Alanf's blog...

This past weekend’s “European” round of the World Superbike races at the reconfigured Silverstone circuit was actually quite interesting. The “International” layout included some chicanes which slowed down the race pace but also removed most of the passing zones. The difficulty passing meant the race was more processional than action packed. While the racing wasn’t particularly exciting the results do lend some hope for those of us who don’t want the 2005 World Superbike season to be a complete romp. Despite this being called the European round, its really the first of two visits by the WSBK series to the UK. I’ve recently been reading some Winston Churchill writings, so I’m going to tie the two things together by giving one quote from the old curmudgeon and then use that to describe the performance of one of the riders.

“Never give in–never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.'’ – James Toseland - Toseland was definitely the star of the weekend. After sucking earlier in the season, the reigning champ started to regain his winning form at Monza and then went on to do a private three day test with Ducati at Mugello. The result was serious flexing of muscles at Silverstone where Toseland netted a third in the race and a win in race two. In both races Toseland was in contention for the victory and took control of race two for a convincing first place. Perhaps Toseland, and Ducati, may yet emerge as a rival to Troy Corser. What is certainly true is that he hasn’t given up.

“Today we may say aloud before an awe-struck world: We are still masters of our fate. We are still captain of our souls.” – Troy Corser - Despite going winless for the weekend Corser was really once again the ultimate winner. His twin second place finishes continued to grow his points lead over second place Kagayama to the tune of a total 78 points. This means that Corser could take off the next weekend and still have a one race win lead in the championship. I hesitate to say that Corser could have won either race but he was definitely running with the leaders in both legs and didn’t *have* to beat either one based on the two Ducati riders since they were forth and sixth in the championship race coming into the weekend. He finished exactly where he needed to…

“Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.” - Regis Laconi - Toseland’s French teammate started the weekend in great form, also continuing where he left of at Monza. Laconi looked unstoppable during the first race as he pushed his way through to the front. Corser kept him honest but no one else really seemed to have the pace that these two pulled out. Fame is a fickle mistress, though, and Regis went from hero to zero in race two with an early crash. While Laconi isn’t completely out of the title hunt, he is only hanging on by the faintest of mathematical hope at this point.

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” – Noriyuki Haga - Despite being let down by both bike problems and tires, Nitro Nori still gave his English fans something to cheer about by running in the top three during both races. A fuel pump problem ended his podium appearance n race one but he hung in during race two despite tire degradation that had him a second off the winning pace during the last few laps. Haga, through sheer force of will, kept his popularity (if not his title hopes) alive.

“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Yukio Kagayama - An odd off weekend for the Japanese ace stunted his championship run against teammate Corser. Kagayama’s 11th and 7th place finishes could be the beginning of the end of his dream of being the 2005 World Superbike Champion. Suzuki, however, are probably more interested him maintaining his second place so that they have a chance of a one-two sweep if Corser brings home the crown this season.

“It’s not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what’s required.” – Chris Vermeulen - Vermeulen brought his Honda home in forth place in both races showing he is still talented beyond his years. Chris showed he had the pace of the front runners in race two but a poor start meant he couldn’t fight for the win. What he did gain was enough championship points to bring him within three of second place Kagayama.

“Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.” – Frankie Chili - Chili has continued to heal from his broken collarbone and brought home two fifth place finishes to show for it. He continues to show that he is one of the most talented men to over throw a leg over a Superbike and to show that Ducati were foolish for ever removing him from their factory team.

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” – Ben Bostrom - Unfortunately, Bennie took another back slide after showing a glimmer of hope at Monza. He pulled out of the first race with bike problems and then struggled to a 14th place finish in race two. Saying the team needed track time to improve the bike was a valid excuse for the first few races of the season but that is rapidly failing an explanation for their lack of results. Bostrom really has to start moving forward for the American to get some respect.

“We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!” – Chris Walker - Walker also followed up his excellent Monza results with a strong showing at Silverstone. Despite having a bike that appears to be a handful, the Stalker still pushed he bike through to dual sixth place finishes. For years fans have felt Walker shouldn’t have gone straight from the UK Superbike series to WSBK on a Kawasaki in 2001. His results seem to lend credence to that theory. Its good to have Walker back on the green machines.

“We have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, and France has suffered even more than we have.” – Foggy Petronas riders Steve Martin and Gary McCoy - In race one, both Petronas riders DNF’ed giving them an embarrassing start to their home races. They fared slightly better in the second race with 13th (McCoy) and 20th (Martin) finishes. At least their results improved between race one and two, unlike Laconi who started on the podium and finished in the gravel.

“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.” Yamaha France riders Norick Abe and Gimbert - The Yamaha France team had a tough weekend. Sebastien Gimbert crashed in race one breaking his ankle and missing the second race. Norick Abe had a clutch problem in the first event, giving Yamaha France two DNFs to start the weekend. Abe rebounded with an eighth in the final race. Good for the team but still far short of what was expected of the ex-GP start.

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Fonsi Nieto - Nieto, another ex-GP star, was originally thought to be another ride who would challenge for the championship but has failed to live up to that expectation. This was particularly true at Silverstone where Nieto ended up retiring in both races. The SC Caracchi team has surely suffered after their glory days with Bostrom and Chili as their riders.

“It is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. The chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.” – Giovani Bussei - Fan favorite and winner of the 2004 sportsmanship award is steadily improving as he comes to term with his Kawasaki. He had an eighth in race one and a sixteenth in race two. He needs to continue to get championship points this season to show everyone that he deserves to be in the series not just because he is a nice guy but because he is a talented rider.

“It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” - me - When all else fails, use other people’s words so you look smart. Hopefully this contrast of historical quotes and rider reviews has made some small progress in that regard.

[image from the Silverstone Circuit web site.]

Back in November of last year I did a blog entry about the how important it is on Veteran’s Day to remember those who have served in our military.

Well, today is Memorial Day and despite the continual degradation of my sense of patriotism, or even simple respect for of country, I am still humbled by those that have chosen to dedicate their lives to protecting our country. Even while I openly flip the finger to those currently in power in our government, I have nothing but the deepest respect and admiration for those who have given their lives for our armed forces.

I hope you’ve taken at least a little bit of time this Monday to think solemnly about those who have fallen in all our country’s conflicts whether it be the fight for independence or those who died just today in foreign lands.

I’ll pick back up with motorcycle talk tomorrow.

[image from my photo collection.]

The only road racing this coming weekend will be the World Superbike series event at the old airfield track of Silverstone in England. This very fast circuit, also used for Formula One racing, has been on the calendar since 2002 but was reconfigured this year to remove it’s fastest straight. As a result, the only rider that has seen his configuration before will be Suzuki’s Yukio Kagayama since he raced the British Superbike series for the past two seasons and this layout was apparently in use for their races. Unfortunately for everyone else, it means that Suzuki again holds the upper hand coming into this race weekend.

So its the same question this week as every other week for the past couple of months…can anyone stop the Suzuki steamroller? More specifically, can anyone stop the Troy Corser steamroller? Last year three riders dominated Silverstone: Haga had a great race weekend last year with two podium finishes so this could be a good time for him to get things right again. Sadly, he has suffered from setup and tire problems all season so it will be a big leap for the Yamaha rider to make.

Another fan favorite in the UK, Frankie Chili showed great form at Silverstone last year but a qualifying snafu mean he had to charge through the pack in both races. He made it onto the podium with a third in the first race but then had a massive highside in the second race. He has had top ten finishes at the last two races, despite having a broken collarbone, so hopefully he will be healthy enough to fight for the lead in this race.

The person that really dominated at Silverstone last year was Chris Vermeulen. In fact, it was his performances as the UK track that propelled him into championship contention. He rode great in the second race at Monza and his win there makes him the most likely candidate to challenge Troy Corser. Unlike both Chili and Haga who have had machine and/or health problems, Vermeulen has been steadily improving this season. It seems like the Winston Ten Kate Honda is gaining speed with each round and the young Australian is again proving to be a rider capable of winning races (and championships).

Another rider on my watch list for this weekend is Ducati’s Regis Laconi. Like Chili, he had a mixed result at Silverstone last year despite some great rides. He crashed out of race one while running at the front and then came back with a third in race two. But what shows that Laconi’s strength is on the rise was his performances last weekend at Monza. A forth in race one, after battling with the lead group for the whole race, followed by a second in race two. It appears that the Ducati does well at a fast, flowing circuit like Monza (just hope it doesn’t only like fast, flowing *Italian* circuits) and it also appears that the Bologna based team have found a setup that works for the bikes since Toseland was up front at Monza as well.

The British riders always seem to step up a bit when they are back in the motherland so I think both Toseland and Walker will ride well. Toseland showed an awakening at Monza and if he can continue with that improvement should run with the leaders. Walker had a great race two at Monza but I think it will be a stretch for him to do that again at Silverstone. I expect him to be near the front but not dicing with the leaders.

Finally, the wildcard British Superbike riders usually make an impact but the Pirelli spec tire rule means that the front runners in BSB can’t race the WSBK round. There are only two BSB riders entered as wildcards and neither are likely to make an impact in the top 15.

If anyone is going to stop Suzuki, its probably going to be Honda and Ducati. If anyone is going to stop Troy Corser, it is probably Yukio Kagayama, Chris Vermeulen and Regis Laconi. The rest of the race should be a big battle between the gaggle of Yamahas (Haga, Pitt, Abe, Gimbert, Nieto, Cardoso), the herd of Hondas (Chili, Neukirchner, Muggeridge, Bostrom), the smattering of Kawasakis (Walker, Bussei) and the pair of FPR bikes (McCoy and Martin). Should be an exciting couple of races this weekend…

[image from the Silverstone Circuit web site.]

In a past life I must have kicked puppies and stolen from children. Or kicked children and stolen from puppies. Clearly something bad is in my past.

Now I don’t normally believe in reincarnation but an experience today has caused me to question that stand on the concept of karma. You see, the local motorcycle shop where I have my BMW serviced is Foothills BMW. They are a good shop and, among other nice services, they offer loaner bikes so you can ride even while your bike is otherwise laid up. In my case, I brought my GS in for its 36,000 mile service today and got one of their loaner bikes to get me to/from work. Normally, their service pool is made up of F650GS and CS bikes but it appears they have recently added new bike…I was expecting a F650 but what I got was a R1200C Montauk. Oh the horror!

Anyone that has ready my blog for awhile will know that there is only one bike I have ever publicly criticized on the blog. It was a posting I did back in December of last year where I explain how glad I was that BMW was finally stopping production of the R1200C.

I said then that the R1200C is “the high water mark in BMW’s pool of aesthetic embarrassments". I can safely say that my opinion of the bike now that I have viewed it from the seat hasn’t changed at all. Mechanically, there isn’t much to complain about with the Montauk. The engine is better than I expected, still gutless at the lowest end of the tach but having surprisingly good acceleration in the mid-range. Comfort wise, the thick handlebars just suck (why mimic one of the worst parts of Harley Davidson bikes when you build a cruiser?) and the bend on the bars was odd enough to hurt my wrists. As with all cruisers, the foot pegs are too far forward for my preference meaning I kept slamming my feet down into the pavement when I went to put my feet on the pegs only to find they weren’t where I expected them.

Ultimately, my complaint with the bike is still its looks. Too many things going in too many different directions all covered with too much chrome. It looks more like a mutant Hot Wheels toy than a real motorcycle. I’ll just have to hope no one recognizes me on the 15 mile ride back to the shop. In the meantime, I’m gonna be real nice to puppies and small children so this won’t happen to me again in my next lifetime.

[image from my photo collection.]

Back in January when I did my AMA rider review I made a big deal about how riders like Ben Spies, Roger Lee Hayden and (reluctantly) Jason Disalvo are the future of the sport. Riders like Duhamel, Mladin, Bostrom and Yates, no matter how great, aren’t going to rule the sport forever. In fact, I think the Hayden brothers, Spies and Disalvo will have taken over the championship battles in the next two or three years. So when Ben and Roger Lee are no longer the newcomers, where will the next crop of star riders come from? Well, the answer is already in front of us…

As with many of the other rookies in the sport, the next generation of motorcycles racers are already honing their craft. In fact, they are often on the track at the same time as the current big name riders. The Hayden brothers didn’t just appear on factory bikes, they worked their way through a farm system of privateer and then factory supported teams. Just a decade ago, teams with names like EBSCO, Zero Gravity, Suzuki Sport, Hypercycle and Kinkos were running riders with names like Jamie Hacking, Nicky Hayden and Jake Zemke.

Some other teams, like Erion Honda, Emgo Suzuki (the ex-Team Valvoline/Team Hammer), Hooters Suzuki and Corona Suzuki are still out there today and are still feeding talented riders into the AMA series. I think the teams to watch this year to spot new talent are the Grant Matsushima run MPTRacing team, the Hotbodies team, the Millenium KWS team, the Corona team and Topline Racing. All of these teams are busy scouting new talent that will race for cheap in an effort to get noticed by a factory team next year. Many of the teams have a tire sponsor, usually Pirelli or Bridgestones rather than the front running Dunlops, but their sponsorship list is dominated by small non-motorcycle related businesses like construction companies or printing companies. (Obviously, the Corona Suzuki team is the major exception to this with their big name beer sponsor and massive paddock presence).

Where do these riders come from? Well, it seems there are a few standard places that the small teams are looking to find up-and-coming riders.

First, the most fertile ground for the past thirty years have been on the dirt tracks of America. Racing on short tracks and 1/2 miles teaches kids throttle control and gets them used to the rigors of racing. Since flat track racing doesn’t pay as well as road racing and there is a lot of overlap with the skillset it is usually easy to convinced talented young riders to give road racing a try. Of the current riders MPT Racing’s Danny Eslick is the best example of one who came out of the dirt track world. He’s very fast and very comfortable sliding the bike around. His finishes thus far this season in Formula Xtreme include three top five finishes.

Second, check the local CCS and WERA races to see who is shining there. Riders like Aaron Yates, Scott Russell and Mike Smith all strutted their stuff in WERA and CCS before being picked up by AMA teams. If a rider is fast enough to win in the CCS Race of Champions or the WERA Grand Nationals there is a very good chance they’ll soon be riding in one of the AMA classes. The current racer from this background is Millenium KWS’s Blake Young. This young (pardon the pun) rider made an impression with his rides in CCS and is already backing that up with competitive riders in AMA Supersport (three top 15s) and Superstock (two top 15s). He’s teamed with veteran Lee Acree, so expect to see Young continuing to improve as he learns from his experienced teammate.

Third, casting an eye down under seems to be a popular place to look for riding talent. Over the past decade the AMA series has been dominated by Aussie riders like Troy Corser, Troy Bayliss, Mat Mladin, Anthony Gobert, Aaron Gobert and Damon Buckmaster. There are a few talented Australian riders chasing Yank dollars in the field this year but I think the best example is Corona Suzuki’s Brent George. This kid showed up at last years Suzuki Cup races at Atlanta and impressed many with a podium finish against circuit experts Mike Smith and Geoff May. Thus far this season George has finished in the top 15 at every Superstock race and in the top 15 twice in Superbike. Don’t be surprised to find him as the new Wonder from Down Under in a few years.

Finally, those scouting for international talent sometimes look north of the border and poach riders from the Canadian Superbike series. Duhamel, Picotte, Crevier and Szoke were all Canuck racers before being tempted by warmer weather and US paychecks. While this plan hasn’t paid the consistent rewards of importing Aussies this year brings back a talented young rider named Chris Peris riding for Topline Racing. He has certainly earned great results including four top-10 finishes in the ultra competitive Supersport class and four top-5 finishes in Formula Xtreme.

If you’re really curious about the future stars of the sport, check out Roadracing World and Motorcycle Technology magazine’s annual “Young Guns” feature. It lists riders between the ages of 13 and 19 who have finished in the top three in an expert level road race. Past “Young Guns” include all three Hayden brothers, John Hopkins, Ben Spies, Jason Disalvo, Tony Miering, Nicky Wimbauer and many others. Its another great feature offered to the motorcycle racing community by the often controversial John Ulrich.

In the meantime, watch as these talented riders improve this year and next.

[image from the MPT Racing web site.]

“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”

Well, okay, not so long ago and not really so far away. In fact, just this past weekend in Colorado Springs. I won’t bore you by making this a Star Wars parody, it just seemed like too easy of a pun to make given my southern accent, the new movie opening recently and the marketing assault that rivals anything in the war on terror…

At Daytona this year, plenty of paddock pundits were pontificating about Pirelli. Specifically, that despite Michelin losing their only factory team connection, there appeared to be a tire war brewing in AMA Superbike. With all the factory teams running Dunlops it was assumed this season would be a cakewalk for the UK based company but then Pirelli shod Vincent Haskovec rode his Emgo M4 sponsored Suzuki to a surprise win in the Superstock race. Had all the nay-sayers been wrong? Had Pirelli buying their way into the World Superbike series actually netted them a competitive race tire? Had Pirelli succeeded where Michelin had failed? Well, the subsequent races have shown that optimism for the Italian tire manufacturer was probably a bit premature. The best litmus test for this may well have been this past weekend at Pikes Peak International Raceway.

PPIR is hard on tires. In fact the general opinion is that PPIR is harder on tires than any of the other tracks currently on the AMA calendar. Daytona, long known to eat rear tires for breakfast, still doesn’t put the constant strain on the left hand side of the tire that PPIR does with over 1/2 the lap being one long bumpy left hand turn. This was vividly illustrated this year when three different factory and factory supported riders were forced to pit for a new rear tire during the Superbike race: Mat Mladin, Jake Zemke and Kurtis Roberts. During the race, both Ben Spies and Aaron Yates were noticeably spinning up the rear tire exiting tight left hand turns. It was one of these spins that cost Aaron Yates the race win.

No matter how bad things were for Dunlop, things appeared even more grim among their competitors. When walking around the pits one thing that was immediately obvious was how busy the Dunlop guys were. Their canopy had three stations with hydraulic mounting machines and three tables set up for balancing tires. At any given time there would be 8 or 10 crew members frantically running around handling tire duties for all the racers running their tires. Also interesting was that Dunlop brought three different compounds of tires to PPIR for their riders including two different multi-compound tires. These slicks have two or three different types of rubber all molded together into a single tire. The left hand side of the tire would be a harder compound that can stand up to the high temperatures generated in the long left turns and the rest of the tire would be a softer compound that could be effectively used in the right hand turns since that side of the tire runs cooler. It is even possible that additional “stripes” of rubber could be used in the tire so that a particular area of the tire could be made more resilent to overheating. Fascinating stuff and proof that Dunlop has really done their homework on PPIR over the years.

In contrast, the Michelin area was positively lazy. Three or four guys wearing Michelin shirts would generally be sitting around chatting or aimlessly balancing a tire. Plainly they are the least involved of the tire manufacturers and the lack of activity around their semi was clear evidence of that. Michelin should have the leg up on everyone else in terms of motorcycle tire development since they virtually own MotoGP racing. However, every track is unique and Michelin needs at least a couple of top level AMA Superbike riders running their tires if they hope to develop competitive tires for the US tracks. It isn’t happening given their current level of involvement.

Splitting the difference between these two, the Pirelli tire guys were moderately busy. Their biggest partner in AMA Superbike is the Emgo M4 team and you could regularly see crew members from the team at the Pirelli truck and vice-versa. Clearly they are working together closely. Unfortunately, at PPIR the Pirelli tires weren’t working all that great with the track. Michael Barnes was standing in for the injured Vincent Haskovec and actually carded decent finishes for the weekend…a fine forth in Superstock and a sixth Formula Xtreme. Not bad considering it was his first ride on the bikes. However, those results are even better considering how badly his Pirelli tires were sliding around after the halfway point in each race. In the early stages of the Formula Xtreme race Barnes was fighting with Ben Attard and Chris Peris for third place. Then his rear tire started sliding and he steadily dropped back to his eventual sixth place result. What was particularly noticable was that his tires were sliding exiting the sweeping right hand turn five. This would indicate that even the cooler right hand side of the tire wasn’t performing as well as the Dunlop tires run by the other racers. Probably the very situation that one of those multi-compound Dunlop tires is meant to address since the Pirellis probably run a hard single compound tire so the right hand side never comes up to operating temperature. The same thing could be seen in the Superstock race though Barney seemed to ride around the problem better on the GSXR1000 than he did on the Superbike-spec 600. Perhaps the heavier bike generated the extra heat to make the right side of the tire work better while overheating the left side even more. Great rides from Barnes but it does open the question of how competitive would he have been on Dunlops?

Finally, Bridgestone had a semi at PPIR but it was practically just there as a rolling billboard. I didn’t see any riders going to/from the Bridgestone area. Like Corona, they could have simply hired models to walk around in their gear and not really changed their impact on the weekend. Like Michelin, Bridgestone theoretically could be a huge force in Superbike racing since they are the biggest tire manufacturer in Formula One car racing and have recently taken a huge bite out of Michelin’s market in MotoGP racing. Its a matter of them deciding to put resources in the US national series and then getting some riders on their tires so they can start collecting crucial data from our tracks.

Either way, PPIR did highlight that the tire wars aren’t as hot as they first appeared at Daytona. Before anyone will really challenge Dunlop for supremacy in the AMA Superbike wars Pirelli will need to create a better tire and both Michelin and Bridgestone need to get some top riders on their tires. In the meantime, we can always hope that Barnes will get a chance to come over to the dark side and compete head-to-head with the factory boys.

Use the force, Michael…

[image from the Superbike Planet web site.]

The New Age folks have a number of very interesting theories about life. One of those curious “facts” is the idea that there are streams of energy that flow across the surface of the earth and that there are special places where these paths of energy cross. The places of convergence have unique properties to which the New Age devotees flock. Some of these sacred locations in the US include Santa Fe NM, Sedona AZ and Crestone CO. (Interestingly enough, these places are demonstrably locations of special financial energy because land in these towns is disgustingly expensive…but I digress).

Well, I’ve always been skeptical about this theory but I’m beginning to think there is something special about Fountain, Colorado. That’s the only way I can explain Eric Bostrom’s performance yesterday at PPIR.

Thus far this season, EBoz has struggled. Well, that’s putting it politely. In ‘03 Eric was “the man". Last year he struggled with the Michelin clad Duc 999 and everyone…team, fans and Eric…surely expected him to return to his ‘03 form this year with him back on Dunlops and with a year on the Ducati under his belt. Given that benchmark, Bostrom has sucked this year: 11th at Daytona, 8th and 5th at Barber, 5th and 4th at Fontana, 10th and 7th at Infineon. Today Eric seemed to align all his chakras and everything clicked. He was second in qualifying throwing down strong laps for the second half of the 40 minute session. Then in the race he repeated last year’s jack rabbit start. Yates eventually clawed his way through traffic to catch up to Bostrom. The Enforcer even took the lead and looked to have it won but traffic kept him from getting away and roasted tires let him down on the last lap allowing Eric back by for the win. Eric’s sixth win at PPIR and his forth straight. Its really a pity the energy grid doesn’t cross the other nine tracks on the ‘05 schedule since Eric is amazing to watch when things come together for him.

In contrast, Mladin has ruled all year with only a mechanical failure at Infineon marring a perfect season. There is only one track on the AMA schedule that Mladin hasn’t won and its the little oval in Colorado. Mat came in confident that this was his year to check PPIR off his list. Well, once again the Mladin curse kicked in and Mat struggled. Perhaps Mat didn’t wear the right crystal or chant the right mantra before the trace. Then again, a bad race for Mat means forth…still valuable points towards the championship.

As I mentioned in my pre-race posting on Friday there are a few other guys that seem able to tap into PPIR’s mystical energy:

Josh Hayes - With a few weekends on a reliable Attack Kawasaki behind him, Hayes showed that his ‘04 performance of coming through the pack after a crash wasn’t a fluke. Josh didn’t crash this time and instead used that same Pike’s Peak mojo to finish the Superbike race in fifth, ahead of Hodgson, Duhamel and Zemke. This is Hayes second fifth in three races so once again he is stickin’ it to the factory boys.

Tommy Hayden - The elder of the Hayden brothers has always run well at PPIR. Maybe its his dirt track background, maybe its his smooth riding style or maybe its cosmic karma but Tommy once again put on a good show for us Colorado fans. Tommy visited the podium in both of his races, third in Superstock and second in Supersport. He ran second for most of the Supersport race until race leader Jason Disalvo threw his Yamaha away in turn three. Tommy nearly crashed avoiding the sliding bike and rider but rejoined the in third. He rode hard to regain second with a deft pass on Jamie Hacking but couldn’t find a way past brother Roger Lee for the win. This increased his lead in Superport to 8 points and his Supersport run solidified his forth place standing there.

Jake Zemke - The Californian has had some memorable rides in Colorado. Today he had two noteworthy rides but only got the glory for one of them…Zemke lead the Formula Xtreme race from start to finish, winning his forth straight FX race and giving him a 13 point lead over teammate Duhamel in the title chase. This win also moved him into first place on the most FX wins list with 10. Zemke’s second race for the day didn’t turn out so well… In Superbike, Zemke came out running strong in third for that first half of the race. It looked like Jake would put the CBR on the podium, especially once Mladin pitted for a new tire, but then he suffered his own personal tire problems eventually pitting for new rubber. Zemke eventually finished thirteenth, hardly fair considering how long he held third place on the track against the monster Suzukis and against PPIR expert Bostrom. It doesn’t require any spiritual mumbo-jumbo to know 13 was definitely an unlucky number for Jake.

Jamie Hacking - Jamie has often struggled at PPIR including some high profile crashes in the past. This year he finally seemed to find the way to channel the mysterious Fountain, CO power. Hacking won a hard fought Superstock battle after holding off persistent attacks from Aaron Yates. He then followed this up with a third place in Supersport, not quite able to run with the two Hayden brother’s Kawasakis but pulling well clear of teammate Aaron Gobert. In addition to putting in strong performances this year, it also seems like Hacking has mellowed a lot over the past two years. I thought he was a jerk for much of his early racing career but ‘04 seemed to have brought about a change. He seems to be a less physical rider and less aggressive towards his competitors both on track and off. The new ager followers might say there has been a transference because unfortunately it appears that the worst parts of Hacking’s prior persona have been picked up by his teammate Jason Disalvo. The change in Hacking in both his outward personality and his performance at PPIR mean he was one to watch this past weekend.

Finally, every vortex of universal bliss is bound to have its downer. It was the track itself that was again the embarrassing stain on the clean white robe of a weekend. As if the dinky 1.3 mile layout with crumbling asphalt isn’t bad enough the riders had to deal with the added excitement of having water seep up through the cracks all during the weekend. To show that some people know how to make a bad situation worse, the track sprinkler systems ran on Saturday evening adding water to an already saturated ground. The fix? The track officials had holes bored into the surface where tampons were inserted to soak up water. Now the surface resembles a cheese grater, not to mention bringing up that age old question of exactly what is the traction coefficient of a wet tampon? The final coup-de-grace was the complete cluster caused by jamming a few thousand motorcycles out just two exists. The motorcyclists, many in leathers and helmets, were left baking in the sun while the VIPs in their air conditioned cars were flagged out of the parking areas in the infield. A miserable end to what was actually an exciting weekend of racing.

[image from my photo collection.]

“Any water in the desert will do.”
Saudi Arabian Proverb

For the past few years, since the Phoenix race was dropped of the calendar in 1999, the AMA’s only visit to the western states has been their annual visit to Pikes Peak International Raceway. By any non-NASCAR race fan’s evaluation, PPIR is not a great track. First of all, it’s a NASCAR oval which means lots of concrete walls and mostly left turns. Second, it is small even by NASCAR standards which means it is more reminiscent of a concrete speedway or short track race than of a road race. Finally, it is in the plains of Colorado which means it is subject to both the bitter cold of winter and the baking heat of being in a high plains desert. As a result, the track surface is rough and bumpy at its best and crumbling apart at its worst. Since 1997 this has been an event the AMA Superbike guys soldier through rather than anticipate. But for the fans of AMA Superbike racing their annual visit this coming weekend is our sip of cool water that breaks the one year draught.

Those complaints stated, as a Colorado resident I’m happy to have a place to watch the fastest guys in the country show their stuff even if it’s the equivalent of watching Rossi zoom around a go kart track on a moped. The turnout for the PPIR event, now in its ninth year, has grown steadily over the past two or three events. The parking lot is now filled with bikes and the promoter has started adding new activities like a free style motocross demonstration, extreme skateboard/BMX bicycle exhibitions and live bands which will hopefully draw even more fans in the coming years.

The track layout and surface not withstanding, the most defining characteristic of the PPIR event has always been the success that underdogs have had at the track…particularly underdogs whose past includes a lot of dirt track racing. PPIR was one of the few events which breathed life into the old Harley Superbike effort when, in 1999, Pascal Picotte ran up front during the race. Even the most successful Superbike rider at PPIR, Eric Bostrom, has been a clear underdog during many of his race wins. Last year Eric had struggled at all the previous races on the Ducati and suddenly came alive at the Colorado bullring to win the race over the dominant Mat Mladin. It turned out to be his only win of the season.

In addition to EBoz, dirt trackers like the Hayden brothers, Kurtis Roberts, Jake Zemke, Ben Bostrom and Larry Pegram have had memorable rides at PPIR. While racing the then-new Honda RC-51 in 2000, Nicky Hayden lead the race over Mat Mladin before burning all the rubber of his rear slick and fading back to finish 5th. Kurtis Roberts has always been the most impressive rider to watch through turns one and two. Back in his days racing the Erion Honda Formula Xtreme CBR he used to broad slide the bike all the way through the long left hand turn looking like a dirt tracker entering turn one at the Springfield mile. Memorable stuff.

Jake Zemke has also has memorable races at PPIR but rarely races he is proud of. In 2003 he was gridded on the back row of the 600SS race because a tech inspection revealed a rules infraction with his bike’s oil pressure relief valve. When the green flag fell, Zemke started a charge through the pack that drew more attention from the stands that the battle for the lead. In the end, Zemke finished 7th and instantly became a fan favorite.

Likewise, Josh Hayes had an impressive ride last year in the Superbike event. After crashing on the first lap, Hayes remounted his Kawasaki in dead last and started rocketing his way back through the field. The inspired ride showed just how gritty a competitor he is and his eventually 7th place finish was amazing considering how difficult it can be to pass on the 1.3 mile long circuit.

Speaking of which, passing has always been a problem at PPIR. Because the track is so short, the Superbike races usually run 48 laps. The large grids that the AMA allows, combined with the wide disparity in lap times, means the leaders usually start passing back markers after just six or seven laps. Some riders have been lapped as many as three times in the past but the new usage of the blue flag and recent habit of black flagging slow riders after they have been lapped twice is helping. Still, the Superbike finishes at PPIR are rarely close as backmarkers inevitably string out the field making it tough for riders which missed the lead group early to bridge the gap back up to them. In contrast, the Supersport races at PPIR are almost always fantastic, perhaps making this class the true oasis among the dry scortching sands of roadrace wasteland. Turn four, leading into the infield, has decided many of the Supersport races at PPIR as the short straight leading up to that turn allows drafting and subsequent close passes on the smaller bikes.

This year could be the most exciting race in years. Eric Bostrom has done so well at PPIR that it would be silly to ignore the chance of him having another breakthrough ride. Mat Mladin has always struggled at PPIR but seems convinced that he can turn that around this year. Mat’s teammates Ben Spies and Aaron Yates are also both riders with a strong dirt back ground and should do well this year as well. PPIR could be Jake Zemke’s best chance to run up front aboard his still under development Honda. Jake’s teammate Duhamel is always strong at PPIR, especially through the flat, sweeping right hand turn five. Duhamel’s other strength has always been his ability to get through traffic which definitely pays dividends here. If the Attack Kawasaki will hold together, this could give Josh Hayes an opportunity to put in another strong ride, hopefully without having to charge through the field after a crash. Even Kurtis Roberts could improve his recent showings if he can use his dirt track style to slide his underpowered Erion Honda towards the front. It would be nice if we could get some tight racing again after a few years of run away wins.

My best memory of the place involved just such tight racing. It was my first year cornerworking at PPIR back in 1998. I was working turn four, the tight left hander that leads off the back straight and into the infield. During the 600 Supersport race, the leaders would regularly all enter the turn with the rear tire locked up and hung waaaaay out on the right side as they fanned out for the draft pass. Each lap I was convinced that Larry Pegram, Nicky Hayden, Tommy Hayden and Eric Bostrom where all going to go down in a sliding, sparking heap as they fought in that turn but each lap they pulled it together. In the end Larry Pegram took his first and only Supersport race win. One of the most exciting races I’ve watched at the Fountain, CO track.

As they say, the Pikes Peak International Raceway event ain’t much but I’m thankful to have it nonetheless. Those stuck in the desert can’t be too picky about how we quench our thirst. Until someone ponies up the big bucks to build a better track in the Colorado area, I’ll be a faithful spectator at PPIR and hope others do the same. Hope to see you there this May 22!

[image from the Pikes Peak International Raceway web site.]

So things have been happening so fast in the motorcycle racing world that I’m falling behind in getting out the news while still maintaining my one post per day format. As a result, I’m going to cut back on how much I say on each topic for today and try to get out a lot of information in an effort to get caught up…

First, after what as been the most exciting Supercross series in years ESPN decided to drop their option to cover the upcoming AMA motocross season. So don’t tune into ESPN2 this summer if you want to watch Bubba, Ricky, Chad, Kevin and all the others duke it out. Fortunately, OLN snapped up the contract and will be televising the series in its entirety. More good news is that OLN is rumored to be getting David Bailey to handle their announcing duties. Based on what I’ve heard when he’s announced the Daytona Supercross on SpeedTV David should be better at color commentary than ESPN’s Cameron Steele or OLN’s Jerry Bernardo. The bad news is that OLN plans to show the motocross races one week after the event rather than showing them live or tape delayed the same day. The current schedule is to show the 250s on Saturday one week after the race and then the 125s will be shown the Thursday after that. The first race at Hangtown in Sacramento will be shown on May 29th. Tune in and support OLN!

Speaking of dirt bike racing, I never got a chance to give a review of the AMA Supercross finale from Vegas. Neither the much anticipated mano-a-mano battle in the 250s or the east-west comparison in the 125s really materialized. In the 250s, Stewart crashed in his heat race which jammed his thumb and he chose to skip the race. With Bubba out, I think Ricky decided to play it safe rather than risk an injury that would put him behind for the outdoor races. Kevin pushed too hard and crashed out while leading. The result was a big win for Reed, hopefully boosting his confidence for the upcoming motocross season. A big crash in the first lap of the 125s put a lot of the front runners at the back of the pack, so the Langston/Tedesco/Ramsey/Hansen/Walker/Millsaps/Grant battle didn’t happen. Millsaps got the win, somewhat redeeming himself after early season crashes took him out of the east coast 125 championship battle. Like the first race of the season, the anticipation for Vegas turned out to be more exciting than the actual race. Now its time to look forward to the opening of the motocross season this coming weekend…

One person that will be missing the AMA Motocross series is Suzuki rider Sebastien Tortelli who broke his wrist in a practice crash just before Vegas. This is too bad for two different reasons. First, Tortellli has always been a better outdoors than supercross rider. He did well during the SX season, finishing seventh, so looked to be ready for a strong season on the motocross tracks. Second, his job during the SX season was to develop the four stroke RM-Z450 which both he and Ricky Carmichael will be running in the outdoors. Now Tortelli won’t have a chance to benefit from all the development work he did throughout the Supercross season. Hopefully Sebastien can return for the last few motocross races.

Back on the asphalt, the support classes for all the roadrace series have eclipsed the premier series, the only possible exception being the MotoGP series. I’ll try to do some postings in the future that review how these series are developing but I will encourage roadrace fans to tune into the World Supersport, 250 and 125GP races and the AMA Supersport and Superstock races on SpeedTV when they are shown on Tuesdays.

A press release that raised my eyebrows this past week was a message from Yamaha announcing that Doug Henry will be racing a pair of factory supported Graves Yamahas in the AMA Supermoto series. Last season it seemed like the AMA Supermoto series stalled out after a first year growth that surprised and excited many of us fans. This faltering seemed even more clear when the first round of the ‘05 season was cancelled dropping the season to only seven rounds. Having Yamaha join KTM in the series as factories with supported teams should help add some much needed prestige this season. Lets hope they can get Honda enticed into fielding a full factory supported team and get supermoto growing again.

In the MotoGP world, Tony Elias has now joined the injured list after breaking his wrist and leg in a testing accident on Monday. He will miss the June 5th MotoGP race at Mugello. The list of who is healthy in the MotoGP paddock is pretty short these days. Its even worse if you think of the mental beating that everyone has taken by Rossi. Those bruises to every other rider’s confidence could be more damaging than any back or wrist injury.

The sad news coming out of California this morning confirms everyone’s worst fears that Team M4 Emgo Suzuki rider Vincent Haskovec has been paralysed after his accident at Infineon Raceway. The Team Hammer web site posted an official announcement. This is sad, sad news not only because Vincent was a popular rider but because he had taken a big step forward this year as a rider and was a genuine contender for the Superstock title. Add in that he was the top non-factory Honda rider in Formula Xtreme and its easy to see how big a hole his absence from the paddock is going to create. My best wishes go out to Haskovec for a speedy recovery to full health and that he has all the support he can get for the rocky road that lies ahead for him.

I think that’s enough for my first effort at catching up. Tomorrow I’ll post my review for this weekend’s AMA race at PPIR.

[image from the OLN TV web site.]

Unlike so many blogs on the net, I rarely use this as a platform for rants. I try to post stories that motorcycle enthusiasts and particularly motorcycle race enthusiasts will enjoy without it just being one long Dennis Miller-ish bitch session. Well, this is one of the few times where I’ve summoned up some self-righteous rage and need to vent.

Maybe the following reference is an 80s thing, like referring to something a totally awesome or exclaiming “Just say no". If so, I’ll try to explain it below. You see, as a long-haired, tree-hugging, pinko-commie environmentalist type I’ve often heard, and have probably been called, the term NIMBY. This acronym came out of the post-Three Mile Island anti-nuclear reactor protests and was primarily aimed a folks who protested things being built near their home. Since back in those halcyon days, it was usually the liberals who did such protests (this was before the days of do-gooder fundamentalists protesting strip clubs, blue collar unions protesting Walmart and gun-toting conservatives protesting illegal aliens). The general idea was that we damned environmentalists were too weak-minded to understand the bigger issue and instead just wanted to protect our own ass.

My how the times they are a changin’. What does this have to do with motorcycles, my usual topic, you might ask? Well, plenty. It seems that the past decade has brought about a whole new breed of NIMBYs, this time from the very people that probably bitched about us hippies a mere twenty years ago. The new target for this phenomena? Race tracks, or to use the fashionable catch phrase of the day, noise pollution. (Rational people might think you were nuts for moving next door to a race track and then complaining about the noise but only idiots would dare question anyone fighting some type of pollution?)

There are two instances of this that have me the most pissed off. The first is happening in California where Laguna Seca continues to be restricted by local bone heads who moved into the hills outside Monterrey, built their mega-mansion and then - oppps! - discovered there was a race track there. Nevermind that the Laguna Seca motorsports park was built in 1956 and is maintained by a non-profit whose board is composed of local people including county officials. Somehow this apparently top secret facility eluded their detection until after they’d plopped down the nest egg left over from their dot com IPO. Now little Billy can’t take his Saturday afternoon nap because AMA Superbikes are getting in their qualifying session and damnit, something must be done. The end result is that Laguna Seca has a set number of big events (MotoGP, World Superbike, Vintage races, SCCA, etc) that they can run each year. These events must be approved by the board and are subject to complaints from local home owners. There has even been talk of setting a decibel limit which, if it happens, would pretty much crush the chances of having MotoGP there in the future. This July will undoubtedly be the litmus test for this.

The second instance of a race track being hit with sound problems is a much less spectacular venue in a much less affluent neighborhood but has a much more personal impact… The local MRA roadracing organization only has a few tracks on which to race. These same tracks also serve as venues for local track days, so they’re an asset even to non-racers. None of these tracks are world class. Hell, they aren’t really even national caliber. Most are short, bumpy and tight with crappy facilities. Passable classrooms for local racers and riders to hone their craft but tracks not worthy of any recognition outside Colorado. Of these, Second Creek Raceway is the most used as it is the closest to downtown Denver. Its also close to DIA, which would seem to be an ideal place for a race track since surely noise can’t be a problem directly underneath the path of landing aircraft! Well, think again. The grotesque stain of suburbia can encroach anywhere, even on a race track located in the middle of freakin’ nowhere with an airport just a few miles away. A bunch of developers (don’t get this environmentalist started on which layer of hell is reserved for land developers) decided to build a little blob of communities just a half mile from Second Creek. They called this little slice of paradise Fronterra Village and started putting up crappy little boxes made of OSB, dry wall and pastel paint. Like mushrooms after a rainstorm, one minute the area was empty open plains and the next it was covered with identical looking suburban dream homes. Families looking for affordable housing arrived like 49er’s racing for homesteads and then just as promptly started noticing strange noises on Friday nights and weekends. Petitions were signed, local county commissioners were called and soon the track owners started getting notices about breaking noise ordinances. It looks like this will be the last year for Second Creek (and probably their neighbor Rocky Mountain National Speedway) and soon the track will be turned into Second Creek Homes or something.

Meanwhile the environmentalists are complaining about how all these developments keep popping up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Kentucky blue grass, acres of pavement and dislocation of local wildlife all have us hippies in a rage. Well, I say this obvious landscape pollution shouldn’t be allowed! …or at least not in my racetrack’s backyard.

[image from the Colorado Home Store web site.]

I think all sports fans probably feel that their favorite athletes deserves more pay (though I’m baffled by how fans of the “Big 4″ of football, hockey, baseball and basketball can possibly think anyone involved is *underpaid*). I’m also aware of the economics of the whole thing where the money available is directly related to the popularity of the sport. Despite all that I’m still appalled by how little motorcycle racers make relative to the risks they take. I just did some quick googling and found that most professional golf tournaments have purses *per event* in the range of $1 million. The 2005 Asia Golf Tour has a total prize over 14 rounds of $20 million. By comparison, last year the combined purse for all finishers in the AMA Superbike class at just one round was around $40,000. Now, its not that I have anything in particular against golf. I find it boring but then again I find a lot of things boring so that’s really not a big deal. But I can’t believe that someone can earn a $1 million bucks in one day for swinging little clubs at little balls while most professional roadracers are literally putting their lives on the line for a fraction of that per race.

Over the past few weeks I’ve done a couple of blog postings giving the health updates for the riders in the various roadrace series. Unfortunately, this past weekend has added new names to the list:

Topping the list is the popular Czech Team M4 Emgo Suzuki rider Vincent Haskovec. Vincent was seriously injured in an accident at Infineon Raceway when he crashed his Formula Xtreme bike. He was slammed into trackside tire wall and was then hit by his Suzuki as it cartwheeled into the barrier behind him. Initial reports show a broken collarbone, broken ribs, punctured lungs and an ominously vague “back injury". There hasn’t been any updates on the Team Hammer web site despite surgery being performed on Monday. I’m trying not to be too grim but my fingers are certainly crossed for Vincent. Whatever the extent of the injuries my thoughts are with his team, friends and family.

Also on the injured list is Jason Pridmore who suffered a huge crash at Barber which very nearly killed him. He was highsided off his GSXR and came down flat on his stomach. The impact split open his spleen and started lots of internal bleeding. Thankfully, the injury was found but not before Jason lost a lot of blood. It was a welcome site to see Jason hobbling around the pits at Infineon and it would appear he is well on his way to full recovery. He will miss this weekend’s race at PPIR but should be back for Rd America in early June.

The French doctors got a chance to chat with MotoGP star Max Biaggi on Saturday after he got thrown off his RC211V. His hard landing resulted in bruising on his back and a knee injury. Max went on to race on Sunday and even netted an impressive fifth place finish but apparently the knee injury was bad enough that he skipped Monday’s test. Max started the year with a broken ankle and now has a bum knee. Not exactly how his dream year as a factory Honda GP star was supposed to work out.

Also visiting the hospital this past weekend, though thankfully for less severe injuries, were MotoGP riders Alex Barros and Shane Byrne. Barros had a painful visit to the LeMans gravel traps after loosing the back end of his Honda and getting slammed down on his back. He checked out of the doc shack with just a lot of bruising but the scene on TV of Barros lying in the gravel trap was a worrisome sight.

The other big name getting press for the wrong reason was KTM-Proton’s Shane Byrne who had a huge highside on the first lap of the MotoGP race at LeMans. The accident resulted in some cuts and bruises on Byrne’s back which, when combined with the scars on his hands after a scooter crash in Jerez, make him the Dr. Costa poster child of the ‘05 MotoGP paddock.

So its this grim news, week after week, that have me feeling that these guys just don’t make the money they should. Sure, there are big names that make decent salaries but other than the top few names in both the international MotoGP and national AMA series the bulk of motorcycle racers are getting a pittance for their effort. This is amplified when you take into account the relatively short time span of a professional roadracer’s career and the likelihood of injury during that time period. I just hope that AMA roadracing will eventually gain the popular following that it deserves and that if/when that happens, some of the money that will be generated makes it into the pockets of these gritty riders.

[image from the Team Hammer web site.]

Yet another week with more of the same when it came to the big race series…Rossi and Mladin showing why they are multi-time champions in their respective series. They are making it excruciatingly difficult for me to keep my blog interesting. I mean, how many times can I type the word “dominating” before people start wondering if they are reading a new post or an old one? Anyway, on to my re-caps:

First, the AMA series. Mat Mladin put on another commanding performance and won both rounds of the doubleheader at Infineon Raceway in California. In fact, his biggest challenge appeared to be trying to win a race with at least a 15 second margin of victory. Talk about confidence! In both races, Mladin started out fast, pulling a comfortable lead as soon as the green light was lit. The first race was started twice because an accident in the opening two laps resulted in a complete re-start so we got to watch him take off two different times. At the first attempt to run the race Mat took of with such amazing…dare I say?…dominance that he pulled a five second gap on the first lap. Wow. No one came close in either the second start of race one or in race two. In fact no one could even see Mladin on the track in front of them in either race. Behind the #1 Suzuki, the race was a little more interesting, especially in race two. The front runners in the first race were all strung out with Yates and Hodgson filling out the podium but never really dicing. In the second race, the two Suzuki teammates of Yates and Spies duked out it out to the finish with Yates getting the nod for second over the young Texan. Behind the all-Suzuki podium finishers, the real surprise was Jake Zemke storming through for fourth ahead of Hodsgon. What made this particularly exciting was that both factory Hondas had to pit in race one with tire problems so neither were expected to make such a huge improvement in 24 hours. Maybe the Hondas are starting to see some measurable results from their development work. It may yet be possible that we could see Zemke and Duhamel fighting for podiums during the rest of the Superbike season. With Mladin firmly back in control of the championship, we’ll have to find excitement whereever we can.

Perhaps the best televised race all weekend was the AMA Supersport race. It shows why Supersport racing should be more popular than the Superbikes. While Mladin was squashing his opponents like play things, the three front runners in Supersport were crawling all over one another and riding like they were the premier class. In fact, the top Supersport bikes would have qualified in the top 10 on the “premier” Superbike grid! Maybe Kawasaki should consider running their 600 in other classes like they did in the old 750 Superstock? In the Infineon Supersport fight Tommy Hayden, Jason Disalvo and Jamie Hacking couldn’t have been any closer for the entire race and all three put their bikes through the wringer. Head shakes, tank slappers, rear tire slides, stoppies and wheelies were the norm from start to finish. In the end, Tommy barely held ‘em off for the win with Disalvo taking second. This gives Tommy the points lead again over Hacking.

In MotoGP, it was Rossi again putting on a spirit crushing defeat to his main Honda rivals. This was particularly harsh for Gibernau who actually looked like he could win the thing. Despite the predictable result, the race started out interestingly enough. Rossi, Gibernau and Biaggi all got lousy starts and it was actually Colin Edwards, Nicky Hayden and Loris Capirossi who led in the early stages. Eventually the usual suspects made their way forward with Edwards leading Rossi for much of the race. As the laps wound down, Sete started charging forward on the Honda and actually gained time to the tune of half a second a lap on the two Yamaha riders. Meanwhile, Honda mounted Hayden found a reverse gear on the RC211V and went backwards. With the Spainard charging forward, Rossi made a move on his American teammate and started to pull away. Gibernau also got passed the Yamaha of Edwards and closed up to the back tire of the Italian. Despite consistent pressure, including fastest laps by both Rossi and Gibernau on the final lap, the highly anticipated pass never came. Rossi won again, adding more points to his championship lead, with Gibernau and Edwards finishing out the podium.

My cheers and jeers for the weekend:

Once again, a hearty thumbs up to Neil Hodgson for learning a very difficult, very technical circuit fast enough to get a podium in one of the two races. There are AMA series regulars that have been to Infineon for many years and are still struggling to learn the place.

The Ironman award goes to Ben Spies for racing another weekend with a fractured tailbone and carding forth and third place finishes in the two races. While he lost the series point lead at Infineon, he did what he could to keep his championship hopes alive.

My perennial favorite Tommy Hayden gets a “If only there were justice in the world” shout-out by again showed his maturity in stepping up to win a tough race and re-take the championship lead. Once again, Kawasaki should be bitch slapped for not having this guy on a Superbike.

A “Raise your hand if you’re surprised” prize goes out to Kurtis Roberts who didn’t make the second race at Infineon after a horrible finish on Saturday. The reason was because of a crash but given his attitude about riding and developing the Erion CBR it shouldn’t have shocked anyone to see the #80 missing from the grid.

The Oh-my-f’ing-god award goes to Rossi for again showing how amazing he really is. He got a lousy start, passed everyone like they were putzing around in practice and won despite huge pressure from Gibernau…Wow.

Consolation prize goes to Edwards for finally netting the kind of result at LeMans everyone was expecting in the first three races this season. If the Texas Tornado really wants to send the “up yours” message to his detractors, as he said in the press conference, then he needs to do this every weekend.

A reluctant jeer goes out to Nicky Hayden for turning what looked like a turn around ride into another let down. I don’t doubt the guys ability but this may be his last year to break through. The difference between MotoGP stardom and being an also-ran is getting the bike setup quickly, consistently running fast laps and then having the skill to ride around problems if/when they occur. He is tantalizingly close but its hard for a fan to keep the faith.

Another sigh of disappointment to the KTM-Proton team. Their first race on the new KTM motor didn’t last more than one lap before Byrne crashed his way to the hospital. They’ve gotta get some track time if they are ever going to move forward with their program and with only one rider, especially one who is regularly visiting Dr. Costa, it isn’t going to happen.

The final raspberry goes out to the MotoGP experts who predicted that LeMans would be a Honda track. Two Yamahas on the podium and a third win for Rossi shows that every track may now be a Yamaha track, or at the very least, a Rossi track.

[image from the SpeedTV web site.]

This weekend is another busy one as three different series offer up some viewing entertainment: MotoGP, AMA and MRA.

First off, the local MRA will be racing down at Pikes Peak International Raceway. While I’m not a fan of the track this weekend it does have two things going for it: 1) It is a chance for our local roadracers to get some track time at PPIR which can help them be more competitive next weekend with the AMA show comes to town and 2) since its does offer pre-AMA track time, some of the fast privateers who regularly race the national series may show up so they can get a leg up as well. As a result, this weekend’s MRA race should offer up some good racing and maybe give a sneak preview about what will happen among the non-factory boys on May 22nd.

The second event of the weekend will be the AMA double header at Infineon Raceway in California. All the press releases will be asking the question “Can anyone stop Mat Mladin?” but I’m a bit more cynical. I’m asking “How badly will Mat Mladin beat the rest of the field at this race?". Mat has won three of the last four races at the Sonoma track. The other race was won by Miguel Duhamel. Given the problems the Hondas are having with their in-house development, I doubt Duhamel will be able to to repeat his victory from last season. The best chance for a challenge to Mladin will likely again be from his teammates. Yates as always run well at Infineon and Spies, the current Superbike points leader, has been a contender at most of the races this season. Infineon is a very technical track which means Hodgson will have to learn it quickly to have any chance of stepping up against the Suzukis. If its gonna happen for Neil, expect it to be in race two. EBoz seems to be coming around but I don’t think he’ll make a big enough leap to win this weekend on the Duc. The support classes are gonna be interesting as well. Supersport is a neck-n-neck battle between Jamie Hacking and Tommy Hayden. Can either stamp their authority on the series? Superstock has been a great battle manufacturers, a welcome change give the classes Suzuki dominance in the past. The top ten are separated by only ten points and includes two Yamahas, two Suzukis and a Kawasaki. Yamaha are coming on strong as the season develops can the others follow? Finally, only one point separates Zemke and Duhamel in the Honda Xtreme…oh, sorry…Formula Xtreme class. Can the factory supported teams keep up? Does anyone care? Should make for five exciting races over the course of the weekend.

The weekend’s menage a trois will be capped off when the MotoGP bikes take to the track at Le Mans for the French GP. This race is guaranteed to be interesting because the Honda versus Yamaha duel is heating up. Rossi has won two of the three GPs but the Hondas of Gibernau, Melandri and Barros have consistently run with him. Le Mans, at least on paper, is a Honda track. Lots of slow turns and lots of acceleration between corners. Then again, China looked like a Honda track but with torrential rain it became a Yamaha track. With the forecast calling for rain in France, the same may be true at Le Mans. If it does rain, expect a lot of unexpected riders to move to the front: Both Roberts and Hopkins are rain riders. Jacque nearly won China in the wet and being French would love to do the same this weekend. Barros seems to run well in the wet. Tamada’s replacement van der Goorbergh finished a fantastic sixth in the Shanghai rain and has nothing to loose in his last ride on the Minolta bike. Also worth watching: the KTM/Proton is back this weekend with a new motor, so lets see if they can finally move forward with their program. Nakano was running well at China before being sidelined with a mechanical. Can he bounce back to another top five finish like at Jerez? Melandri has been the second most consistent rider this season (3rd, 4th and 2nd) behind Rossi. He leads both Gibernau, Biaggi and Barros in the points and has become an unexpected challenger to Rossi. Can he step up and beat his friend Vale? Both Gibernau and Biaggi see themselves as Honda’s lead riders so better put in a good showing if they want to keep the R&D focus from shifting to Melandri.

There are a lot of questions for both AMA and MotoGP fans after just a few races in each series. Lets see if this weekend’s races offers any answers or just more question marks.

[image from the Gresini Racing web site.]

One thing I’ve been meaning to add to the web site is a section where I can give companies a thumbs up or a thumbs down for their customer support. I regularly see sites that review products but rarely do I hear a mention of people’s experience with a company, unless its a write up bitching about something breaking. Personally, I understand that things sometime break and what I care about is how the manufacturer deals with that more than I am about outright device reliability.

I’ve posted before on here that I’ve done some bone-headed things…Pretty much all of my “Box of Shame” postings are evidence of this. Despite the fact that they often reflect negatively on both my intelligence and skills, I post them in the hopes that others can learn from them and avoid some of those same mistakes. Well, this new series of articles will hopefully have a similar affect by giving readers recommendations of some companies that, at least at the time of the article, offer the kind of product and customer support that deserves mention. As an aside, many of these articles are necessary because I did something stupid and had to call for support in the first place. Even if the company information isn’t useful you will hopefully get some sort of sadistic pleasure in reading about my misfortune.

The Motorcycle Safety Foundation is a wonderful organization. They teach a lot of crucial information about safety and they help new riders become old riders. Among the nuggets of knowledge they pass along in their courses is the following “Always put your helmet on the ground or else gravity will put it here for you”. Wise words that. Still, despite having taken at least four different MSF courses, I still have the bad habit of leaving my helmet on top of my motorcycle when I park it in the garage at night. Well, this week I walked out to find that gravity had indeed done its work and my helmet was lying on the garage floor. I happened to have a HJC Chatterbox FRS-X2 on my Shoei at the time so that I could listen to MP3s while I rode. The weight of the batteries apparently helped make sure that the Chatterbox hit the floor first when the helmet took its dive. (Why scratch up a five year, beat-up helmet when you can crack a new $150 radio unit instead?). The result is that the removable panel which houses the batteries ad the latching tabs break off.

Realizing the only fix was to call HJC and humbly admit by idiocy, I picked up the phone and called the customer service number listed on their web site. A chipper fellow answered (why do I always get the cheerful guy when I call to tell someone I made a stupid mistake and broke their product?) and I hesitantly asked if they offered replacement battery compartment panels and how much it would cost me. Imagine my surprise then when, instead of greedily rubbing his palms and dreaming of record quarterly profits, he said “No problem, I’ll send you one for free”. Huh? Excuse me? I must have misunderstood. Did you say free? Yup, he popped it in the mail that afternoon. While I had him on the phone I asked him some questions about a problem I was having with my wife’s Chatterbox (the older model FRS-X2 won’t work with the new noise reducing headset but the newer model works fine with the old headset).

That’s my kind of company. Now I’m sure if everyone on the internet started calling wanting free parts they would have to stop this practice but I’m not worried about having so many blog readers that their phones will be ringing off the hook. What I do hope to accomplish is to show that there are companies out there that go the extra mile to make their customers happy and HJC is one of them. I’m willing to buy my future Chatterbox accessories, like the noise reducing headset I need, directly from them rather than trying to score a cheaper deal off ebay. I want to give my money to companies that care about their product *after* the sale.

As for the Chatterbox unit itself, I still have mixed feelings. The unit works pretty well as an intercom but I found you have to be very careful with the cable to the passenger’s helmet. If it flaps about in the wind, it will break something inside the connector. We went through two before finding a secure way to mount it. It is also very important that the helmets have some sort of guard around the chin area or you get so much wind noise that the voice activated mic is constantly on. Once I get the correct headset in my wife’s helmet, we’ll try the bike-to-bike radio functionality. My only other complaint is that there isn’t an easy way to use just the speakers. I’d like to attach a MP3 player to the speakers but the only way to do that is to mount the FRS unit and use the audio-in jack on the Chatterbox. If I could just wire up an adaptor that would go from an RCA jack on the mp3 player to the funky HJC mini-DIN jack I could use the speakers without requiring the FRS-X2. Those issues aside, the FRS-X2 seems to be a well made and reliable unit…just don’t leave it sitting around on top of your bike or you’ll learn a lesson you should have learned in the MSF course!

[image from the Kneedraggers.com web site.]

With the AMA Superbike season one third of the way over a few things have become pretty clear. One of those is that American Honda’s decision to build their own Superbikes has proved to be quite a challenge to the two factory riders and to the Erion factory supported team. While Duhamel and Zemke have made some brave runs on poorly handling bikes, they are inevitably racing for the honor of not being the last factory bike rather than having a chance at challenging the incredible factory Suzukis. Another thing that has become clear is that the pressure of being on an uncompetitive bike is again bringing out the worst in Kurtis Roberts.

The situation in Formula Xtreme is less clear. Honda CBR600RRs have dominated in that class but have also done so with no other full factory bikes on the grid as competition. The question can’t yet be answered of whether Honda’s AMA Superbike woes are because they lack the time to test the full variety parts available or whether they don’t have the R&D resources to compete with an established factory supported teams like Yoshimura or directly with factories like Ducati. Until some other factories enter Formula Xtreme, we won’t really be able to tell. What is clear is that the CBR1000 has sufficient power since their top speed has been on par with the other bikes. That means the problems they face are with the components like clutches, suspension and brakes. Clearly these are not combined into as complete as package that what is found on the GSXR and 999.

But where we can draw some comparisons are with the riders. While it seems unlikely that Roberts will be challenging Mladin on the track, he is giving the five time AMA Superbike champ a run for his money in the arena of bitching every weekend. As I’ve mentioned in a previous blog posting anytime there is a TV camera or journalist near by you can be sure Mladin can find something to complain about. Well, now it appears to be Roberts turn as he’s been pretty vocal after the past few AMA Superbike races about the state of his Erion Racing CBR1000RR. He even issued a veiled threat that he would quite riding the bike if results don’t improve…and the results thus far definitely haven’t been good: 9th at Daytona, a second in his one-off ride in the Daytona 200, back-to-back DNFs at Barber, a 12th and a DNF at Fontana. Ouch!

Now I’m not an insensitive type. I understand that a talented racer will always want to win. If the rider isn’t winning, especially if its because of inferior equipment, they will eventually start to complain. But given the fact that Kurtis spent last year venting about his father’s Proton bike it is getting pretty old to hear him griping about the Erion bike.

In the grand scheme of things, Honda made a big business decision last year. Roberts knew it was in the works when he signed with Erion. The two factory riders, both of whom are also struggling for results, have buckled down to the hard task of developing the CBR into a Superbike. Kurtis is getting a big fat paycheck and is certainly expected to do the same. If he can’t get his head around this task, stop bitching about the bike and start providing some meaningful effort then he’ll burn a very big bridge with both Erion and Honda. It would be a shame for the youngest son of King Kenny to talk his way out of a factory supported ride. This would be doubly tragic if it ultimately keeps him from ever having a shot at a Honda MotoGP ride, since Honda’s seven GP riders make up one third of the entire grid. Pissing off Big Red means he’d have just shot 33% of his chance of returning to the world’s premier series.

Mladin gets away with all his whining and griping because he has been on a great bike, with a great team and has put in great rides to bring home the goods for Suzuki. Until Roberts can do the same, he needs to zip it and use his considerable talent to help Honda build a bike that could be competitive in the future. If he can turn the CBR into a bike capable of carrying the number 1 plate then he’ll have a blank check for complaining about the bike, the riders, the tracks, the race organizers, the press and whatever else ticks him off each weekend.

[image from the Thousand Oaks Honda web site.]

My grandfather was a soldier in the US 3rd Army during World War II. For years he has had nightmares from a moment during the war when a German grenade landed in a fox hole with him. Regularly wakes up remembering that moment of terror that came with knowing it was about to blow up while he scrambled to escape. Well, while the severity of the situation is completely different, I think that Attack Kawasaki’s Josh Hayes may be having a bit of that stomach wrenching and cold sweets each morning before he shows up at the AMA races these days.

Josh is a fantastic rider, in my opinion he is probably the most underrated rider in the 2005 AMA paddock, and he seems to be a genuinely good guy. His performance last season aboard the then-new ZX-10R with the barely factory supported Attack Kawasaki squad was amazing and he finished the season in eighth place as the leading privateer. He made waves at some of the races by leading practice sessions and out qualifying factory bikes at some events including an amazing practice session at horsepower hungry Brainerd. This season it looked he would have a chance to improve on that by getting more factory support for the Richard Stamboli run team, along with the advances that can be made to a bike in its second model year of being raced.

Unfortunately, this season Josh has been sitting on top of a grenade at every race. His start to the season in the AMA Superbike race at Daytona was short indeed as his ZX-10R went bang on the first lap. Disappointing to say the least since the likable rider from Mississippi ran some credible times in practice and qualifying. Even his one-off ride in the Daytona 200 on a Attack ZX-6RR started off with a front row qualifying position but ended just a few laps later with a smoking motor. Just to show this wasn’t a one off occurrence, the Superbike spec Kawasaki has since retired at both Barber and Fontana. Even Hayes’ teammate hasn’t been immune to this explosive trend as his Daytona 200 ended on lap one due to a mechanical failure.

Clearly, the team has gone one step too far in their effort to get competitive power out of their Superbike and Formula Xtreme bikes. The only reason that Attack Performance goes racing is for the marketing for their performance parts. Their current results aren’t going to be doing much to drive customers to their sales counter, so I’m sure they’ll be working overtime to turn this thing around.

As I’ve said in other blog postings, I’m a sucker for the underdog, especially when the underdog is such a genuinely nice guy. I’d like nothing more than to see some of the AMA Superbike egos get popped by Josh and his non-factory Kawasaki. Unfortunately, they’ll have to make the ZX-10R less of a time bomb before that is going to happen. In the meantime, Josh will have to dig in a little deeper in his fox hole and try to keep that acid in the pit of his stomach under control with a little Pepto.

[image from the Attack Performance web site.]

This past weekend’s race at Monza, Italy lived up to the track’s history of great racing and surprise finishes, especially in Sunday’s second Superbike race. As always, racing in Italy brought that special something to the Italian bikes and the Italian riders.

Race one started out looking like more of the same with the two Corona Suzuki teammates of Troy Corser and Yukio Kagayama immediately running one-two. But rather than scampering away from the pursuing pack as they’ve done at every other race this year the Ducatis of Regis Laconi and James Toseland started closing in on the leaders starting at the mid-point of the race. As the laps wound down, the two booming Ducs were mixing it up with Yukio and looking like a real threat to win the race over Troy. It was on the last lap, with Kagayama’s tires begging for mercy, that Corser managed to pull a few bike links out and cement his chances for a fifth straight win. Kagayama’s toasted tires actually allowed him to finish second, not because they were hooking up but because they were so badly wasted that at the middle portion of the wicked fast Curva Parabollica the tire just refused to find traction and instead spun up. This sudden slowing in mid-corner meant that Toseland, who was parked on the Suzuki’s rear fender anticipating a draft pass, suddenly had to back out of the throttle to avoid an accident. When they both got back on the gas the Suzuki’s wicked motor gave Kagayama the edge in the drag race to the finish. Toseland got third with his teammate Laconi just missing the podium in forth.

With Suzuki again one-two in the first race, the second race results surely seemed like a forgone conclusion before it even got started. Well, the old Italian magic seemed to be growing back in the garage, because both Ducati riders came out swingin’ in race two. The race was slightly delayed when Chili’s bike was found leaking (Perennial good sportsman Giovanni Bussei pointing out the leak and saving Chili from an unpleasant incident) Once Chili’s bike was repaired the green flag flew and for the first time this season there was something other than a Corona Suzuki out front and, amazingly enough, it stayed that way for the entire race. Both Corser and Kagayama ran inside the top five for most of the race but it was two other sets of teammates that grabbed most of the attention: The Xerox Ducati pair of Toseland and Laconi and the two Winston Ten Kate Honda riders of Chris Vermeulen and Karl Muggeridge. All six bikes were sliding after just a few laps, again proving that the tires equalize the racing but also hold many of the riders back. The scenes of all six riders sliding through Curva Parabollica and Lesmo were spectacular, if only the TV cameras had been focused there more often especially late in the race where the bikes were smoking up the rear tires the entire way through both corners. With just a few laps to go, Kagayama blew the entrance to Lesmo and torpedoed his Suzuki into the gravel trap. That accident slowed Toseland up just enough that he lost the tow of the third place battle between Corser and Muggeridge. Up front, it was Laconi leading but with Vermeulen clearly anxious to make the pass. His chance came at the start of the final lap where he put a slick move on the Duc at the Variante della Roggia chicane to take the lead. The Australian immediately pulled out a few bike lengths over the Frenchmen so clearly the Honda rider had a little something in reserve, whether it was tires, power or just adreneline I don’t know. Going into Parabollica for the final time Corser got the Suzuki up the inside of Vermeulen’s teammate Muggeridge to claimed the final spot on the podium. Toseland finished in fifth.

In the end, Corser managed to grow his points lead over Kagayama, so it was more of the same in that respect but it was fantastic to see a resurgence from both the Honda and Ducati riders. Hopefully they can carry this momentum into the next round at Silverstone and finally put some pressure on the two Suzukis.

In other news, Frankie Chili managed two seventh place finishes at Monza despite still racing with the broken collarbone. While Frankie isn’t racing for race wins this year, like he has in years past, it is still great to see the Italian maestro putting in such amazing results aboard a privateer bike. Seeing what fellow racing elder Corser is accomplishing this year has to make you wonder what 40 year old Frankie could have accomplished the past three years had he been aboard a full factory bike.

Also of note this past weekend was the performance of Gianluca Nanelli who was standing in for the injured Lanzi on the privateer SC Caracchi Ducati. After the first day’s qualifying, Nanelli was *forth* on the grid ahead of both factory Ducatis, this despite the fact that he was racing in both Superbike and Supersport classes at Monza. By the time final qualifying and Superpole were finished he was down in 12th but then came back with noteworthy rides in both races to finish 9th and 10th, respectively. His second race finish of 10th is particularly special since he started the race dead last from pit lane due to a bike problem on the warm-up lap. While other riders were futzing around racing for 20th Nanelli carved through them all and worked his way into the top ten. Excellant!

So that Italian spirit worked its magic in the second race to shake things up a bit. For whatever reason, when racing comes to Italy the Italians always step up a little bit more than usual. Gold stars this week should be awarded to the Xerox Ducati team for finally getting back into the championship, to Corser for continuing to do what he needs to do to win the championship, to Vermeulen for getting his first win of the season, to Chili for showing true grit in soldiering on despite injury and to Nanelli for showing that a passionate and skilled rider can move to the front no matter how bad the odds are stacked against him.

Bella!

[image from the Ducati web site.]

For the past few weeks I’ve used my blog space on Fridays to preview the upcoming weekend’s races. This usually means I talk about the riders and their chances of success in the race. However, this time I’d like to focus on the circuit where the races will take place rather than the riders involved and that circuit is the amazing Autodromo Nazionale di Monza in Italy.

The Monza track is one of the classic European road race tracks, if not *the* classic track. It was built in the early 1920s and was one of the premier venues for car racing for two decades in the fabulous “between the wars” years when so many amazing factories and so many amazing racers pushed the borders of insanity on the steeply banked track. In addition to cars, motorcycles have raced on the historic track since the early days and for the past fourteen years it has hosted the World Superbike series.

Another fascinating aspect of Monza is that the motorsports complex is located in the middle of the city of Monza. I don’t mean near the city, like so many tracks in America, but *in* the city. In fact, the park that contains the famous track is just a few blocks from the city center. People who have visited the track always come back amazed at how revered the place is. With Italian’s passion for racing, Monza is treated as hallowed ground and the Italian crowds that come to watch racing at Monza are among the most passionate of anywhere in the world.

The fourteen years of Superbike racing, along with the tracks pedigree and fanatical crowed, give this weekend’s WSBK races a historic and emotional flair that no other track on the calendar can match. In addition to the track’s monumental past, it has been the fastest track on the WSBK calendar since Hockenheim was dropped from the schedule in 2001. The track layout has both long straights and high speed sweeping curves but the icing on the cake is that it contains two of the most amazing turns on any track that hosts the World Superbike series: the Varieante Ascari chicane and the Curva Parabolica. Both curves are entered at incredibly high speed and both are stunning places to watch racing motorcycles do their magic. The Parabolica, in particular, is a highlight for spectators because the powerful superbikes are going so fast through the sweeping right-hander that their rear tires are spinning the entire way around the turn and onto the finish straight as they try to accelerate while fighting all the air resistance at such high speeds.

When riders come to Monza, they bring lots of horsepower with them. Historically, Ducati, Honda and Kawasaki have done best here thanks to all three companies building superbikes with prodigious amounts of top end speed. It is rumored that Honda would even build special “Monza motors” to make sure their superbikes would perform well there. The long straights allow for drafting so races often come down to who can get the best drive out of the Curva Parabolica and many famous races have been won or lost there.

My personal favorite was the 1998 World Superbike event and it was just such a race. The most famous incident from that weekend was Akira Yanagawa’s fiery crash at the Ascari chicane during race one where his bike went flipping into the gravel trap and then exploded in an incredible fireball that was caught on TV. But the real reason that weekend was special was the battle between Castrol Honda teammates Colin Edwards and Aaron Slight. Colin was considered the “B” rider within the team and Aaron Slight was considered to be the one contending for the title. (Not an unreasonable assumption, given that the likable Kiwi had finished in the top three for five straight years, while Edwards had finished 12th the previous season). That weekend at Monza was the break through race for the tall Texan. He raced a tough race, constantly pressured by Slight, but hung on to win race one. Race two developed as a classic drafting battle between the two Castrol RC-45s with the riders swapping positions regularly on each lap. Then, just as fast as the battle reached its crescendo, it ended in dramatic fashion as Slight’s motor let go on the fast front straight leaving the bike trailing a long trail of smoke at triple digit speeds while he fought to get the bike stopped. The end result was a second win for Edwards and his first sweep of a WSBK weekend. The weekend may well have been a turning point for both riders. Edwards ascended to become one of the greats of World Superbike. Meanwhile that DNF cost Slight the 1998 championship as Fogarty beat him to the title by 5 points. That second place during race two at Monza would have given him 20. This was the last year Slight finished in the top three of the series and he only raced for two more years before being forced to retire due to a burst blood vessel in his brain.

Its hard to believe that race was seven years ago as I remember it like it was last season. Whether this weekend’s race will be another of those classic races remains to be seen but it may well be another battle between two teammates on incredibly fast motorcycles. I’m certainly looking forward to finding out!

[image from the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza web site.]

Just a quick follow-up to a post I made in February about Mike Larocco. For the first fourteen rounds of this sixteen round Supercross season, Mike Larocco has been stunning. He’s only been out of the top five four times. He’s been on the podium four times, had three straight fifth place finishes and, other than the second race of the season, has been in the top ten every race. Coming into the penultimate round he was forth in points behind Carmichael, Reed and Windham. He’s just flat sticking it to the young guys which is freakin’ awesome!

Sadly, this amazing streak ended last weekend in Houston when Larocco had a bad crash during his heat race, the crash happening when Larocco came up short on a triple. He got bounced off in the landing and slammed into the face of the following jump. The impact resulted in a bad concussion and a injury to his shoulder. Perhaps the most lingering affect will be his falling down one spot in the championship battle, with his final ranking likely to a fifth behind Vuillemin. Still, he will almost certainly finish the season ahead of factory riders like Ferry, Tortelli, Fonseca, Voss, Byrne, Pastrana and probably even the super star of Bubba Stewart.

I’m sure Larocco is disappointed with his season because racers race to win not come in fifth. Being the best of the rest, given that the top four of Carmichael, Reed, Windham and Stewart have dominated most of the races, won’t be consolation to someone with the racer’s drive to succeed, no matter what their age or how good their equipment. But I hope that Larocco can have some sense of perspective and see just how good his performance this season has been. I suspect all the factories will continue to look for fresh, young blood for their factory bikes in the hopes of signing the next Ricky, Bubba or Chad. Hopefully Honda will continue to see the value in having an incredibly fast veteran like The Rock out there to show the younger riders the ropes and also to keep the team managers casting a critical eye at the performance of their young rookies. The young kids have to know they better be able to beat the old guy, if they ever hope to beat the other talented young bucks they’ll race against the rest of their careers.

Best of luck to Mike Larocco in his healing and a hearty “Well done” shout out for his performance in 2005.

[image from the AMSOIL web site.]

There are people all around me that spend their entire lives fighting horrible addictions, some more successfully than others. I know people who are addicted to drugs, others who are addicted to alcohol, many who are addicted to cigarettes, others addicted to sweets. It could even be argued that many of my friends, myself included, are addicted to motorcycles. I’ve known people brave enough to fend off one addiction and then fall hopelessly into another. I even know people right now that are so addicted to healthy things, like exercise and dieting, that it becomes unhealthy. Addiction is truly a complex and dangerous thing.

Well, no matter how much I’m obsessed by motorcycles, my true addition is to motorcycle racing. My wife recently saw a trailer for the movie Fever Pitch, a movie in which a woman’s fiancee is addicted to the Boston Red Sox baseball team, and immediately said “Hey, that’s like you and motorcycle racing". Uh oh, the first sign you have a problem is when other people are pointing it out…Should I be on the lookout for an intervention soon?

Well, the strongest sign that I’m addicted to motorcycle racing is to look at the massive pile of video tapes I have stacked up in my living room. This pile of approximately 120 eight hour VCR tapes contains every motorcycle race shown on SpeedTV (and many shown on OLN and ESPN2) over the past five years. The fact that I have that many video tapes is staggering to most people. Then I drop the real bomb on them…these only represent the unlabeled tapes (Getting married gave me enough of a life that I couldn’t keep up with both recording, watching and labelling the tapes each week). There is a Rubbermaid storage box in the basement with around another 100 tapes which are already labelled.

“Really", my friends ask, “do you ever intend to go back and watch any of these tapes?". Well, I can only answer with a definite…uhhh…maybe. While I realistically know that the chances of me actually digging out a tape from 1997 to rewatch a Grand Prix race and see Doohan give the smackdown to Criville and Okada is slim its just the fact that I *could* that makes me hang onto them. And how can I possible destroy a tape that may have some spectacular race on it like the famous Eric Bostrom, Jamie Hacking and Kurtis Roberts incident from Willow Springs in 2000 or the brilliant Colin Edwards/Troy Bayliss WSBK Imola race in 2002?

I have decided to take one bold step. No, I’m not getting rid of the tapes but I am starting to go through the five year backlog and label them. I work in the television industry, so I have a TV at my desk. Last week I bought a cheapo VCR and hooked it up. Now I bring one unlabeled tape in to work each day, throw it in the tape player and write down the contents as they play during the day. Then I label the tape, bring it home and put it in the storage box. Slowly but surely I’ll reduce the size of the stack in the living room so its no longer an eye sore.

In the big picture, I try to explain it to my wife this way…there are people out there whose spouses are addicted to crack. Me? My addiction costs around $1.50 per tape and the worst thing it can do to our marriage is take up storage space in the basement. Beyond that, its just an irrational thing like chewing finger nails or eating bon-bons until you throw up. Besides, I can quit any time I want…

[image from my photo collection.]

This past weekend brought about two big firsts, one for a series rookie and another for a series wildcard. Bravo to both for their successes. The other news was the exact opposite by being more of what followers of the series have come to expect.

First, the inaugural MotoGP race at the new Shanghai Circuit in China. The weather made things interesting by raining most of the weekend meaning that riders got their first shot at comparing the rain tires from Michelin and Bridgestone. In practice and qualifying, Valentino Rossi seemed to show and unexpected weakness in his armor, generally being mid-pack. The Hondas and Ducatis, presumably taking advantage of their power down the long straight, rose to the top. But some race time, things were different. The first surprise was the two Suzukis which both took turns leading the sodden race. After a few laps, however, things returned to normal as Rossi worked his way to the front and steadily pulled out a seven second gap. Behind him, the Honda teammates of Gibernau and Melandri seemed to settle into the final rostrum spots. But two riders soon started to charge forward…Kawasaki wild card Olivier Jacque (replacing Hoffman) and Honda wild card Jurgen van den Goorbergh (replacing Tamada). Since neither rider is racing the entire series, both were able to take risks that the other riders may not have been willing to take. Olivier Jacque ended up turning the fastest laps of the race and actually passed the Gresini Honda riders and close down the gap to Rossi. In the end, Rossi could undoubtedly have turned up his pace if he’d really felt threatened by Jacque but the fact that the Frenchmen closed the gap down to almost 1 second by the checkers was amazing. Sete appeared to have bike problems and slipped behind Melandri. Other riders to have bike problems were Nakano and Roberts. Hopkins ran off the wet track but stayed up right. Checa threw the Ducati away and Bayliss followed suit with his Honda. van den Goorbergh came home a credible sixth for the Minolta team. The final order was Rossi, Jacque and Melandri. The second podium finish for Melandri was great but Jacque getting his first MotoGP podium ever was even more spectacular. Jacque raced the big four strokes for two years without getting on the podium so it was an emotional moment. With Jacque also filling in for Hoffman at the French GP in a week, this had to be a fantastic boost to his confidence and a nice way for Kawasaki to offset the disappointment of Hoffman’s injury and Nakano’s mechanical.

The AMA doubleheader at Fontana California was similar but the thing which shook things up there wasn’t the weather but a series of red flags. Mladin and this all conquering Suzuki again led all the practice and qualifying sessions, usually nearly a second clear of the rest of the field. The two Ducatis both seemed to “come good” with Bostrom and Hodgson qualifying well. The Hondas were all still mired back in the pack, showing they still have a lot of work to do. And so it was the three Suzukis leading the way again. In race one, Mladin checked out, leaving his two teammates and Hodgson to battle it out for the podium. Then the race was stopped with a red flag. On the restart there was another crash and thus another red flag. With the clutches on the Superbikes not ready to take a third round of 200hp abuse, the mechanics had to do some hasty clutch replacements before the next restart. On the third waving of the green flag, it was again Mladin who pulled away and again the Ducati/Suzuki battle resumed for the rest of the podium spots. But with a few laps to go, both Spies and Mladin appeared to have bike problems. Spies momentarily slowed but then picked up again. Mladin, on the other hand, appeared to have a severe clutch problem and eventually rolled to a stop. That DNF left Spies and Hodgson unexpectedly fighting for the win. Hodgson made a mistake in turn one on the last lap and gifted the lead to Spies. Yates also passed Hodgson, making for a Suzuki 1-2 finish. The Brit got things back under control to fill out the podium. This first Superbike win for Spies was a fantastic result. For anyone to win at this level, against the dominant Mladin, in only his forth Superbike race is simply excellant. I’m sure this is just one of the many which are still to come for the talented Texan. In addition to the win, Spies also moved into the series points lead, so it was a double whammy.

In the second race, Mladin went about setting things straight. He pulled out a commanding performance, taking off from the flag to win by a substantial margin. As I predicted, there was a Suzuki sweep in one of the races and it was race two as Spies and Yates came home two-three. The two Ducatis came home in forth and fifth but with Bostrom leading a flu stricken Hodgson home in race two. Duhamel crashed in the race and finished outside the points, dropping him down in the points chase. At the end of the weekend, Spies still leads the Superbike series by three points. Yates is nine points back from Spies with Hodgson three behind Yates. Mladin’s DNF has really closed up the points battle, mainly because of the consistency of the other three riders.

My big winners for the weekend? Jacque and Spies, both breaking into the big time with a podium for the Frenchman and a win for the Texan. Both rode hard races and are plenty deserving of getting to spray some champagne.

The 250GP, Superstock, Supersport and Formula Xtreme races weren’t televised on Sunday to I’ll try to report on those later.

[image from the Superbikeplanet web site.]

Normally, my Monday posting is a review of the weekend’s racing. Well, the weather threw a monkey wrench into things so the race review will have to wait until tomorrow.

As for the weather review, the story is pretty impressive. For the past few weeks we’ve had incredible spring weather. Warm temperatures, sunny days and the winter gravel had finally blow away revealing clean motorcycling roads. Then, starting last Thursday night, the snow flakes started falling again up in the mountains of Colorado. As the last of the frozen stuff fell this morning the measuring stick shows three foot of snow over the past four days.

This wasn’t the light fluffy stuff that usual graces the high altitudes but was a wet, heavy snow that bent trees and weighted down power lines. The all important electrons quit flowing to my house four times in five days. Ah, the joys of rural mountain living! The final tally was one dead APC UPS, three dead hard drives and two crashed servers. I spent the entire weekend installing drives from my spares pool, re-installing Solaris and restoring backup tapes. As of 4am Monday morning all the servers are back up, though one of them is still propped up with iffy parts and a computer geek’s prayer. I’ll finish that one up Tuesday night after I’m caught up on sleep.

Anyway, the power of the blog has returned. I’ll get the usual weekend race review posted tomorrow. Thanks for your patience with dorje.com’s ups and downs.

[image from my photo collection.]