Anyone else talking RACING?! <--- of the motorcycle type

Following free practice 1 & 2 at the Sachsenring, there are 4 Factory Honda RCV's in the top 5 practice times, the only interloper being the Yamaha and Jorge Lorenzo with the second quickest time. The Hairpiece is once again quickest, it would be great to see this guy finally get a win. Met the guy at Laguna and he seems like a really nice guy, hopefully he will put his recent transgressions behind him for good.

Multiple crashes in FP1 with three of the aliens taking part. Stoner, Pedrosa and Rossi were the big names on the list of fallers. Thankfully, none of the riders were seriously injured. Stoners off looked like a bull ride until he finally separated from his machine.

Rossi continues struggling with the latest Desmo 1.1 and could only manage the 12th quickest time. It has been a long time, maybe never, that Rossi has been as far from the front as he has been this year. Nicky flew the flag for the U.S. with the 6th quickest time, as well as, being the quickest Ducati. Nicky has consistently been quicker than Rossi during practice, but it just hasn't translated in the qualifying sessions and races.

The Moto2 race seems to be shaping up as the top 25 times in FP2 were all within a second.....should be another good race.

Paris Hilton' riders had the 2nd and 3rd quickest times during the 125cc FP2.................

 

Continuing with the John Hopkins updates, John was quickest today in free practice 2 at the BSB's Oulton Park. John is really starting to come around and he seems to be back to his form of 4 years ago. Super nice guy who has worked his ass off getting back to where he is, after being written off following his riding in AMA Superbike. Another fast American in MotoGP would be great. Pipedream = John gets last minute wildcard ride at Laguna......

He is only 19 points behind Shakey Byrne in the championship and he is only one point behind Byrne in the podium credits department. The podium credits are the important thing as the top 6 podium credit scores will fight it out for the championship. Can't wait to see how he does at Brno, when he gets back on a MotoGP machine.

It would be awesome to see John do the double at Oulton Park this weekend.




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Gosh, I sure wish I knew all these guys so I could hang out with them and do show and tell reports from the TeeVee.

 

agreed, would like to see that too

 

Sachsenring, WOW All I can say this must be the race of the year so far, come on Laguna Seca. :biggrin:

 

And rumor has it that Ben Bostrom might be racing for LCR Honda at LS...

 

Ben who?




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Great result for Pedrosa in a race with superb battles raging all through the field, even Stoner looked happy for his teammate's return to the front in the post race interview but I'm guessing that'll be a one off.

 

Looking forward to Dani doing well at Laguna Seca this weekend. Laguna is also a counter clockwise track with multiple lefts and only a few rights, which should help him again with his recovering shoulder injury. Won the race in 2009, crashed out at Turn 5 with a decent lead last year. It could prove to be a great race as Spies, Lorenzo, Stoner and Pedrosa have all shown they can set a quick pace at this track.




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And just for you:

"John Hopkins continues to sidle up on a full-time MotoGP return, this time with a wildcard ride at Brno in mid-August. The Rizla Suzuki team today announced that the American will join Alvaro Bautista for the Czech Grand Prix at Brno, aboard a second Suzuki GSV-R. Hopkins previously replaced Bautista at Jerez, after the Spaniard broke his femur in the opening round of the series, the American finishing in 10th. There has been talk that Hopkins would be racing as a wildcard for some months now, but the details had to be finalized. That has now happened, and Hopkins, who is second in the British Superbike Championship, will make his first appearance at Brno.

Below is the text of the press release announcing Hopper's wildcard:"

John Hopkins Gets Wildcard Appearance At Brno | MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

 

MSNBC has finally found out about Moto GP with a pretty nice 4+min video bit. Great footage and fast guy profiles. Then they fuck it up by having some chica read the script who sounds just like she is reading a script. She probably has great tits. which is qualifiying enough for most jobs.

 

A brilliant ride by Stoner with an amazing pass on Lorenzo.

Interesting Bostrom pulled into the pits rather than risk crashing, was refreshingly honest to hear him blame himself not the machine for running off the track.

 

Pretty darn good dogfighting in AMA superbike today. Surprisingly lots of people stayed after MotoGp. Good stuff

 

Sad day today, as another factory WSBK falls by the wayside.

Yamaha Will Not Field Factory Team In 2012 FIM Superbike World Championship News Article // RoadracingWorld.com

Unfortunately, it isn't really that surprising...even the MotoGP championship winning team couldn't gather up a sponsor for this season and Yamaha has been footing the bill for WSBK and MotoGP this year.

 

I sure wish you guys who have all this inside info and know really what is going on, would post this stuff before we have to read it in 234 other websites, magazines and news sources. Then again, sometimes even these big outfits make up shit to psyche out the other dudes.

 

FYI, WSBK was actually paid for outta Yamaha Europe, not Japan... Minor point, but just keeping it all straight.

 

That's not something that isn't universally well known or not written about in the press. The fact remains the neither the WSBK or MotoGP teams had a corporate sponsor for 2011, nor does that change the fact that, as of this week, there will be no factory Yamaha team in WSBK in 2012.





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well the cool news for texas is a new nugget of awesomeness that's being named The Circuit of the Americas, which is going to be an F1 circuit track just north of austin, and the FIM has already signed a deal to bring an annual MotoGP race to that track!!!! I'll be crawling up the walls till then waiting for the first race in 2013, and every one thereafter!

 

Another way to look at it is the absence of factory teams often means closer racing and less likelihood of rule tweaks that favor the factories. In AMA, this means not returning anytime soon to the Matt vs Ben shows of the recent past. I very much enjoyed the one AMA race I had the time to see live this year.

 

Yes, that may be true in AMA superbike where there are no "factory" teams....however, the situation is completely different in WSBK...Aprilia, BMW, Kawasaki, and in 2012, Ducati, will all have factory efforts. Without the Yamaha to keep it honest, it looks like Ducati will run off and hide in 2012....not so good for the racing or for the average fan.

Suzuki are non committal at this point, with Francis Batta trying to convince them of the viability of Suzuki's support to Alstare. Hence, they have not been included in this response.

FWIW, BSB has decided to adopt a rules structure very similar to the AMA structure in 2012, getting away from the WSBK derived rules structure they are currently using. Granted, HM Plant Honda is the only formal "factory" BSB superbike team. However, the racing in BSB is better than the AMA in it's current form as there have been multiple winners and teams on the podium compared to the Rockstar Makita Suzuki v. Graves Yamaha races in the AMA. Things in AMA have not changed much at all there are few fast guys and fewer fast bikes.

If you are silently including Supersport and Sportbike in this Superbike discussion, then I think that requires it's own discussion. Just my opinion.



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