The annual US MotoGP review post

Since 2001 I haven't missed Laguna Seca's July motorcycle race weekend, with four years of World Superbike followed by 4 years of MotoGP. The transition from WSBK to MotoGP in 2005 was a tough one. On the one hand we were totally excited to see those amazing bikes and to have the biggest bike racing series there is in town. On the other hand we were shocked at the mind-numbing price gouging both in Monterey and at the track. The massive crowds only added to the misery making getting in and out of the track difficult, as well as getting around once there. Nicky Hayden's debut win helped make up for much of the negatives but I couldn't shake the feeling that something had been lost

The following year promised much but delivered little. Hayden won again, but it was less exciting, whilst the brain-frying 110 degree heat, coupled with a disastrous shuttle bus system for people who came in cars made for what was basically a shitty day. We had even foregone the usual plan of going for two days and staying in Monterey, gunshy of the hotel prices.

In 2007 we skipped the shuttle bus drama by riding in, although it turned out that they'd figured out the buses by then. It was this year that it seemed like Laguna Seca had finally gotten the hang of things, and the only major disappointment was the race, which turned out to be rather tedious.

This year again promised a dull race set against a backdrop of a well-run and easy-to-attend event. Anyone who watched the race knows that we were wrong on the first assumption, and I'm happy to say we were right about the second one. For the fourth year in a row we chose a different transportation option, going with the expensive (but worth it) VIP car parking pass. Getting in and out of the track was a breeze, and we were able to offset the cost of the pass by bringing our own food and beer, which wouldn't have been possible if we'd ridden or parked offsite and taken the shuttle.

Attendance was slightly down this year. In 2005 all 54,000 tickets sold out. For '06 the total available fell to 48,000, once again sold out, a feat repeated in 2007. This year there were 1,000 tickets left on the table - not bad at all. It felt busy, but it felt nice (see pic of me enjoying a drink above turn two!) and I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed the day, so much so that I might consider returning to the two-day plan for 2009.

And what about that race? Valentino Rossi proved once again why he is the greatest rider of his generation and perhaps the greatest ever, and Casey Stoner showed an almost Gibernau-ish indignance after being beaten fair and square by the Italian. It was certainly popular with the crowd... check out this shot of their reaction as he crossed the finish line to take the win:

A racing companion

For most people (particularly men) who follow motorsport, it's a lonely pursuit. Unless they have equally enthusiastic friends who are into the sport, they're forced to find internet forums where they can have rewarding, meaningful discussions and engage in discourse about their hobby. I can imagine this could get frustrating.

Luckily for me, that's not the case. When I first met my partner K nine years ago, there was little indication that she had any interest in any sport, never mind motor racing. She didn't even have a TV, let alone cable and she'd never seen the Speedvision channel. A typical situation could have developed where one partner learns to tolerate the interests of another, but in this case something strange happened.

Straight off the bat, she developed a fondness for my cranky but lovable Alfa Romeo Milano. This was a good start. Then she began to come to races, beginning with a trip to the Wine Country Classic historic races at Sears Point. That weekend was brutally hot and could so easily have turned her off racing forever. It didn't, perhaps because historic racing presents such a friendly, low-key environment or maybe because she was able to witness first-hand my enthusiasm.

When I bought a motorcycle she was envious, having had a certain amount of experience in hanging out with the messenger biking crowd here in SF, as well as having learned to ride many years ago. It wasn't long before she was also on two wheels again. As my interest in motorcycles grew, so did my interest in motorcycle racing, so she was able to share in the process of learning about this new side of the sport.

It wasn't too hard a sell in 2002 when we went to Italy for three weeks to convince her that we needed a night in Milan (to ensure a visit to the Alfa Romeo museum the next day) and a night in Modena so we had time to visit Ferrari. She loved the Alfa facility (which felt more like a private collection) but was less excited about Ferrari, which was more of tourist trap.

Back in the US my interest in rallying began to increase, and before long I'd had a chance to go to the WRC event in Sweden which convinced me to learn how to co-drive. My first event saw K come along to work as a timing marshal. Despite the fact she stood on the side of a mountain in pouring rain for hours on end she continued to enjoy rallying. It was at this point that she revealed her mother had been a co-driver many years back. Aha! So it's in the genes! Now everything started to make sense....

Late in 2003 we both went to the WRC event in Wales. This was surely going to be the make-or-break moment. As we stood in freezing fog on the Rhondda stage on Sunday morning, with her favourite driver Carlos Sainz out of the rally two days prior, could she still muster excitement and enthusiasm? The answer came from behind a tightly-drawn hooded rain jacket... "yes!"

Pretty soon she was joining the annual pilgrimage to the July bike race at Laguna Seca, initially World Superbike, then MotoGP for the last four years, each year educating whichever newcomers had joined us that year.

It was only a matter of time before she came with me on the ultimate racing trip... a visit to the Le Mans 24 Hours. Sadly, the gods decided that since she was clearly able to cope with wet motorsport events, it would rain like the devil on Le Mans in 2007. Once again she kept her chin up, and was rewarded with a great time and apart from the first and last couple of hours, a dry race (and a dry pitwalk on the Friday, evidenced in the picture below). It was quite a step up from our annual Le Mans weekend barbecues back in San Francisco which she'd taken to leading the arrangement of.


She was even brave enough to come to see NASCAR this year. She got a very good look at Michael Waltrip:


So, where to next for my racing partner-in-crime? Well, after we take the plunge of actually becoming married, she can look forward to a little high-speed action herself, perhaps beginning with an autocross and then moving to some track days, now that we have a car worthy of such pursuits. If past experience is anything to go by, I should be ready to start buying tyres on a regular basis, as she proceeds to become equally excited by engaging in some on-track fun as I have been.

These guys are gods

Watching yesterday's MotoGP from Jerez in widescreen thanks to the BBC's great production values once again showed how unbelievably talented top-shelf motorcycle racers are. Some of them are even utterly cool dudes, to wit Colin Edwards. And Motorcycle Moment of the Year couldn't have gone to a nicer guy than the Texas Tornado himself. Check this craziness out:

Groundbreaking in motorcycle racing

It's worth noting two major shifts in motorcycle racing that are occurring this weekend:

1. MotoGP is running its first-ever night race, in Qatar on Sunday. After numerous tests, there was virtually unanimous agreement amongst riders, officials, press and spectators that it works very well. Formula 1 will stage its first night race later this year in Singapore, and no doubt everyone involved in that effort will be taking a close look at this Sunday's race.

One funny thing is how teams are tackling the unique challenges of running at night. Team members have struggled to identify their own bikes on track, so Kawasaki have placed an illuminated Japanese character on the front of their bikes. How's this for imagination: the character reads "front"!

2. The AMA has sold all of their Pro Racing properties to a consortium led by the boss of Grand-Am and Moto-ST, Roger Edmondsen, and boss of the Daytona Speedway, Jim France. Unlike Dorna and Flammini's deals with the FIM to lease commercial rights for MotoGP and World Superbike, this one has involved an actual sale. The only thing that is leased is the AMA name. I'm not sure whether this is the smartest move on the AMA's part, but it does indicate a strong motivation to be rid of Pro Racing once and for all. Now that it's in the hands of a proper commercial promoter, we can expect many changes to make the show more interesting and fan-oriented, although those changes will be brought in gradually throughout 2008 and over the off-season.

Quote of the day by Valentino Rossi

After a crash in which he fractured three bones in his right hand, Vale joked "So I'm okay, but I was better before the crash!"

That's why this guy is such a superstar....

Airbags for motorcycle leathers

Motorcyclists in the future will look back on today as a very notable date in the history of motorcycling. For the first time ever, a motorcyclist was saved from injuries thanks to the deployment of a suit-mounted airbag system.

The system has been developed by Italian leathers manufacturer Dainese and is called "D-Air". Currently in the prototyping stages, it was being used by Italian 125cc rider Marco Simoncelli, who crashed in practice for this weekend's MotoGP event at Valencia.

It works through a combination of accelerometers, gyroscopes, cold-gas cylinders and encoded GPS signals between bike and rider. Complicated onboard diagnostics systems prevent unwanted inflation.

Apparently we'll see this technology in street apparel in about three years, and hopefully it will prove to be successful in reducing the numbers of deaths and injuries amongst street riders. Something else to remember is that if Dainese have done it, you can sure other leathers manufacturers are hard at work on their own versions....

Live timing = more interesting

Shock horror: I watched an F1 race yesterday (Clive, you'd be so proud...)

Call me a fairweather F1 fan, you'd be right, but this race was rather important, and had the added bonus of not being at the bum-crack of dawn. When you watch live you can pull up the live timing and scoring from the Formula 1 website and I won't lie when I say that watching this was in some ways more interesting than watching the TV. I'm not trying to bash F1, but I say this to illustrate something that's critical for those involved in racing to realize:

Beyond the spectacle of cars or bikes moving fast, what draws people to racing is the competition, and a genre of racing that best highlights the competition is a genre that will be successful.

This is easy for some racing: World Superbike or British Touring Cars for example have constant action between leaders, and the battles are clear to see using nothing but TV as a communication medium. But in something like the American Le Mans Series, or even Formula 1, where large gaps open up between competitors, live timing and scoring can be a lifeline. As I watched the F1 race yesterday I was completely captivated by the scoring, letting out of whoops of joy every time a purple number showed up indicating a fastest sector time, or even seeing green numbers that showed a driver was putting in their personal best times. Such simple presentation made it much easier to follow how the race was unfolding, and instead of watching 90 minutes of cars that appeared to be one long unchanging train with large gaps, the subtleties of the drama became obvious.

Following the progress of young Lewis Hamilton as he clawed back from 18th place was much like what I'd been doing the day before, when I sat in the media centre at Laguna Seca watching the ALMS race. My focus was on the dramatic recovery of the Andretti-Green Acura which came from two laps down to just 30 seconds off the lead of the race in four hours. It was a picture best painted by timing and scoring, and the advantage of being in the media centre was that it was real-time, as opposed to the aggregated version that's online and is often delayed.

MotoGP timing is a model for many other racing series, especially in qualifying, where fast sector times are illustrated by coloured "helmets", and online users can check the progress of riders in real time, sector by sector.

Whatever the mechanism, any technology that more clearly communicates the competition is going to make for a more compelling product. It's an area I expect to see utilized ever more comprehensively. For any race series that wants to see the possibilities, NASCAR's system is perhaps the most highly developed, with GPS tracking in every car allowing for a computerized image to be presented, along with driver communications and timing that shows the progress of the driver in a plus or minus format over the current fastest time or leader. Fascinating stuff indeed, although perhaps edging into "information overload" territory. For now, Formula 1's simple yet effective system is for me the benchmark if for no other reason in that it made the race more enjoyable to watch. And that has to be the bottom line for any such system.

Dirty bikes

There's an interesting post over at Hardcard's blog. Although the underlying goal of the post is to attract clients for their motorsport consulting business, they make the very good point that motorcycles are really not as green as people give them credit for.

Compared to cars, bikes are generally lighter, have smaller engines and better fuel consumption. The world would be a better place if everyone who commuted solo in a car were to switch to motorcycles. But that doesn't mean they couldn't do better. As Hardcard point out, bikes don't have catalytic converters, and only those sold in California are required to have evaporative recirculation systems, to capture surplus vented unburned gasoline.

Motorcycle companies came very late to the fuel-injection party, and typically are much slower to incorporate new technologies. The reason for this is simple: on a bike, weight is everything, and the industry must wait for any innovations to be small enough to implement on a bike.

So although it seems as though the motorcycle industry "doesn't care", it's a fact of the product development cycle that makes motorcycles appear technologically backward.

Of course, MotoGP provides the perfect platform for the development of new motorcycle technology, outside of waiting for car development to miniaturize its innovations. Traction control from MotoGP has now finally made it to street bikes, with the new Kawasaki ZX10R, following other fun stuff such as radial brake cylinders and calipers, lightweight stubby exhaust pipes, mass-centralization and slipper clutches. So in order for green technologies to find their way into street bikes faster, I'd like to call for the FIM to look at ways of improving MotoGP's ecological profile. If a rule is written that mandates at least 10% of the energy utilized in braking be returned to the bike, or that bikes must run on ethanol or E85, or even that emissions be limited and measured, it would really hurry along positive environmentally-minded technology for street bikes.

We've opted for wet tyres

The pitlane and first corner at Misano are recovering from being under 3 feet of water. Check out these incredible photos at Superbike Planet, as well as this corker from Motorcycle News for the full story:


I've no doubt that Sunday's MotoGP race will proceed as planned but it does make all the bitching and moaning about Laguna Seca's disintegrating track surface during the 2006 MotoGP event seem a little, err, trivial...

Flip-flop Kwak

Maybe the weirdest post title ever...

Kawasaki have always painted their racebikes lime green. It didn't matter whether it was motocross, enduro, Grand Prix or Superbike, the colour was synonymous with Kawasaki.

This season in MotoGP they decided to switch to a classy-looking darker metallic green. I wasn't sold on it at the start of the year, having owned two Kawasakis myself and enjoyed the distinctive look of the lime green. However, when I saw the MotoGP bike in the flesh at Laguna Seca my mind was changed. The new more restrained forest green made the lime colour look boorish and over-the-top.

Sadly, pressure from Kwak fans worldwide has forced a change back to lime, effective this weekend. It goes to show how important heritage is the world of motorsport. Brand-loyalty is a holy grail for manufacturers (just look at the Ford / Holden rivalry in V8 Supercars in Australia - those fans are CRAZY!) Colours are an important part of the imagery and mystique that help maintain that loyalty. A drastic change of sponsor can undoubtedly do damage to hard work employed by numerous marketing flunkies at manufacturers. Remember when the Corvette team switched to a dark blue paint job for Le Mans in 2003? Or when the Yamaha World Superbike team ditched the traditional blue and white in favour of their sponsor's red and white scheme?

Anyway, take a look at the pictures below. What do you think is the best colour?

Here's the newer colour, on Randy de Puniet's crashed bike, leaning up against the marshalls' portapotty at Laguna this year:


And here's Shinya Nakano's bike from 2005:

Endurance racing, on two wheels

It's a crying shame that motorcycle endurance racing is not more popular. As one of the top three annual races comes around this weekend, the Suzuka 8 Hours, it once again pains me to see that so few people care, and those that do must suffer with very little coverage.

The FIM World Endurance Championship is the pinnacle of motorcycle endurance racing. This series boasts the Le Mans 24 Hours, the Bol d'Or and the Suzuka 8 Hours, along with six hour races at Qatar and Albacete and a 24 hour race at Oschersleben. It's a short run, with just six events, but entry lists are always large, featuring some very professional teams and a number of riders who have made a name for themselves in the top levels of bike racing.

What should make endurance racing appealing to fans is the fact that the bikes are more closely-related to street bikes than a typical superbike. They still have all the trick parts that one would expect to see on a superbike like quick shifters, switchable engine mappings, top-of-the-line suspension, custom swingarms, lightweight adjustable racing controls and hi-tech dash displays. What's cool though is that they have lights, and they have engines that are designed to last longer than two 45-minute sprint races. For a streetbike rider looking to have the most race-rep bike on the block, they should be looking at endurance bikes, not a typical superbike, for inspiration. The piercing light beam of an HID xenon endurance headlight is ten times more bling than MotoGP-style coloured pinstriping on wheels or powder-coated tyre valve caps.

One particular bit of endurance kit is actually even more exotic than its equivalent on a world superbike: the quick change systems. This allows wheels to be changed in a matter of seconds, and includes brake calipers that open up like the pincers of a crab to make room for the new wheel. These highly developed systems are ferociously expensive but critical to the success of top-running endurance racers.

The Suzuka 8 Hours is possibly the most important race on the calendar. It's here where the world championship meets up with the Japanese Superbike championship, itself a highly-competitive series. Bikes in the JSB are often fitted with parts that haven't yet made it to MotoGP, never mind the World Superbike Championship or other top domestic series like those in Britain and the USA. The Japanese manufacturers will use JSB teams to test new innovations, so it's no surprise to learn details such as how the Honda superbikes in JSB are far more developed than those in the AMA championship.

Since the 8 Hours is such an institution, the manufacturers take it very seriously, often bringing in special riders from around the world to run in it. In the past this has included Valentino Rossi, COlin Edwards, Daijiro Kato, Nori Haga, Alex Barros, Aaron Slight and Doug Polen. This year sees the arrival of James Toseland, Carlos Checa, Yukio Kagayama, Ryuichi Kiyonari, Steve Martin, Warwick Nowland, Norick Abe and Jamie Stauffer, to name just a few of the stars.

So it's got bling-laden bikes, some of the top names in racing and provides eight hours of entertainment. Why, then, does the Suzuka 8 Hours (and the FIM Endurance Championship as a whole) get so little attention? To answer that, I need to reflect on my experience this year covering the Japanese SuperGT series. Japan is lucky in that it has significant support on home soil for its own motorsport activities. JSB, SuperGT and Formula Nippon are all very well-attended and get good coverage in their domestic media. As a result, not much time is spent on promoting these championships beyond Japan. If you're not in Japan, finding information, news or photos becomes very difficult, especially as web search engines have difficulties cataloging Japanese websites.

The problem for the Championship is actually a bit different, and one shared by car endurance racing: due to the length of the races, it takes some clever marketing on the part of organizers to keep trackside crowds engaged. The ALMS has done a great job of this with Radio Le Mans, and a similar setup for endurance racing would be a big help. Streaming it on the web might attract more of an international audience too. It doesn't help that the current TV package for FIM World Endurance is pretty poor, and doesn't really do very well at telling the stories of the race.

I honestly believe that endurance bike racing could be much better marketed and promoted, because I think as a sports entertainment product there is a lot of potential. Now that the FIM has officially taken control of the promotional aspects of the WEC from World Superbike organizers the Flammini brothers, we can expect a change. I hope that it is for the better.

MotoGP at Laguna Seca - third time's a charm?

Apologies for focusing on MotoGP in the last couple of weeks, but with the third edition of the Red Bull US Grand Prix happening yesterday, it's somewhat on my mind.

The Laguna Seca round of the World Superbike championship was a fan-favourite for many years, and although it had its problems (expensive hotel rooms, local cops more interested in writing tickets than assisting with traffic flow etc.) it was always a fun event.

The switch in 2005 from WSBK to MotoGP turned a weekend attendance of 90,000 into something more than 150,000. This caused some very significant problems, and although I enjoyed my first dose of the fabulous 990cc bikes, it was a shock to the system to see how much of a zoo the event had become.

Promises made for changes in 2006 convinced me to come back, but I was once again burned by a disastrous failure in the shuttle bus system for those who had arrived in cars. Added to this was an unprecedented heat wave that would have turned even the most perfectly run event into a trial by fire.

This year I once again chose to skip finding a hotel, and instead took in the more mellow Friday, stayed home on Saturday and returned on Sunday. I drove on Friday, not relishing the prospect of a total of 240 miles of freeway riding, when I knew that the shuttle bus for those in cars would work fine (it did). Riding on Sunday turned out to be a great way to go, with easy access, unhindered by cars, and relatively decent parking.

Once inside, with our leathers and helmets locked to the bike, we found the atmosphere to be more relaxed and more mellow than in the previous two years. Lines for food were pretty short, there were plenty of bathrooms, the track had provided misting stations should it get hot, water was a universal $2 as opposed to $4 last year, the vendor area was easy to walk around, and finding a spot above turn two for the race didn't require us to set up three hours early.

We watched morning warm-up from my new favorite spot at Laguna, the outside of turn 6 (see photos). Then we switched back to inside and made our way up to the Corkscrew for the AMA Superbike qualifying session. After that we wandered around the vendors, grabbed some cheese steaks for lunch (and found a seat in the lunch tent where we could enjoy them), then had a leisurely beer at the Sierra Nevada tent. With an hour to go before the race we scoped out some empty grass on the hill and drank water whilst we waited for the start.

Although the race was a bit processional, and lost some sting with a first turn collision between local boys John Hopkins and Nicky Hayden, we still enjoyed it, and chose to stick around for the AMA Superbike race. When that turned into a Suzuki whitewash, we headed for the bike, got out of the track with no problems, hit a bit of traffic on the freeway before hopping onto some backroads that avoided the worst of it. The sun was shining, we weren't stressed out by the day, and the ride home was not bad, despite the last 90 miles being on the freeway.

It felt like the glory days of Laguna Seca playing host to World Superbike. This is the first MotoGP event where I left looking forward to next year.

Indianapolis - goodbye F1, hello MotoGP

It's a funny old world sometimes, and the latest goings-on with Indianapolis Motor Speedway are no exception.

It seems like Tony George has once again shown himself to be a businessman at heart, choosing to not pursue a Formula 1 grand prix, and its $9 million fee, and instead host MotoGP, which will cost only 1/4 of that amount. There's little doubt that there will be just as many attendees for MotoGP as for Formula 1 - despite this nation's preoccupation with Hardly-Ablesons and other decrepit cruisers, the sportbike fans are widespread and loyal. In fact the sportbike industry is growing at a record pace whilst the cruiser market is actually shrinking. The percentage of people who ride sportbikes who also follow MotoGP is quite high, and the opportunity to see a MotoGP race for those riders closer to Indianapolis who cannot afford the time or money to get to Laguna Seca will surely be grabbed.

This is all good for MotoGP, their organizers Dorna, IMS, Tony George, US motorcycle racing fans and the US motorcycle industry. It's not so good for anyone in the US with an interest in Formula 1. The inability of all parties to retain a USGP in one place for an extended period of time is hard to figure out, and all the usual excuses just don't seem to wash with me.

Lack of interest from fans is often quoted as a big issue. I'll concede that interest in F1 in the US is much lower than in the rest of the world, but the bottom line is whether there are enough fans to allow the venue to make money and enough US TV viewers to justify the costs to networks (and their sponsors) to actually show the race. Since it has always been on network TV, I find it hard to believe that money is not being made by TV companies.

However, the staggering fee charged by Bernie Ecclestone to a venue may very well be the most significant issue in the failure of F1 in the US. For an event that costs $9million, and draws 120,000 - 150,000 spectators, each spectator would need to spend between $60 and $75 for the track to just break even on that one expense. Factor in the additional staffing costs (450 staff per day), supplies, accommodation, local fees for police, permits, taxes etc., and each fan is going to need to spend much more. I'll admit that additional income from sponsorship, merchandising, food and drink sales, luxury suites, parking and kickbacks from the City for the additional sales taxes the event generates all help. But the bottom line is that IMS can have just as much income from MotoGP, whilst spending $7million less for the privilage.

These venue fees are theoretically supposed to cover costs for the series. It costs money to transport an international racing series, especially via air on tight time schedules. I used to work for a freight forwarder that did just that, so I know the expenses involved. But the massive discrepancy between what MotoGP charges and what F1 charges indicate that the venue fee in F1 is a profit center, whilst in MotoGP it is a reimbursement of expenses. The sad thing for US fans is that Bernie can get that money from another venue in another country - the list of countries who want F1 is very long, and populated with a lot of heavily-funded plans. Bernie believes the US doesn't offer anything that he can't get from another country. Some of the top teams in his series might have a different opinion, especially Mercedes and BMW. It's this that could ultimately be the biggest fallout for F1 from the USGP issue.

I am aware of the fact that IMS was hoping to host both events, but the more favorable deal from MotoGP surely helped put things in perspective during negotiations with Formula 1. Had MotoGP not been on the table, I don't think the F1 deal would have seemed as stinky as it turned out to be.

John Hopkins nudges a very big boulder down a very long hill

With last year's MotoGP silly season rather tame, it's only fair that this year's game of rider merry-go-round should start early and with a bang.

That bang is the move of John Hopkins from Suzuki to Kawasaki, which is expected to be officially confirmed this weekend at the Sachsenring. Although this may seem like an odd move for the extremely fast American, given the comparative performances of the two Japanese manufacturers, it seems as though money was the motivating factor. As detailed by the blogosphere's top MotoGP writer Kropotkin, Kawasaki feel, perhaps rightly, that their bike is far better than it appears, and simply needs some kick-ass riders to help it achieve its potential. They don't come much more kick-ass than Hopper, who I firmly believe is the quickest of the four Americans in MotoGP.

If Hopkins wanted a change, and didn't want to be on a slower bike, his options were rather thin. He could hope to replace his countryman Colin Edwards at Yamaha, but would then be alongside Valentino Rossi, surely not an ideal situation. He could aim for Loris Capirossi's seat at Ducati. Or he could go to the green team. I'm guessing that Ducati couldn't satisfy his financial demands, so he went green. When all the facts are considered, what seems to be a move backwards, or at best sideways, actually could be very shrewd.

Another move that's looking likely, according to Motorcycle News, is Marco Melandri to Ducati. Melandri's performance on the Gresini Honda this year has been even more underwhelming than that of Nicky Hayden, and it's clear that the RC212V is not the bike to be on at the moment. Ducati are clearly tired of Loris Capirossi, who has been unable to adapt to the new bike, but would love to have at least one Italian on the team.

That leaves Capirossi and one Kawasaki rider looking for a ride, with seats open at Suzuki and Gresini Honda. How this will play out is now open to pure speculation.

• Will James Toseland revise his demand for a factory ride in order to stay in the Honda fold on the Gresini bike?

• Will Kawasaki retain one of their young riders, and if so, will it be Ant West or Randy de Puniet?

• Will Suzuki rush Ben Spies into their MotoGP program?

• Will either or both Kawasaki and Suzuki run a third bike next year? If so, will it be in-house or with a satellite team, and who will the rider be?

• Will Roger Lee Hayden's wildcard ride at Laguna Seca in two weeks be good enough to bag that potential third Kawasaki seat?

• Can any of the current top 250 riders move up? Jorge Lorenzo will probably replace Colin Edwards at Yamaha, but is there a place for Alex de Angelis or Andrea Dovizioso?

• Where will unemployed senior riders Loris Capirossi and Colin Edwards end up? Could we see Colin back in World Superbike, taking James Toseland's seat at Ten Kate Honda? Or will he be moved within the Yamaha organization to the Tech 3 team (unlikely unless they ditch the Dunlop tyres)?

It's all fun speculation for right now, but who doesn't love a lively silly season?

Honda in trouble

I just took a look at the combined practice times for this weekend's MotoGP race at Istanbul Park in Turkey, and I am absolutely floored by the poor performance of Honda. By far the most numerous bike on the grid with six entries, they're currently in 5th, 9th, 10th, 14th, 16th and 18th. In contrast, Ducati are in 1st, 2nd, 8th and 13th.

How can it be that the manufacturer with the deepest pockets, and strongest history of winning can be in such a dire predicament? It reminds me of Toyota in Formula 1. Actually, it also reminds me of Honda this year in Formula 1. 2007 is turning out to be a tough year for the Big Red, unless you're in their SuperGT or World Superbike teams.

Questions abound about why the RC212V is such a dog. Perhaps they should see about "prototype-izing" a Ten Kate Fireblade, they might have more success. Actually, it seems that most of the Honda GP riders are bitching about lack of front end feel. Whether this is down to the new profile of the tyres, the smaller 16" front wheels being used in 2007, or the way that mass has been redistributed within the bike's chassis is unclear, but one thing is damn sure: riders who don't give a crap about the rear wheel's behavior but who live on the front (cough, cough, Hayden, cough) are in a whole world of hurt. I also wonder whether the higher corner entry speeds are requiring more commitment from riders who are unfamiliar with that kind of riding. Still, if that's the case you would think that 250cc graduates Melandri, Nakano, Pedrosa and Checa would be doing better. Only Toni Elias has shown any speed so far this weekend. It was a similar story pre-race in Losail, with Elias near the front and everyone else midpack, and Jerez, only difference there being Pedrosa running well and all other Hondas back on the 4th row or worse.

Honda now find themselves in the same place that Yamaha was this time last year, a place called Disarray City, whilst Ducati, whose budget is a tiny fraction of Honda's, are top dogs. Funny the difference a year makes.

MotoGP and AMA surprises

If this weekend was anything to go by, we're in for an interesting season of motorcycle racing: Ducati's incredible top speed performance at the Qatar MotoGP was just one of example of how the formbook was upset. Back here in the USA, a privateer team won the Daytona 200 (and also came second), whilst the man who's won the AMA Superbike championship six times crashed out of the Daytona Superbike race.

The incredible power of Ducati's 800cc MotoGP bike took everyone by surprise, and will certainly have their rivals scratching their heads. It didn't matter whether Casey Stoner was behind Yamaha's Valentino Rossi coming onto the start/finish straight, because he had the power to ride past him on the throttle and be in front by the line each and every lap. Bridgestone played their part in this too, providing a tyre that could deal with the Italian bike's fearsome acceleration.

It has to be said that Ducati won't have such dominance at every track - the main straight at Losail is particularly long, unlike tracks like Jerez, Donington and Laguna Seca. However it is clear that everyone else needs to do some work.

If there was any good news for Yamaha it was the 800cc M1 (still without an official name) seemed to handle very well, especially on the brakes. Last year's front end issue appear to be gone (and have turned up in Honda garages). Even though Honda's Dani Pedrosa was able to pass Rossi on the straight, the incredible braking performance of the Yamaha ensured Rossi found the apex of the first corner first each and every time.

A shout must also go out to Suzuki's John Hopkins, who struggled through the pain of a fractured hand to take fourth. If Suzuki can eke out a little more performance, Hopkins could certainly be the top American this year, challenging for podiums, and maybe even wins.

Down at Daytona, the Superbike race gave '06 champ Ben Spies his first win at Daytona. Most surprising though was the competitiveness of the Hondas and Kawasakis. Even though the Kwaks both crashed, they were running much better than last year. Honda meanwhile seem to have gotten to grips with their new traction control system and bagged 2nd and 3rd for their efforts. Yamaha also showed some promise as Eric Bostrom led for a while before suffering a tire failure. All in all, the 2007 season already seems to promise much more exciting racing than 2006's snoozefest.

2-wheel job-seekers

The silly-season merry-go-round has nearly come to a stop, and in the world of motorcycle racing there's a few riders who find themselves still looking for a seat. So who's filling out their unemployment forms or lining up at the dole queue?

Neil Hodgson: How can it be that one of the top superbike riders in the world is unemployed? The simple answer is that Hodgson was determined to get the factory Ducati World Superbike seat alongside Troy Bayliss, and didn't consider other options until it was too late. There is no doubt that there are a number of Superbike teams who would rather have him on their roster, but deadlines had to be met, and riders had to be signed, and now it's too late. Hodgson's choices are now very limited. He's hoping that Carl Fogarty can put something together using Ducatis, but 'ole Foggy doesn't seem to have the same level of talent finding sponsorship as he had riding Superbikes. Other options for Neil include the second seat at Yamaha France, or a possible seat alongside Rubens Xaus at Sterilgarda-Berik Ducati.

Garry McCoy: The man whose riding style is so distinctive, no-one wants to work with him. For a young MotoGP team like Ilmor, in desperate need of test data, McCoy was not the man for the job. Fair enough I say. But Garry is still lightning fast, and after a year in FIM Supermoto his remarkable bike-handling skills must surely be even better. Any motorcycle racing team looking for press would be well-advised to contact the dimunitive Australian. People love the guy, he's quick, and very exciting to watch. It's PR gold baby!

Scott Smart: Scott had a terrific year in British Superbike in 2004 on a Kawasaki, enough to bag him a ride with top Suzuki outfit Rizla Suzuki. Things started to go bad almost immediately, and he left mid-season to join semi-works team Vivaldi. Despite picking up a win for them in 2006 he left the team, and is now scrambling to find enough cash to run his own team, on Yamahas for 2007. At this point, it doesn't look very good. Should he fail, his options in British Superbike are slim (perhaps a reason he has tried to go it alone). Hawk Kawasaki have signed Peter Hickman, but it's unclear whether they'll be looking for a second rider. If they are, it would nice to see Scott back in green.

Giovanni Bussei: American fans will remember Bussei's extroverted character from a few races on the Ducati team at the tail-end of 2003. The heavily-goateed, curly-haired madman from Italy made a lot of friends, but ended up back in Europe. Since then he's ridden with the Bertocchi Kawasaki team, as well as filled in for injured riders at Ten Kate Honda. Sadly, it doesn't seem like he has much lined up for 2007, which is a shame, since he's clearly a very talented rider.

Chris Burns: Remember him? He raced the woeful WCM bike in MotoGP in 2003 and 2004, and has floated aaround the British racing scene since then, mopst notably taking the place of John McGuinness when he left AIM Yamaha in 2005. Burns is probably the unluckiest man in bike racing, and sadly most people forget that he's a former Superstock champion. Alas, it seems as though he's without a ride again in 2007.

News grab-bag

• MotoGP world champ Nicky Hayden rode the last round of the season with a broken shoulder. He has now taken time out from the testing schedule to have it fixed. Makes his title seem even more impressive!
• Top two drivers in the Australian V8 Supercar series Craig Lowndes and Rick Kelly go into the final round at Phillip Island separated by 14 points. Remarkable given that they both have more 2900 points each. Should be an absolute cracker of an event...
• Word has it that Henning Solberg will be driving for Ford's Stobart team in next years World Rally Championship.
• The AMA Superbike series will have two pasty new faces next year with the arrival of Brits James Ellison and Chaz Davies. Ellison will ride for the factory-supported privateer Corona Honda team in the Superbike class, whilst Davies will be riding in one of the 600cc classes for Celtic Racing.
• Our favorite MotoGP mechanic Liam Shubert, who left San Francisco last year to pursue his dream of working in MotoGP, has been promoted within the D'Antin Pramac team. He's now their Parts and Logistics Coordinator.
• Britain has another great white hope in Formula 1. Except he's black, which is a good thing for the sport. Lewis Hamilton, who won this year's GP2 series, has grabbed the second seat at McLaren.
• Although we don't "do" NASCAR here, it's worthwhile to note that this year's Nextel Cup championship was won by rallying fanatic and former Race of Champions participant Jimmie Johnson.
  

Best Motorcycle Picture Ever

Check this out.

This is everything that makes these guys fucking heroes: commitment, determination, utter control even as the bike wants to go in the wrong direction, knee down courage. Wallpaper-tastic.

Where Rossi went wrong

Now we've had a day to reflect on Nicky Hayden's maiden MotoGP championship, it's interesting to consider what went wrong for Valentino Rossi this year. A look at some statistics shows some interesting trends:

Ignoring his first year in the premier class, Rossi has 98 GP starts. He didn't win 42 of them (which means he won 56, a staggering figure in itself). Of those 42 non-wins, nearly 1/3 of them were this year.

To prove the point, here's the percentage of races he didn't win, by year:

• 2001 - 31%
• 2002 - 31%
• 2003 - 44%
• 2004 - 44%
• 2005 - 35%
• 2006 - 70%

Even more incredibly, of his 11 non-top 10 finishes since 2001, nearly 1/2 of them were in 2006. This really shows how awful his season was. The question is, why?

• In Jerez, he was involved in a first turn crash, precipitated by his low qualifying position. This was blamed on poor development on the Yamaha over the winter. Blame Yamaha.

• In China, he retired with tyre problems. Blame Michelin, or perhaps blame Yamaha, after only being able to qualify 13th on a mean-handling bike, and perhaps using up ALL of his tyre to get up to third in the race.

• In France, he retired with engine problems. Blame Yamaha.

• In Holland, he had a massive practice crash but fought back to 8th in the race. Still, a huge bag of points were lost to Hayden who won the race. Blame Rossi or maybe blame Yamaha for giving him a bike where he was forced to push harder than normal due to a continually wretched chassis.

• In the USA, he retired with engine problems. Blame Yamaha.

• In Valencia, he crashed. Blame Rossi.

As you can see, Yamaha had a big hand in Rossi's failure to clinch the title. He still managed five wins, four seconds, a third and a fourth, a combination that could be expected to be sufficient, unless your rival is the ultra-consistent Nicky Hayden.

When all is said and done, to win in any professional racing series you need speed, luck and reliability. Although he had the first, this year he was missing the second and third. You can't control luck. You can control reliability. Shame on Yamaha.