to the injured list this weekend were Honda’s Makoto Tamada, Troy Bayliss also on a Honda and Yamaha’s Tony Elias. Tamada crashed during qualifying and is thought to have broken his wrist. As a result, he missed the race altogether. The scaphoid, the same bone broken by Kawasaki’s Alex Hoffman earlier in the week, is a very slow bone to heal since there is very little blood flow in that part of the wrist. The normal treatment is six weeks in a cast or inserting a metal pin but I doubt a top star like Tamada will wait that long. An improperly healed scaphoid can basically end a rider’s career…just look at the wrist injuries that plagued Freddie Spencer during his career, so I hope the talented Konica Minolta rider doesn’t rush back too quickly. Bayliss’ injury wasn’t as severe but that is only because the Australian rider apparently rubbed his lucky rabbit’s foot the morning of qualifying. Troy had a *huge* highside that slammed him down on his head and shoulder. Aside from a sore neck, he is reported to be uninjured from the accident. He also crashed, apparently uninjured, in the race meaning it may be time to buy a new luck token because his current one is surely empty now. The final injury news was GP rookie Tony Elias who also crashed twice during qualifying. The second crash resulted in an injured knee. Elias rode in the race and finished a respectable 14th.

At this point, its easier to talk about who isn’t injured that to talk about who is. Barros, Rossi, Biaggi and Melandri are all healthy…hmmm…they are also the top four finishers. Edwards (sixth today), Nakano (eighth), Xaus (tenth), Roberts Jr (twelfth) and Hopkins (DNF) round out the list of healthy factory riders. WCM’s Battaini and Ellison and D’antin’s Rolfo are also unscathed so far this season. Some of these are a surprise, given that Melandri, Xaus, Hopkins and Roberts have all spent a decent amount of time testing gravel traps so far this season. Toby Hirst’s morning warm-up article at Superbikeplanet.com pointed out the fascinating statistic that this weekend marked the 14th crash so far this year for Ruben Xaus. Xaus may end up costing Yamaha more money than Rossi’s salary! Adding in teammate Elias’ two crashes this weekend and Edward’s race crash means there is probably a shortage of M1 bodywork back in Japan right now.

Looking beyond the MotoGP to the 250GPs makes for a huge contrast. Where the bigger bikes were fairly processional, only interrupted by the occasional crash, the 250 race was a barn burner. It looked more like a 125 race than what the past season has shown from the quarter liter two strokes. From the green flag, Porto took off and built an impressive lead in just a few laps. The following gaggle of riders was incredible to watch with five or six riders all mixed up in a dog fight. Pedrosa, Stoner, De Punier, De Angelis, Dovisioso, Aoyama and Takahashi were all over one another while Porto continued to pull away. Around half race distance, Porto apparently started having trouble since his lap times fell and he was gradually caught and passed by the trailing pack. The top five (Pedrosa, Dovisioso, Stoner, De Puniet and De Angelis) pulled a gap on the following two Japanese riders and then with just a couple of laps to go Stoner, Dovisioso and De Puniet pulled a slight break. In the end, Stoner won his first 250 Grand Prix, Dovisioso earned his first 250 podium with a second place finish and De Puniet bounced back from his crash at Jerez to earn some valuable points. In the championship, Pedrosa leads Porto and De Angelis.

I’d like to comment on two things. First, the new flag-to-flag rule. This new rule means that a race where it starts to rain, after starting the race in dry conditions, will not be stopped. Instead, a flag will be shown that will allow riders to pit and change to a backup bike that is in “wet weather” setup. This pit stop will take somewhere between 30 seconds to a minute (and interestingly enough will void the FIM’s own 22 liter fuel limitation rule). The idea for this rule is to keep the TV cameras rolling and to prevent “two part” races which, when scored on cumulative time, mean the first person across the finish line isn’t necessarily the winner. This weekend’s weather was dicey and made for variable track conditions. While no one was injured due to their crash today, I think this race does show that riders will not pull into the pits unless weather conditions are so bad that *everyone* is going to pit. It is today’s conditions that offer the worst case scenario where the leaders stay out on the wrong tires in sketchy conditions because pitting may compromise their result. Instead, they are compromising their safety. I think the FIM knows how much scrutiny they will be under because of this new ruling and they certainly dodged the bullet today. Still, I hope this ruling will be re-thought before something more serious occurs.

Second, I want to point out one of the traits of a champion…they know how to take what they can get. In today’s MotoGP race, both Gibernau and Barros had Rossi beaten. Rather than push and risk crashing while trying to stay with obviously faster riders/bikes, Rossi sat back and rode his own race. After Sete crashed, Vale was gifted second place and those points put him atop the championship points table. Likewise, in the 250 race, Pedrosa didn’t push on the damp track to beat the youngsters like Stoner and Dovisioso. He finished forth in the race but those points were enough to put him on top in the 250 points. Both riders rode a smart race, knowing who their championship rivals are likely to be and only doing what is necessary to stay ahead of those riders. Even when a champion has an off day, its still often enough to further their cause. This is an important lesson for more hot headed riders to learn. Last year Barros and Stoner both crashed while trying to win races, today they both won. Perhaps it is a lesson they have both taken to heart.

[image from Yahoo Sports France web site.]

“Man came by to hook up my cable TV
We settled in for the night my baby and me
We switched ’round and ’round ’til half-past dawn
There was fifty-seven channels and nothin’ on”
— Bruce Springsteen, 57 Channels

Despite my working in the TV industry, I’m not really a big fan of television. Other than spending many Sundays and Tuesdays watching motorcycle racing on SpeedTV I rarely turn on the old boob tube, preferring instead to play on the computer, read or even play in the garage. But because of my addiction to MotoGP, AMA, World Superbike and other forms of motorcycle racing, I’ll never throw the damned thing out.

While I’m glad that SpeedTV still covers the major motorcycle series, I’m definitely sick of all their NASCAR programming. I don’t have anything against NASCAR, car racing is car racing whether its lawnmowers, American sedans or Formula 1 its just that I’m not into cars. Perhaps you’ve heard the motto “Four wheels bad, two wheels good”. If SpeedTV covered Formula 1 all the time I’d be sick of that too. I’d complain more but I know that the number of viewers which tune into NASCAR mechanics reality TV or whatever is on Thursday nights is ten times the number that will tune into a motorcycle roadrace. There are times I get upset, like last weekend when the MotoGP color commentary guys announced the winner of the yet-to-be-televised 250GP race. There are times I’m frustrated by their schedule, waiting two weeks to show the 125GP races. But ultimately, I’m grateful for the motorcycle racing that is available on TV and try to quietly enjoy it while I can.

Dorna, the commercial rights holder for the MotoGP series sent out an interesting press release after last weekend’s MotoGP race at Jerez, Spain which has caused me to be a little less quiet this week. What their press release included were some statistics on viewership of Eurosport’s coverage of the race…The full press release is available on the Team KR website but the Cliff Notes version is just this: Motorcycle racing is real damned popular in Europe, just as popular as NASCAR is in this country. The average percentage of TVs in Spain and Italy tuned to the *4 hour* live broadcast of the GP races at Jerez, was around 33%. That means that one third of the TVs were tuned to Italy’s Italia1 and Spain’s TV-E during the race. During the “the incident” where Rossi and Gibernau clashed in the last corner between 40% and 45% of viewers were watching in both countries. That’s nearly half the TV viewing population. Amazing! Now that indicates an interest in my kind of reality TV!

Now I’m wishing I could get some sort of pirate broadcast of Eurosport and watch motorcycle racing the way the Europeans do. In the meantime, I’ll be tuning into SpeedTV this Sunday to watch the two hour, tape delayed MotoGP and 250GP races. Then I’ll spend the following two weeks trying to learn Spanish or Italian until I can finally catch the 125 race…

[image from the SpeedTV web site.]

I got a quick lesson in paying attention tonight. I ended up working late, thanks to a maintenance outage my team was doing on some equipment in our computer lab at work, and finally got on the road at 10pm. It was pretty chilly out thanks to the two foot of snow we got two days ago and which is still melting out. What’s more, I’d gotten pretty caught up in work and had missed dinner so my body was reminding me that it was time to *EAT*. After getting on my electric jacket liner, my fleece, my winter gloves and my normal riding gear, I got on the bike and headed for home.

I normally ride 5 to 10 mph over the posted speed limit which generally puts me either with or slightly faster than the bulk of the traffic. My theory, in addition to just thinking faster is more fun, is that I’d rather be passing cars than having them pass me. This way I get to make the decision about when I am in their blind spot, when I speed up and when I slow down. Anyway, as I’m approaching the city of Boulder, I suddenly see a City of Boulder patrol car on the shoulder on the inside of a right hand turn about 50 feet away. Wow, I nearly missed seeing him completely. Was I zoning out or what? I checked my speed, saw I was doing 70 in a 65 and figured I was safe. Well, the office figured differently and pulled me over.

Let me back up for a second here and explain my commute. Going from work to home, the first 10 miles are on a controlled access, divided highway. Its four lanes of fast moving traffic (during the day 75 or 80 isn’t unusual for the bulk of traffic), it is relatively straight and pretty boring on a motorcycle. Then there is 10 minutes of playing red light-green light through the city itself, mainly because the traffic control engineer somehow managed to make it so you have to stop at every traffic light whether you are going north to south or east to west. At the far western edge of the city, the road starts going up Boulder Canyon to Nederland and its 20 miles of fantastic curvy mountain roads for the rest of the commute. This last bit is usually the highlight of the ride but melting snow (refreezing into ice at this time of the night) and fine gravel (used instead of salt to melt snow but just little ball bearings when there isn’t any snow to melt) made it less so at this particular time. The last 200 yards is a dirt road. Well, it is normally a dirt road. This morning it was a minor mud bog and tonight it was sort of like leftover creme brulee with a crunchy ice topping and a cold slimy filling.

So anyway, I was more than a little apprehensive about riding home at 10 o’clock at night on sandy roads, potentially icy *and* sandy roads, in cold weather though deer infested woods on an empty stomach. I was a bit preoccupied on the ride which was only made worse when I started trying to work out what I was going to write about on the blog tonight rather than thinking about what I was really doing which was riding a motorcycle over a mile every minute. Well, the muse had a funny way of striking tonight….it was wearing a police officer’s uniform!

To make a long story short, the officer was quite a nice guy. He informed me that the speed limit dropped from 65 to 55 at the point were he was parked. You’d think I’d know that, given that I ride this road every day but just never noticed the sign…maybe because there is usually a lot of traffic moving around at that point with people trying to get into and out of an exit only lane… Since I wasn’t doing anything particularly heinous, he let me off with just a warning. I am convinced that this was helped by the fact that:

1) I was riding a big fat Beemer with bigger and fatter saddle bags. He may have thought his radar was in error and that the pig of a bike couldn’t actually go 71 mph!

2) I was wearing full riding gear (plus two layers of cold weather gear) including my helmet, gloves, boots and riding suit. Surely any safety freak dressed like this didn’t *mean* to be going that fast.

3) Said riding suit has all the stylish appeal of the Michelin tire guy in a bright puke yellow EMT jumpsuit. Who am I going to impress even if the bike will go faster than the speed limit?!?!?

4) I was respectful, removed my helmet and generally made sure I kept my hands where he could see them at all times. Yes sir, I am an idiot sir, thank your for pointing that out sir.

5) I had all my paperwork: license, registration, insurance card easily accessible. I probably helps that I haven’t had a ticket in four or five years, too.

and finally

6) I have a head and beard full of grey hair so looked more like an aging hippie than a crazed speed daemon.

I appreciate the officer giving me a break, it saved me about $100. But I’m still kicking myself for being so out of it that I wasn’t paying attention, either for the changing speed limit signs or looking out for police. I’d certainly have deserved a ticket, had I been given one. I guess I better go help some little old ladies across the street or be nice to our management at work, ’cause I’m sure I need to make a deposit into the karma bank to cover this one.

[image from the City of Boulder Fleet Services web site.]

Just before the official IRTA MotoGP tests, I did a blog entry commenting on how generally healthy the MotoGP riders were at the start of the season. Well, after two test sessions and one race, the injury report looks completely different.

The biggest news is the shoulder injury to Honda’s Sete Gibernau. After the impact with Rossi on the last lap of the Jerez GP, Sete immediately grabbed his left shoulder. According to a press release from Team Gresini, Gibernau has an injury to his previously damaged shoulder and is now questionable for this weekend’s race at Estoril in Portugal. The Spanish press has already picked up the story and is no doubt fanning the flames of the millions of Spanish fans that are on the war path for Rossi’s head. How much of this press release is true, and to what extent it is true, is open to debate but if there is really a chance Gibernau may not make the next race it will be a blow to the series. I doubt the all-Italian FIM would actually take any action against Rossi, even if it was obvious that he was reckless in the Jerez incident, but I do believe they should take a close look at what effect potentially having one of their three stars out of the championship race at only the second event will have and then take stricter measures to discourage contact in future races.

On a more positive note, Honda’s Nicky Hayden had his injured thumb checked out after Jerez and his x-rays came back negative for any breaks. It looks like he just has a sprain and will be cleared to race for this weekend. I’m sure he’ll still feel the pain when the next green flag starts. Whether he can repair his broken momentum after his Jerez crash is another issue.

Also questionable for Esotril is Ducati’s Loris Capirossi. The Ducati team hung around Jerez for another day after last weekend’s race to get in some additional testing but Loris missed the session because of his fractured ankle. While he is likely to race this weekend despite the injury he will have an even more difficult time than last Sunday, when he finished 13th, because Estoril is a short, tight and physically demanding track.

Meanwhile, his teammate Carlos Checa did test at Jerez on Monday despite the shoulder injury which slowed him last weekend, where he finished 10th. His times from Monday’s test were better that his race times so hopefully his shoulder wasn’t re-injured during his bump with Tamada during the previous day’s race. Like Capirossi, it is likely that Checa will also be held back by his injury at the Portugese bullring this weekend.

The only other possible injury from last weekend’s race was Ruben Xaus who crashed on the first lap but he is such a pro at crashing that he undoubtedly came away uninjured. Other than causing another wound to Yamaha’s racing budget thanks to more shattered bodywork, the Fortuna rider will show up in Portugal ready to race.

In a freak situation, Shane Byrne actually had an accident *after* the race when he was involved in a pit scooter crash which took some skin off his hands and arms. This is another set back for the KTM-Proton team so don’t expect their results to improve at the second race.

With four factory riders slowed by injury, including the second place finisher from the first race, along with the rider from one of the “privateer” teams, the injury list now looks a lot worse than it did just a month ago.

[image from the GP One website.]

Okay, so this is about Pontiac, Michigan and not the Pontiac cars…in case you didn’t catch the connection, I snagged the marketing slogan for the GM subsidiary as the title of this blog entry…

The excitement in Pontiac this past weekend was two fold as the AMA 125 East division would crown its champion and the 250 class would see another head-to-head battle among its star studded ranks.

In the 125 class, it was an interesting race. Not because of the close racing but because of the point battle and the required finishing positions of the three men in the title hunt. In the race, Josh Hansen pulled out to an early lead, which was pretty much required since he has a long list of enemies that would have been happy to put him into the tuff blocks and because the AMA probation after his altercation with Josh Grant meant he in turn had to be cautious around other riders. Grant Langston and Davi Millsaps both had bad starts giving Hansen a mathematical chance at winning the title. Millsaps, with nothing to lose, charged through the pack to eventually finish second to Hansen. A great ride but not enough to swing the championship his way. Finishing third was the relatively unknown Joaquim Rodrigues. He rode an excellent race but unfortunately his podium was overshadowed by the point battle between other riders. Langston had to bring the Kawasaki home in forth to tie Hansen in season points, at which time Langston’s superior number of wins would determine the tie-breaker and give him the championship.

After looking very smooth in most of the races this season, Grant looked particularly sloppy in the 125 main. He took a major slide in the first corner on the start, nearly ending his race right there. All through the race he was visibly riding worse that is his norm but yet he still managed to hold onto forth position though the middle stages of the race. Late in the race Steve Boniface started to challenge but Grant ultimately held it together for the forth place finish and the 125 East title. In the post race interview he admitted to being very nervous and riding very tight. Fortunately, he’s talented enough that even when riding poorly he could do what he had to do.

Congratulations to Grant on his Championship.

In the 250 race, everyone was watching the Stewart-Carmichael-Reed show. Fortunately, after a string of races in relative obscurity, Windham was able to re-emerge as a front runner by winning his heat race over Reed. Stewart again beat Carmichael in the second heat, giving these four the primary gates for the main. The rest of the gates might as well have been empty, now that these four riders have so completely taken over the focus of the Supercross spotlight. Everyone was else was out there just to fill out the grid…

When the gate dropped there was another surprise as Windham pulled the holeshot and started to lead the race. After having been so thoroughly beaten by Stewart, Carmichael and Reed lately, I’d basically written the Honda rider off but he showed he’s still a solid rider by keeping everyone at bay for over half the race. I think he has been slow to rebuild his confidence in his riding but this day appeared to be a big step forward for him. If he can keep these performances up for the last few races, he should be in great shape to start the outdoors back in the role of a title contender.

Stewart was the next one to shake things, as he put the Kawasaki into the dirt on lap four after gaining a position on each of the previous laps. He crashed while going after Carmichael for second position. Last week, I was raving about Stewart and his dominating win in Dallas. Well, this week I’d have to say the doubts are back. He’s crashed in all but one of his 250 SX races, meaning he’s tasted dust in four of five appearances. While its commendable that he came back to finish forth after his crash the trend is still something to be concerned about. People that regularly crash, no matter how talented, will eventually get hurt. In Bubba’s case, that would be hurt again since he just finished healing up from his wrist injury sustained at Phoenix. Sure, the front four riders are so good that even if they crash they’re nearly guaranteed a fourth place finish but that’s playing dangerous odds. Stewart still has to learn the patience not to push too hard to soon, the ability to pace himself so he only rides as fast as necessary to win and the championship mentality of taking points when you can, even if it means passing up standing on top of the podium.

Reed showed solid form in running down Windham and Carmichael, then going on to take the win. His string of wins have to be helping rebuild his confidence, something that will help keep his SX championship dreams alive and put him in good shape for the upcoming outdoor season. He’s won four SX races so far this season, second only to RC’s seven, and three of those wins were in the last four races. Certainly a positive trend for the Aussie rider.

Finally, the real winner coming out of Pontiac was Ricky Carmichael. He has, at least momentarily, put his crashing trend behind him and rode with skill and brains. He was able to run down Windham in the middle part of the race, then ride smart after being passed by Reed, since he knows that a second place puts him closer to the title. Had he tried to run with Chad and ended up making a dumb pass on a backmarker or sliding out on the very hard and gravely Pontiac track, he would have lost more than he possibly could have gained. At this point he needs to sew up the title, then try to return to the psychological warfare against his opponents at the season closer in Vegas.

But at the end of the night last Saturday, it wasn’t the 250 guys that made the front page news. It was Grant Langston who finally, after four years of trying, finally brought home an AMA Supercross trophy. That’s building excitement!

[image from Grant Langston’s web site.]

Sometimes even the predictable can be unpredictable and today’s MotoGP race proved to be one off those times. From the first laps, it was obvious that the race would boil down to three men: Gibernau, Rossi and Hayden. The three immediately pulled out away in front with the young Melandri showing fantastic speed to follow but still steadily falling back. After just the first few laps, the front three pulled a gap over Melandri who then pulled a gap over surprise fifth place Nakano.

As the race wore on, the race came down to the bitter enemies from last year, Yamaha’s Valetino Rossi and Honda’s Sete Gibernau with Sete leading from the front and Rossi parked on his rear tire. The scene was eerily reminiscent of last season where Rossi regularly stalked Sete during races and, with one exception, was always successful.

The first thing that showed the race would be unpredictable was the scene of Nicky Hayden pushing his Honda out of the gravel. After looking so fast and comfortable at the last test session (at Jerez) and all through practice and qualifying, he ended his race in the pits with a dusty RC211V and with a hurt thumb.

With two laps to go, Rossi put the move on Gibernau that everyone had expected for the previous 25 laps. Rossi cut up the inside of him with ease but didn’t pull away. Instead, Sete hung tough. On the final lap, Rossi made a mistake and Gibernau charged through into the lead. Rossi made another bid for the lead halfway through the final lap but still came into the last turn in second. At the final left hander, the reigning champ threw his Yamaha up the inside of the Honda mounted Spainard and ended up punting Gibernau into the gravel trap. The Italian crossed the finish line first with the Spanish crowd going haywire at the indignity of seeing their hero treated so harshly. Melandri, well back from the leading pair, crossed the finish line in third. The podium finish a credible way for the new Honda recruit to start the season.

With the race over, a number of newsworthy items were highlighted.

First, the ruthlessness of Rossi’s pass. Valentino ended the 2004 season with a reputation that he was willing to mix it up with his rivals to earn both a points and psychological advantage. Some of his more aggressive moves, like hitting Gibernau at Assen, were brushed off as mistakes. Given Rossi’s near complete mastery of his bike, as well as his shrewd race strategy, I am highly skeptical of this explanation. Thus when Rossi made what appeared to be a banzai move on Gibernau in that last corner and then appeared so jubilant when crossing the finish line after sending his Honda rival off the track I tend to think it wasn’t an innocent “that’s racing” accident. Personally, I think Rossi owes Gibernau a public apology but I know that the psychological stakes are too high. Not only that, I think Rossi was aware that the only way he would make it through that final corner was to push Gibernau out of the way. Its too bad that the season is starting surrounded with such bad blood and that racing this year may be more physical that in years past. Any sport with 200 mph top speeds doesn’t need any more danger.

I was also sorry to see that Hayden is still making rookie mistakes. He’s been in MotoGP for three years now and should have known that third place points are better than starting a season injured and with a goose egg for his points tally. He had Melandri comfortably covered and wasn’t likely to catch the front two. Whether he was sent down by a dusty track or overly aggressive braking, the end result is that he wound up in the kitty litter and the others didn’t. Now he’ll have to get his head around his failure, hope that his thumb isn’t too badly injured and try to re-build the momentum he had going into this race.

Making it a two-for-two, lets talk about the other Repsol Honda rider, Max Biaggi. It seems that Max decided to try something different this year. After years of coming apart like a cheap shirt at the end of the season while contending for the championship, he apparently decided to come apart at the first race this time around. He ran poorly at Jerez in the pre-season test, blaming his team for his lackluster times, and has followed that up by qualifying horribly in 16th and running outside the top ten for most of the race. His seventh place finish shows some attempt to recover but considering the misfortune of other racers even that finish was a gift: Checa is riding with an injured shoulder, Capirossi is riding with a fractured ankle, Roberts Jr. DNF’ed with a mechanical, Hopkins was fighting the flu, Xaus crashed on the first lap and, as already noted, Hayden crashed near the end. Surely, neither Honda nor Biaggi are satisfied with finishing like that.

Ducati apparently decided not to send its battered riders out into the race with their new electronics package after both were again smacked to the ground during pre-race practice because of it. What was revealed just before the race is that the reason for Ducati’s insistence on the high tech addition is their concern over fuel consumption on their GP bike now that the fuel tank capacity has been reduced to 22 liters. The Ducati is clearly a powerful motorcycle and they either have to reduce engine power or find new ways of improving fuel efficiency while maintaining their current engine design. Fortunately, both riders made the finish line without running out of fuel but the folks back in Bologna better decide what hurts there championship chances the most, fuel usage or injured riders.

Edwards wasn’t the factor that he appeared earlier in the week. A poor qualifying result didn’t help but ultimately his pace was that of the mid-pack bunch rather than the front runners. As the #2 man at Yamaha, he’s expected to be taking points from the front Honda men, not fighting with the Kawasakis and Suzukis. As with Checa last year, being a teammate to Rossi may not be the dream job Colin thought when it was first offered. Rossi can get pole position, lap record and win on the bike so the pressure is really on Edwards.

My final MotoGP comment is giving some props to the Kawasaki team. Their pre-season testing indicated they we struggling with their new “Big Bang” engine layout but the riders had commendable showings at Jerez. Both qualified well and Nakano finished a phenomenal fifth, continuing the results he had last year. Hoffman finished in eleventh so both Team Green riders brought home points in the opening race. Kawasaki’s performance over the past two seasons should have the engineers at Ducati and Suzuki glowing red with embarrassment. Clearly I underestimated them and I’m glad to see them doing so well as the series needs all the competitive equipment it can get.

The 250GP race wasn’t nearly as excited as I had expected, mainly because Pedrosa started from pole position and a fantastic hole shot. When the young Spanaird is ahead on the first lap, he can get into his rhythm and just run away from everyone else. Despite the talented field stacked up against him, no one could get ahead of him in the first laps and turn it into a passing battle. Porto showed he’s able to run fast but couldn’t quite match Pedrosa in the closing laps. Perhaps it was the Spanish crowd willing him own that gave Pedrosa that extra little tenth of a second advantage or may Pedrosa was just sand bagging in pre-season testing. Either way, he had them all covered at Jerez.

The main news item here is just that Pedrosa is still a force to be reckoned with and it is the “old timers” that came closest to running with him rather than any of the class rookies. Pedrosa was consistently fast last year and it appears he is carrying that momentum with him this year.

Like Pedrosa, Stoner and de Puniet picked up exactly where they left off last year by both throwing their bikes down the track. These guys, clearly following in the footsteps of Melandri and Xaux, seem to have decided that spirited crashing is their ticket to MotoGP stardom. Maybe they are the real reason that Aprilia went bankrupt last year. Both, along with Porto, are probably the only people that can run Pedrosa’s pace but these two don’t have a prayer in the championship race unless they can stop falling off their bikes.

Dovizioso, the 2004 125GP champion, had a fantastic opening race in the 250s with a forth place finish. He appeared to be well off the pace of the front two but he beat many others who have a lot more 250 experience. He also used his head and stayed on his bike with others fell off. In fact, twelve different riders failed to finish including spectacular crashes by Aoyama and Jenker, in addition to the ones already mentioned by Stoner and de Puniet. Smart riding by the young Italian and something to build on throughout the season. Bravo.

I’ll have to wait two weeks to watch the 125GP race, since Speed isn’t showing it until April 26th. So I can’t really comment on it yet.

Anyway, it was an interesting start to the season. With the next race just a week away in Portugal, I suspect that the simmering hatred between Sete Gibernau and Valentino Rossi will not have cooled any. I suspect hoards of Spanish fans will trek to Estoril giving Pedrosa overwhelming fan support. Riders like Nicky Hayden and Casey Stoner will have their opportunity to get back on the horse, hopefully before their recent crashes get too far into their head. …and TV viewership in Spain and Italy will be at an all time high! I certainly plan to catch it on Speed this coming Sunday.

[image from the Gresini Racing web site.]