Words - Archived, Vol. 1


More Racing Karma:
Seriously, it just cracks me up when stuff like this happens … 
The CORE” World Supersport squad dumped Ratthapark Wilairot halfway through the season, even though Wilairot pulled off a win in front of his home country fans in Thailand, instantly becoming a national hero. This drew an immediate and angry comment from a fellow team owner, former racer and PTR/CIA Landlords Insurance team manager Simon Buckmaster, whose team also competes in World Supersport. Johan 'Stiggy' Stigefelt set up his own team this year, taking Wilairot, sponsor CORE” and several crew members from PTR. 
 “When they went on this vision of setting up their own team I did warn Film that this was not easy and not the way for him to go. Why would it be? He had finished a very close second to the departing World Champion at the last round of 2014 and was ready to start winning for us.

“How I rue the day both for Film (Wilairot) and us in agreeing to release him to the Air Asia team run by Johan Stigefelt [selected Moto2 races in 2014]. I thought I knew Stiggy but he showed himself to be a real snake. He convinced Core to go alone, poached some of my team and made good money for himself as a consultant. That team is now on the verge of self-destruction from where I'm sitting.” 
Um, not so much. 
Buckmaster’s four riders, including multi-time AMA Champion Martin Cardenas, have exactly one podium among them this year, a single third place, after an off-season of rider swaps and contract shenanigans. When a known quantity like Cardenas is struggling, the problem likely is not in the saddle. 
The CORE” squad not only has the win from Ratthapark, but 13 days after Buckmaster delivered his scathing broadside, CORE” picked up P.J. Jacobsen, took a front-row starting spot and podiumed at Portimao. Worst of all for PTR, they did so on the same Honda CBR600RR that PTR is running and were first Honda across the line.
Ouch.

And ... Ratthapark has just landed a Moto2 ride. Karma indeed ...

Thoughts From Portimao:



- Luck is everything in racing, and if Tom Sykes didn't have bad luck he wouldn't have any at all. He's this|close to having the speed of his teammate, and for a guy who hates racing in the wet, he hung a set of big brass ones out yesterday. Desire, determination, desperation - don't care what motivated it, it was awesome to watch. No wonder the guy was so upset when the bike started cutting out - he had pushed out of his comfort zone and the bike let him down. And a deflating tire - he's got to be wondering when he's going to get hit by a meteor.

- As predicted, the Panigales were rockets coming out of the last turn. But they're not as good on the brakes, and the ZX-10Rs were able to dive-bomb them from a long way back into Turn One.

- Race One was about as exciting as any race this year. A little rain, a little unpredictability, goes a long way. Perhaps one of the ways World Superbike could differentiate itself from MotoGP is to run longer races with a mandatory pit stop for a different spec of tire. Different strategies, different approaches make for mixed-up fields. Good for spectators.

- Speaking of exciting, the Supersport Cluzel/Sofuoglu battle was incredible, as always. And one more shout out to PJ, on the podium and first Honda home. After the week he had - that's a professional road racer, dammit.

- And GPOne is suggesting that Ducati may poach Nicky Hayden from MotoGP to ride the Panigale in World Superbike. Is it that time of year already for the "Hayden To WSBK" rumors?

Speed And Survival In Portugal:


The old saying goes that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. The flip side, of course, is that an accurate view of the past is a good way to measure the present.

I refer, of course, to World Superbike and the new rules package for 2015. As mentioned earlier, many viewed the new rules as a gift to Ducati, which could better accommodate limited transmission ratios because of the twin-cylinder bike's torque. In addition, the Ducatis got a last-minute reprieve in the form of losing their intake restrictions. The Aragon round showed that the Ducs now could keep up with the inline-fours on a long, fast straight. If the new rules were going to give the Ducs a real advantage, it was going to show up at Portimao, where the front straight is a K2-esque climb, and torque/gearing were going to be critical in clocking good top-end numbers.

Geek out with me for a moment, if you will.

Last year at this track (which, incidentally, I would love to ride a track day at) race winner Tom Sykes and his Kawasaki ZX-10R clocked - in practice, qualifying and race sessions - top speeds of 305, 302, 311, 306, 300, 305 and 307 kph. Average: 305.14 kph/189.6 mph.

The Aprilia RSV4 Factory of Marco Melandri was clocked at 309, 308, 309, 308, 300, 306, 306 kph. Average: 306.57 kph/190.49 mph.

The Ducati Panigale of Chaz Davies hit 308, 299, 309, 303, 299, 306, 304. Average: 304.0 kph/188.9.

The Panigale of Davide Guigliano was clocked at 298, 298, 307, 301, 295, 300, 302. Average: 300.14 kph/186.5 mph.

Clearly, the Ducati was slower in a straight line than the Kawasaki or Aprilia.

Make the teams choose one set of gear ratios for the season and look at what happens at Portimao:

Sykes and his ZX-10R: 303, 304, 301, 303, 299. Average: 302 kph/187.65 mph, or two miles an hour slower than last year.

Leon Haslam on the Aprilia:  289, 296, 298, 298, 301. Average: 296.4 kph/184.17 mph, or more than SIX miles an hour slower than last year.

Compare to the Panigales this year ...

Guigliano: 308, 303, 308, 309, 306. Average: 306.8 kph/190.63 mph, more than four miles an hour faster than last year (and faster than Melandri's RSV4 of last year).

Davies: 309, 309, 308, 308, 308. Average: 308.4 kph/191.63 mph, again faster than last year.

Ostensibly, the 2014 and 2015 models of each bike are the same. What has changed? Rules, and specifically the transmission requirements. Let no one bullshit you: Races are won and lost when the rulebook is finalized.

So why is there a picture of P.J. above?

His team owner gone missing, P.J. jumped ship to a Honda squad and on his first weekend on the bike, put it third on the starting grid and fastest Honda. Go P.J.!

U.S. Racers Abroad, Part Two:


On my trip to England several years ago, I also was fortunate enough to chat with James Rispoli. The youngster (43, above, in third) since has landed a gig with Team Traction Control, run by a guy who got famous as a dancer (no, not making any of that up) in the intensely competitive British Supersport class.

Rispoli always had speed. When I was there, he opened some eyes by running in the 600cc Superstock class as a wildcard and notching some of the fastest laps of the weekend on a bike he'd never ridden on a track he'd never ridden - and complain all you want about the U.S. series, we'd likely not race at a place like Brands Hatch without a LOT of soft barriers.

Crash.net did a very nice interview with Rispoli recently. The thing that strikes you, once again, is how much work he puts in that is completely unrelated to the skills or physical conditioning needed to pilot a racebike at speed:

"Since I was 14 years old my dad has had me picking up the phone to call my sponsors. He emphasized to me that doing that and being very aware of your sponsors was the only way you could make money at this game, learning to sell yourself, sell the brand and talk to sponsors was something I had to, and liked to, do. He helps me with the business of it and getting to the next level but it's me doing the leg work. I've got people around me who can help to put me in front of the right people but honestly it's always a struggle."

Great read. Check it out at:


U.S. Racers Abroad, Part One:


Fact is, there are a couple of born and bred U.S. riders flying the colors quite admirably on the international stage. Thought it would be apt to take a moment to recognize them, because looking at their current situations illustrates just how incredibly hard you have to work to get the opportunity to show that you can work even harder.

I've followed P.J. Jacobsen's career since he was in his middle teens, impressing in USGPRU competition. I had the opportunity to have a chat with him in the pits at Brands Hatch about four years ago as he was riding in a BSB support class, and his level of maturity was as impressive as his speed. (With the IOM TT now getting underway, I can't help but recall the fact that P.J.'s advisor was blunt about what he thought of such events: "We're going to do everything we can to keep P.J. off the roads," he said.)

P.J.'s maturity is being put to the test. Third in the Supersport World Championship standings, his team owner has gone missing and the team is not going to make the Portimao event. P.J. has jumped ship and joined a team that has been embroiled in controversy after firing the rider who won a race for them earlier this season. And P.J.'s jumping from Kawasaki to Honda.

Tough times. Being a professional road racer tests you in more ways than you might think.

Thoughts From Mugello:

 
- Who is this guy in Lorenzo's leathers, and where has he been the past two seasons? Seriously, it looks like Lorenzo's seriously got his head back in the game, and he's been able to race the way he likes - from the front and pulling away. No, that's probably a mischaracterization of sorts; when Lorenzo is on form, he's in front and pulling away, not because he likes it better, but it's just that he can be so bloody fast that no one can reach him to race with him ...

- Marquez is having his rookie season, two years and two world championships later! One of the joys of watching him and his team is that they don't know how to settle for podium positions. But it comes back to bite you occasionally. Marquez has left a pile of points sitting in gravel traps this year. Good to see Dani riding the whole race through. I do think that losing his input has contributed something to the lack of form of the Honda.

- About the only good thing that comes out of the Moto3 lottery races like Mugello, where you can go from 9th to 2nd or vice-versa on the front straight, is that occasionally someone new takes a podium. In this case, it was Miguel Olivera, who took a sparking win in his 68th GP start. In a race that could easily have been decided on pure stupid luck, Olivera won with nerves of steel and sheer speed. Nice, nice, nice ...

Marquez, Mercedes, Mistakes:


Sorbo likes to say that if it was easy, anyone could do it. Sometimes, you're reminded of just how hard it is to make it look effortless.

Marc Marquez and the Repsol squad have been working toward getting their engine braking settings to work at the tracks on the Continent. They decided to use worn rubber - which is what you use to dial in the electronics - in Q1, thinking that they'd still be quick enough to get through to final qualifying. They miscalculated the speed of the Ducatis on their softer tires - and Marquez missed final qualifying for the first time in his MotoGP careeer.

It was the exact opposite of the mistake that Mercedes made in Formula One at Sepang earlier this year. The squad used up its quickest tires in qualifying, leaving it short on the "good" rubber for the race, and Ferrari won its first race since 2013.

Little mistakes start a chain of events that lead to major problems. Repsol's miscalculation means that Marquez starts from 13th at Mugello. And as we saw in 2013 with Pedrosa, a little mistake like that can mean a battle in traffic. At best, that slows you down. At worst, it knocks you down. Either way, bad all around.

 Crew Chiefs And Crew Cuts:


I love the camera shots of the crew chief and the garage mid-race. If the nonverbal communication is more accurate, the reaction from the crew tells you the real story about what's happening on the track.

Spare a thought for the poor guy above. He was in the garage on Sunday during the World Superbike slugfest in Race One. More specifically, he was in the Kawasaki Racing Team garage, And the reason he's so stressed is that Jonathan Rea is struggling under braking and while cornering, but Rea is not giving up. He's constantly on the edge of disaster. He's a threat nearly every corner to crash and take out - Tom Sykes, his Kawasaki teammate! This dude probably had jet-black hair at the start of the race. Watching isn't always easy.

The guy below I have a little less sympathy for. He's crew chief for the MV Agusta squad. Jules Cluzel would be far closer to the Supersport World Championship lead if the bike was more reliable. Clearly, based on this picture, the team members have other things to do than work on the bike - like work on their hair! Seriously, who has time on Race Day morning to attend to their hair like this guy?

I'm just saying that if MV Agusta doesn't win the title, it might be for want of a crew cut, not a crew chief ...


Kenan And KTM:


Kenan Sofuoglu is steamrollering on toward his fourth Supersport World Championship titlle. Even this early in the season, Sofuoglu only has to finish second in the remaining six races to seal the title. MV Agusta's Jules Cluzel would have to win every race and have Sofuoglu come in no better than - 

Well, too early in the morning for math. You get the idea. Kenan is doing quite well. His competition has broken, crashed or simply fallen apart - the latest British wunderkid once again has shown that top-three in WSS is about their level of competence.

Kenan is interesting because WSS also appears to be his level of competence. He's one of those unique talents who is so strong in a support category that you'd figure they'd be halfway decent on the next step up the food chain. Yet every time Kenan has tried to make that step, he has failed miserably. After winning the WSS title in 2007, he jumped into WSBK for 2008 and finished 18th in that championship. He won the WSS title in 2010, went to Moto2 - also with 600cc engines - and finished 17th in 2011, then came back to WSS and won the title in 2012. Riders like that - I'm thinking Rich Oliver - are a great mystery, although I'm sure Ed has a thought or two on the issue ...

My point is this: I think it's great for WSS and other championships to have a stable cast of characters. Good for the narrative. I miss seeing the specialists in smaller classes. And I think it's dumb to have age limits at the level of professional road racing. It would be awesome to see a guy like, say, Pedrosa, race a Moto3 bike if he wanted to after his days on a MotoGP machine are over.

I'm not saying that Kenan should race the KTM RC390 Cup series here in the U.S. - he's the wrong religion, and sponsors likely would avoid him. I'm saying that the class here would have more stature if racers like him could race here. Score the age-restricted group separately if you must. But build your smaller classes as well as the headliners, and you give spectators more reasons to show up.  

Ryde On:

If you watched the Superbike World Championship series races at Donington Park this weekend, you saw one of those performances that you look back on years from now and say, see, even at that stage, he was demonstrating that he was something special.

I refer, of course, to Kyle Ryde.

Who?

A 17-year-old lad who won the BSB Superstock 600 series last year and is currently doing well in the more competitive BSB Supersport 600 class this season, with a win and a few podiums under his belt.

Ryde took his Yamaha YZF-R6 (nothing wrong with that machine, Yamaha is just focusing its resources elsewhere) and entered the Supersport World Series race as a wildcard. He qualified it on the front row, got a good start, fought with Kenan Sofuoglu and Jules Cluzel for the lead for several laps - wait, let me rephrase that. Fought with three-time Supersport World Champion Kenan Sofuoglu and eight-time Supersport winner and Superbike podium finisher Cluzel for the lead. Crap!

The second-best part was when he fell back to fourth, behind Supersport and Superstock 1000 winner Lorenzo Zanetti, he kept his cool, stayed close, put an inch-perfect move on Zanetti with three to go and defended his position to the flag. It would have been beyond anyone's expectations to see him in fourth, but he engineered a podium out of his situation.

The best part of all was the calm, cool and professional manner with which he handled himself in park ferme. He looks like a kid, but behaved like an old pro.

Lots of riders have a moment of fame, put together one race in their lifetime. But there may be something more here. Find this race and watch this kid ...

Podcast In Print 3: Still Racing ...


As this is my world and I will take any opportunity to post a picture of me, the above shot is of me at a race I did with AHRMA. Speaking of AHRMA, Sorbo was working at a recent AHRMA event and shared a garage with an old friend. They got to talking. We got to talking. Here's what we said:

Podcast In Print #3, What do you mean by “Why?”
Ed Sorbo:
At a recent AHRMA event we shared pit space with Stacie B London. She races an old CB160 and got to the track in an old Ford pick up. Lots of her follow racers also have old pit bikes. I asked if she has something against vehicles that start, idle and have air conditioning. She looked at me like she had never thought of it that way and we got to talking about why we race.
I had been thinking/wondering about racing for a long time but did not do anything about it till the universe gave me a push. Once I was racing the fun captured me till the challenge took over. Part of it is that I can't quit and it's a great way to learn useful stuff. Being good at it helps me keep doing it and it long ago became a way to make a living.
Stacie B London;
My 4 wheeled vehicle is a red 1970 Ford F100 Custom, I sold my teal 1992 Ford Ranger XLT to purchase it. My mom couldn't understand why I went from a perfectly fine 1992 vehicle to an older more "unreliable" version, until she saw it. "Wow that's cool" were her exact words. Owning my dream truck has not been a bed of roses, but it is fun for all its analogue qualities. 

My first car at 16 was a 1970 Plymouth 340-V8 Duster, so I'm used to, and expect, a certain kind of feedback from a vehicle. I've driven new cars and I like them just fine, but for me they lack a certain personality. Sure my truck takes a little longer to get places, doesn't have AC, or a stereo, but those are things I can live with or have adapted to. When it does break, which is not as often as you might think, I can pop the hood and pretty much see everything and diagnose it and within a couple phone calls figure out what is wrong and how to fix it. Its a fun truck to have as it gets attention wherever it goes. 

It's also a conversation starter, which is a pretty great thing in this device-crazed society where everyone is staring into a screen rather than a face having a conversation.
I got into racing a 1968 CB160 because I was invited to the vintage races because my daily rider is a 1969 BMW R60US. I bought this first bike completely by accident or by good fortune and it was the first domino in a series of experiences in the vintage community. When I decided to start riding and looking for my first bike even though I knew nothing about bikes I had a picture of a bike in my head of what I wanted, and I found it in Craigslist add. Because I didn't know about motorcycles, I also didn't know about the different communities or sub-cultures and I had no idea what I was getting myself into, I was just following a gut feeling. 

As an industrial designer with a Master of Science in Industrial Design, I've spent a lot of time and money developing and trusting my instincts, so when I went to see this barely running bike all I saw was a diamond in the rough and there was nothing anyone could say to convince me otherwise. I've had it now for six years and its been nothing short of an incredible and wonderful journey that I am so grateful for. This choice has affected and changed everything.
Once I got into racing my 160 its become a project that I can't let go of until it's completed. People ask me all the time when I'm going to start racing a bigger bike or a newer bike, and the truth is, I would love to, I just can't afford to prep and race more than one bike and I'm not done with the 160. It's like a relationship and I know we have more to do and I have more to learn from it. Sure I could put my time and money into another bike that is newer or larger displacement. But why when I enjoy this one so much? Just like my truck and BMW, the 160 has not only taught me a lot but has also inspired many creative collaborations and to honoring these experiences and education I need to see the project to the end.
Michael Gougis:
Hi Stacie! Always good to hear from you. Your contribution to the SoCal racing scene is far greater than you will ever know.
But let’s talk about me.
My current race bike is that 2002 Yamaha YZF-R1. Race bodywork, windshield from Hong Kong, race tires. That’s it. A slip-on pipe with a Power Commander that may or may not be doing anything. Not just stock suspension, but stock unrebuilt-by-Sorbo suspension. (P.S. The muffler is held on by a bolt that is an inch too long. I leave it there because it makes Ed absolutely crazy every time he sees it.)
Why?
The bike looks spectacular. And it is fast enough and handles well enough to keep me entertained on the racetrack. And I get a great deal of joy from maintaining it, looking at it in the garage, washing it. And I enjoy most of all the fact that it has a tech sticker on it and my racing numbers.
People race for a million reasons. I struggle to get some people to understand that not everyone wants to go racing to become World Champion. I've been through that phase where only winning mattered. Now I have a racebike because that makes me a racer. Being a racer forces me to maintain my fitness and organize a race program. And chasing someone else makes me try harder, push my personal barriers, and gives me a reason to enjoy the thrill of twisting the throttle on a machine that makes a Ferrari look Pinto-slow.
In one of my classrooms, there’s a saying on the wall that’s attributed to hockey great Wayne Gretzky – you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. By showing up, I beat everyone who’s sitting on a couch or barstool or posting on the ‘net about how bad-ass they would be if only …
Ed Sorbo:
Better not leave that bike near me unattended again, I have a hacksaw in my tool box, that bolt won’t last long…

I have long known that we all have our own reasons for racing. Sure, there are common threads to each story. I’m sure you, Dear Reader, each related to some part of all these reasons. What I’m learning now is how much and how often our reasons change.

I use to run radio ads promoting the next road race at Hawaii Raceway Park on Radio Free Hawaii. One of the tag lines was, “If it was easy, it would be a video game.” That event was a 4 Hour. I’m not sure what the gamers though of that line but to me it spoke to the challenge of racing that I hope never fades. See you on the track.

Why Are We Here?

Dorna has announced that it's looking for another three-year engine supplier for Moto2 when its Honda contract runs out in 2018. Honda may get another extension, someone else may get the gig. But it's going to be a single-engine class again, and it has become a spec class in all but name - same engines, same tires, same suspension, and pretty much same chassis.

Still, I found myself watching Moto2 and Moto3 this weekend. Was wondering why. Noticed a common theme - two young racers, who have public images that I admire, who have made the step up this year. I want to see Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins do well. But both of them crashed this weekend - and the minute they did, I turned off their races.

I like Moto3's Honda vs. KTM warfare. I'll watch that to see which factory has the upper hand. (btw; think Rossi's comments about Honda all those years ago might have something to do with the fact that his Moto3 team races KTMs?). But lately, Moto2 is the last on the priority list. I watched the Endurance World Championship show before I finished watching Moto2.

I guess what I'm thinking is that it takes more than just the cult of personality surrounding any individual rider to interest me in motorcycle road racing. This sport, I think, is bigger than any one person - the word motorcycle is in the description of the sport I love. Overlook the bike, and you've overlooked a key area of interest.

Profiles Of Madness Courage:


Three recent illustrations of why motorcycle road racers can be some of the coolest, craziest, most inspiring people on the planet:

- Dani Pedrosa underwent a desperate wrist surgery to hang onto his MotoGP career and his Repsol Honda ride. First race back, and he crashes on Lap Two. He checks his wrist, gets back on the bike, and even though the bars are bent, he finishes. "It was a positive test for me, although there is still room for improvement, but fitness-wise things are a little better," Pedrosa says. Criticize him all you want, Pedrosa is one tough little SOB.

- Leon Haslam broke one rib and cracked two others in a crash at Imola - and says it won't matter for this weekend's race at Donington Park. "It’s not ideal. I can’t cough, sneeze, laugh, nothing but you don’t use your ribs on the bike, so I am confident it shouldn’t be too much of a problem,” Haslam told bikesportnews.com:


- David Checa injured his knee in pre-season testing with the GMT94 Yamaha team that competes in the Endurance World Championship. At 2 a.m. in the season-opening 24 hour race at Le Mans, the team manager decides to rest him for four hours. He gets back on the bike and at his pit stop is unable to get off the machine. Two spare crew members (where the hell do you get spare crew members?) lift him and carry him in a four-handed seat hold to a spot just behind the bike, where they stand holding Checa in the air. Why? Because if something suddenly went wrong with the other riders, he was going to get back on the bike. Just - damn.

The Enemy Mind:



Jorge said in a recent interview that his mind is his biggest enemy. 

The raw speed of Lorenzo always has been jaw-dropping. People forget that Lorenzo's speed at the beginning of the 2010 season started a chain of events that derailed Valentino Rossi's career for years. With Lorenzo taking his first-ever back-to-back MotoGP wins, Rossi showed up at Mugello with a mohawk, claiming it was a haircut for a battle. He left the circuit on a stretcher with a badly broken leg, no longer a title contender, and Yamaha refused to come anywhere near Ducati's contract offer for the next season for Rossi's services. Why would they? They had Lorenzo. And he paid them in spades with two MotoGP world championships.

But when Lorenzo is unfocused, you or I can beat him. He's that kind of rider. And he's been badly unfocused as of late. It was as though the arrival of Marquez was like a punch to the head, and he's been unable to see straight through the pain! And this august blog was not the only place where questions were being raised about Lorenzo's future.

The old Lorenzo took the opportunity to show up at Jerez - in what might have been a make-or-break race for his career - and dominated. What had changed? His head. And he's managed to keep it screwed on properly for two straight races now. Sorbo has an interesting observation about Lorenzo. You'll have to wait until an upcoming Deep Thinking to hear it.

But I say, if Lorenzo stays focused, which frankly I did not think possible, and he's a real threat for the title. The victory celebration this time was a lot more appropriate for winning a race. It was joy, not relief. And the crew looked quietly satisfied, as though they expected a win, and Lorenzo simply delivered what was expected. That kind of response is what scares the competition.

P.S. Rossi's pass on Marquez was uncompromising. You have to be careful, sometimes, of what you don't say. I refer, of course, to my interview at Roadracing World with Marquez back in November of 2013, in which Marquez talks about his title challengers for 2014 - and Rossi wasn't on the list (and I gleefully pointed that out!). I wonder if Rossi has a copy of that interview tacked to the inside of his locker door, so to speak ...


Karma, The Good Kind:


Alex Rins was overshadowed at the end of the last season by his teammate, which will tend to happen when your teammate's last name is Marquez. The defining moment of Rins' 2014 season was his willingness to help his teammate at the last round, as the Honda brigade got together to help Alex Marquez beat Jackass Miller to the Moto3 title.

Rins wasn't bitter, gracious about his role, and praised Marquez for helping him become a better racer (to be continued after class. Damned students ... OK, I'm back. Now where was I? Oh yeah, Rins and karma) even when such behavior would have killed someone like Miller. At that moment, you knew that Rins didn't just have speed; he had the mental stability to deal with the impossibly difficult job of being a top-level motorcycle road racer.

So it has been with a great deal of satisfaction that I've watched Rins put the pieces of riding a Moto2 bike together this year. He's done remarkably well so far, quietly going about his business and adapting to a machine with twice the horsepower of and substantially more weight than a Moto3 bike.

 And it was perhaps that positive karma that he's emitting that landed him his first pole in Moto2, edging the darling of the northern European motoring press in only his fifth race outing.

 I couldn't be more pleased for Rins. I like it when nice guys finish first.

Piecing It Together:



Sometimes the pieces of the puzzle really don't assemble until you've let them bobble around in your head for a while.

I refer to the Speedweek.de article I discussed a while back that broke the news that next year's "spec" electronics will be code written by Honda, Yamaha and Ducati, and will be anything but rudimentary. It'll be pretty slick stuff.

What was odd was the timing. Speedweek mentioned that it was at the COTA round of MotoGP that Honda officials were heard to say that they were not trusting their machines and riders to an electronics suite that they didn't create, something that they had no control over. Elsewhere in that article, Speedweek said that Magneti Marelli had simply failed to come up with a system that worked.

In the most recent issue of Roadracing World magazine, none other than Nicky Hayden, who is riding the Open-spec Honda with the "spec" electronics written by Magneti Marelli, says that the system is so bad that the throttle was opening at one point on the track where he was trying to brake! His teammate, one of the Lavertys (how many of them are there?) had equally unkind things to say about the "spec" software.

It confirmed something that I'd heard from a rider in Superbike that I just found impossible to believe at the time. The rider commented that his bike, with MM electronics, was having the same problem as Hayden was having at the exact same spot on the track.

And suddenly, right about that time, Honda stamps its foot down and says, we're not putting Marquez on a bike with that crap - especially when we can do so much better ourselves.

Coincidence? Probably not.

Done And Dusted:


Imola, as mentioned, is one of the tracks where a quick rider on a slow bike can throw up a surprise performance. It also can be viewed as a test of a bike/rider combination's versatility. If you can win here and at the high-speed, horsepower-hungry Aragon, you have got the field covered over a wide range of circumstances. Check the history and look at, during the past five seasons, how rare it is for a rider to win at both tracks; more typically, the rider winning at one of those two tracks is at the bottom of (or off) the podium at the other.

Jonathan Rea won at Aragon. He won at Imola. He has won at every track the series has visited this season. He won yesterday when the race was reduced to a six-lap sprint and his bike was set up to come good at the end of a long stint.

Someone wrote long ago that the trick of winning an endurance race was to force the others to break trying to keep you in sight. That thought came to mind yesterday. Sykes sounds like he is resigned to second; the Ducatis blew up; the Aprilias struggled with braking issues; the Hondas continued their downward slide. Riders on the Aprilia, Honda and Ducati squads are recovering from crash-related injuries. Rea looks like he's barely trying hard.

To take the fight to anyone, you look for the weak spot in the armor. But at this point in the season, Rea does not appear to have any. And the others appear to be breaking just trying to keep him in sight.

Interesting to note that Kawasaki is the only manufacturer not distracted with MotoGP. Perhaps there is a benefit to focus. Just saying.

Showdown At Imola:


Sometimes a turning point is reached early in the season, and the rest of the races are merely running down to a conclusion that was reached long ago. Imola, to me, is one of those turning points. If the dominant team can win here, the season's all but done and dusted.

Why? Imola is one of those tracks where a good-handling but slow bike can turn very competitive lap times. It is a rider's track, a handling and braking track, and riders that typically aren't at the top of the charts can show better than their machine lets them show at other tracks.

So far, the ZX-10R in the hands of Jonathan Rea has stomped the competition this year. But the Ducati has shown signs of brilliance, helped by the new rules package. And the Italian squad has been fighting with one hand tied behind its back; Davide Giugliano has just come back from injury and put the Panigale on pole.

If Ducati can do well here, we are in for a good, competitive Kawasaki vs. Ducati season. If Rea doubles, it's all over but the shouting. I love the Imola round of the year.

P.S. Thoughts to Kenan Sofuoglu and family. His son is gravely ill. But one of the curses of this sport is that you show up to race, no matter what. Actors have understudies. Other athletes have second-stringers. In each case, the team forges on toward its goal. But if the rider doesn't show up, their championship chances take a beating. So Kenan is racing this weekend, getting off the bike every session to look at his phone and find out if his son is alive. You have to admire that level of dedication.

Factories And Courtesy:
Over at GPOne.com, Niccolo Canepa has let slip that Larry "The Worm" Pegram is looking for a way back into the AMA Pro Racing Paddock. With HERO and Erik Buell's relationship falling apart, Pegram found the floor beneath his Superbike World Championship effort collapsing.

But Pegram is smart, and is an effective promoter and team organizer. He's managed to keep himself on the grid in AMA Pro Racing during the toughest of times. That level of knowledge and experience has a value. And Pegram is shopping that value around.

Canepa says that Pegram is looking to put together a deal with Ducati or Honda to compete in the last four races of the 2015 AMA season. Pegram has raced both marques before. There's a reasonably good chance that he'll pull something off.

It would be very, very good for either or both of those teams to enter a factory effort into the AMA series. For the past decade, the racing has been very, very good at times. What has been lacking is the presence and attention-attracting marketing efforts of big companies. If the factories aren't interested in racing in a series, we as spectators kind of get the idea that it's not that big a deal. And that has indeed proven to be true.

The saddest part is the bitterness that Canepa is expressing toward Pegram and the former EBR team. Apparently, not only did Canepa not get paid, he didn't even get the courtesy of a phone call telling him the team had folded. Canepa has signed for a backmarker team in WSBK for the rest of 2015. As for his former team racing in the U.S., Canepa says, "I do not care." Too bad; it would have been cool to see Canepa flogging a Panigale in MotoAmerica competition.

You would think that Pegram, a racer himself, would behave better. But it's not the first time we've heard of people getting fired without notice in this paddock this year. Or people simply not living up to their responsibilities. Difficulties in business do not justify a lack of common courtesy.

Road Racing Mini-Thoughts, Post-Jerez:

- The more you know about this sport, the more there is to enjoy. As noted below, Argentina had exactly one pass for the lead, and you were on the edge of your seat for every one of the last 20 laps or so. And while some complained that Jerez was dull, I loved it. I watched every split time to see if Rossi was closing the gap on Marquez. Tenths, hundredths of a second mattered. Sorbo says it was exciting because we could understand what was happening. Maybe we wouldn't need a pile of success penalties and an ever-changing rulebook to enhance the "show" if people actually learned something about the sport. But the chances of that happening evoke cliches involving snowballs and the afterlife.

- Pull out your July 2005 issue of Roadracing World and turn to page 136. It's significant; it's one of Mat Oxley's first anti-technology diatribes. He predicts that future GP motorcycles will be ridden with wheels in line, no sliding, no wheelspin, and rider talent will become a tiny part of the equation. Oxley was right on one account; the modern GP machine is a technological marvel, probably beyond his wildest dreams at the time. But he could not have been more wrong about the visual spectacle of a GP bike being ridden at its limit and beyond. Two words, Mat: Marc Marquez.

- My friend KW writes: "That's cool you and Ed are doing a podcast Michael. I listened to your latest "effort". It's amazing you guys are up to 23 and Ed hasn't stabbed you in the neck with a pen yet. Also tell Ed le-suspension sounds French. Just saying." KW despises all things French. He will not eat French fries or French toast. If I hit the lottery, I am going to steal all of his cars in the middle of the night and replace them with Peugeots. On Michelins.

Redemption, Relief, Resignation:


A canonical teaching in interpersonal communication is that when the verbal and nonverbal communication conflicts, the nonverbal is usually the true message. Here's a brief read on the nonverbal communication in parc ferme after the Jerez MotoGP race of 2015:

- Relief: I've seen Marquez less enthusiastic after winning races. He and his team and the Honda factory guys were ecstatic. Finishing second with a hand injury at a track that tends to favor the Yamaha, taking points off of Rossi - every one in the Repsol paddock knew that they'd dodged a bullet. This was a big deal to them, and their smiles and body language showed just how big a deal it was.

- Resignation: Rossi and crew looked completely deflated. Sure, he clowned for the cameras later. But at the moment he pulled in, he looked beaten, and there was not a smile on the faces of any of his crew. Rationally, Rossi had just scored his 200th podium and extended his lead in the championship. But realistically, third of three real factory bikes means last. And he'd been beaten badly by his teammate and by a kid with a busted hand. The demeanor of Rossi and team afterward was not one of celebration, but of deep concern.

- Redemption: On the other end of the Yamaha garage, Lorenzo looked way, way too happy. He was celebrating like he'd won a title - the planting the flag, the fake jump in the lake, standing on the tank. Yes, he'd won. But he won at a track he knows intimately, in front of his home fans, on a bike that suited the track, even the cooler temperatures at race time suited the Yamahas. And it was exactly Lorenzo's kind of weekend - no challenges, nothing went the slightest bit wrong, he didn't have to battle for position. Lorenzo's over-reaction illustrated just how insecure he has become. The next few races will tell us whether Jerez is a turning point or an aberration for Jorge.

Hierarchy Of Needs:

 
Psychologist Abraham Maslow postulated in his human hierarchy of needs that at the top of the hierarchy are self-actualization needs - the need to realize personal potential and self-fulfillment by seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

"Peak Experiences" vary wildly from one bag of meat to the next. But racing is one of the ways I seek those peak experiences. And they don't just happen at the checkered flag or at the awards banquet. They can happen lap after lap.

Case in point:

Back at the track for the first time since I crashed in November, on the vintage R1 for the first time, I'm going slowly. I want to build up to a speed that makes me happy, where I'm just enjoying riding.

I have a crude-but-effective method of data acquisition. At most tracks, you can find a reference point exiting a corner that you can note with confidence, after you are sure you have made the corner and are pretty much at full throttle.

At Willow Springs, there is a cone at the exit of Turn Six. You crest the hill, the bike settles, then it's just gas and gears until you get to Turn Eight. Every lap, I would note the number on the speedometer as I passed that cone. It stayed the same for most of Friday and Saturday.

But late in the day, all I wanted was for that number to be one greater than the one displayed last time I went past that cone. And every time it happened - every time I eked out one more mile an hour - was a peak experience that delivered far more personal satisfaction that any rational explanation could offer.
HERO, Honda And World Dominance:

Honestly, it is no surprise that HERO, essentially, has pulled the plug on the EBR effort in the Superbike World Championship. It was hard to see what it had to gain by continuing, as Buell's company had shuttered its doors. If one of the key points of going racing is to sell bikes, and there's no bike to sell ..

I hate to be harsh, but I wonder how much of a role the EBR's poor performance at the world level had on the company's demise. There are a couple of reasons that I chose the photo above for this blog. One is because - damn. The other is that it's actually hard to find action shots of the EBR on even the World Superbike website! The fact is that the thing was not up to the level of competition. I know there were other factors - the financial straits of HERO are well-documented - but getting your ass beaten week-in, week-out cannot be a way to increase demand for your motorcycle. And what little exposure the EBR was getting tended to focus on the weekly ass-beatings. The pace of progress toward the front of the field was simply inadequate.

Honda?

A little research shows that Honda and HERO had a joint venture in India for a while. HERO entered the joint partnership, in part, to get access to Honda's technology. And that was NOT cheap; according to published reports, one of the reasons the joint venture fell apart was that the family that owns and runs HERO started to balk at the amount of royalties they were paying Honda.

We tend to think of companies like Honda and Yamaha going racing to sell motorcycles. But those companies learn something else of value when they go racing. They do R&D - and they build better engineers by making them do R&D. Their knowledge of motorcycle engineering and performance doesn't just go into their own bikes; they can sell that knowledge to other companies around the world - for very, very good money.

When Honda and Yamaha say they race to develop better technology and better engineers, that's not just marketing smoke and mirrors. That's a fact that is evident on the balance sheets.

Familiarity And Speed


Racers find speed through consistency (it's one of the reasons Sorbo and I like endurance racing so much). Little changes - even things that don't seem like they would matter at all - matter. Once you have become accustomed to something happening with the bike, tires, etc., it becomes an unconscious part of your riding. It is literally something you no longer consciously aware of. You anticipate something, it happens as anticipated, you respond and move on. None of this involves conscious thought. If you have to think about it, you're going slow.

I am thinking of this in the context of the performance disparity between Tom Sykes and Jonathan Rea on the factory Kawasakis in Superbike World Championship competition this year. Same bike, same tires, same, same, same. But you wouldn't know it from the results: Rea has won six of the eight races so far, Sykes has two third-place finishes.

One thought: 

There have been subtle changes in the WSBK rulebook for this season. Nothing spectacular, just enough to make the bike respond just a little differently. Sykes is on the bike he has ridden for years. He's not used to the little changes, and they may be so small that he can't consciously pinpoint what is different between this year and last - simply because so much of what he's doing is unconscious.

Rea is on an entirely different machine, after years on the Honda. He walked into this knowing that he had to make big changes in his relationship with the bike. Rea brought more of his conscious mind to the task of adapting, a task made - paradoxically - easier because the changes were so large and easy to detect.

Think about this next time you see a racer complaining about the seat foam.





Whither Lorenzo


I cannot shake this idea that Jorge Lorenzo's GP career may be over.

It's not that Jorge is any slower than he ever was. But for those of you who have long memories, think back to Silverstone 2013. Lorenzo was trying - trying hard - for pole. He put in a lap that he absolutely knew was over limit of his ability (and if that doesn't make sense to you, you've never raced - WSMC Overall Champion Karl Lowry once told me what he had done to make the break at the beginning of a Formula One race: "I put in about three laps over my limit, then I looked back to see if I had a gap," he said, or words to that effect.)

Anyway ...

Lorenzo had put in what he calls in the video below one of the best laps of his life. And while this video shows one reaction that he had, if you watch the full qualifying session, he comes in after that lap and his team shoves a tablet in front of him with laptimes - and he's not on top. A kid named Marquez is. His body language tells it all - his eyes roll, he throws his hands into the air. Lorenzo does not know what to do to beat this kid.

The rest of 2013 and 2014 showed that Lorenzo still doesn't know what to do to beat this kid.

Fast forward to 2015. Lorenzo is being hammered by stupid problems like his helmet. His teammate, the darling of the media, has completely overshadowed him. And this Marquez kid has won two titles on the trot.

Lorenzo's weakness always has been focus and motivation, not speed. And there is something to be said for success blunting your motivation - remember, Lorenzo is a two-time MotoGP champion and a multimillionaire. Look at Lorenzo's body language on the bike and in the pits. He looks like someone who is beaten, and has been that way for a while. Right now, he does not want to be there. You wonder how much longer he'll keep doing this job if he doesn't really want it - and someone else does.

As always, I could be wrong.


Force ...

For reasons known only to the Huths and the Lord him, her or itself, there is a row of Botts' Dots (lane change markers) along the inside edge of the pavement in Turn One at the Big Track at Willow Springs. If you are really getting it, you are likely doing well over 90 miles an hour at the apex of that turn. If you are tootling around like I was this weekend, I was likely doing 80 or so, with 95 coming up on the speedo at the exit of the corner.

 In trying to ride the big machine, I was trying to square off the corners a little more than on the SV and drive out. Long story short (too late) I smacked one of those Botts' Dots with my left knee slider. I've done it once before, and it tore the knee slider off. This time, it cracked it.

Go out to your garage and pick up one of your knee sliders. Try to bend it. Hit it with a hammer. Get a real feel for the force that it would take to make one of these things crack.

Racing and riding track days myself allows me to not just suspect, but to know, the forces at play in road racing a motorcycle. On TV, we see riders get up after crashes and walk away. We don't see the bruises, the little bone chips, the torn and twisted ligaments. Every crash hurts, and little injuries pile up. For those who have never raced, a crash is just bad gynmastics, a video humor routine for the "Fail" compilation.

Those of us with knee sliders in the garage know better.

p.s. 1: Got to play with the R1 on the track. First time back since my crash. Nice to know I still want to do it. Something is hard-wired in my brain ...

p.s. 2: Thanks to David at M Racing and Timothy Chin, an MWGP racer with a gorgeous ZX-10R, for subscribing.




Me and the 2002 R1. Race bodywork and race tires, otherwise just as it was on the street. Deeply satisfying ...

Spec Electronics: Dead, Yet Again ...


So a year ago everyone was supposed to have a single spec hardware and software in MotoGP, and the Internet geniuses were bleating about the end of electronics.

Fast forward to today, and turns out what is going to happen is that Honda, Yamaha and Ducati will write software jointly to basically whatever spec they jointly want. Wheelie, traction, slide control? Yep. All there.

Speedweek.de put together a nice package last week outlining what happened. If you read German, you can read the full story there. For those of us who don't, here are the highlights:

- Cost. Dorna paid Magneti Marelli for XXX number of hours to develop the spec software. Marelli wasn't even close when the contract hours were exhausted. Dorna didn't want to throw good money after bad.

- Complexity. Turns out that even the mighty Magneti Marelli couldn't come close to replicating what Honda, Yamaha and Ducati have done.

- Corruption (or the potential thereof). MotoGP's Director of Technology, Corrado Cecchinelli, worked for Ducati for 13 years. Honda and Yamaha are a bit suspicious that this guy's decisions on electronics might favor his old friends a bit (that, for the uninitiated, is understatement).

- Safety. Honda, in particular, does not want to put Marc Marquez on a bike controlled by electronics they did not develop.

So in the end, nothing really changes. It's for the best. Bans on, or limiting, electronic rider aids were always a solution in search of a problem, and the writers praising such efforts are merely pandering to the fondly-remembered nostalgia of certain fans.

Screw those ass pandas. I wanna see bad-ass hot rods.

Vive La Difference ...


The utterly thrilling MotoGP race in Argentina - and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Formula One race in Bahrain - came about not because the machines were the same, but because they were different.

Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi chose different tires. That put each on a different strategy. And that meant that you really didn't know who had the package that would get them to the finish line in the shortest period of time - which is how you win races.

There was, in this race, exactly one pass for the lead. But the whole race was a drama that built to a crescendo, culminating in a fascinating denouement.

It is interesting, to me, that motorcycle road racing has evolved into the only top-line motorsport that does not require pit stops during a race. You want to see more of what you saw in Argentina, all you need to do is one thing (which I've written about before here):

Mandate the use of two tire compounds per race.

The more spec the machines get, the fewer routes you can take to get to the front of the pack. That thriller yesterday happened precisely because of the variety of the machines, not because of their similarities.

More Ed, You Say? You Got It ...


Lots going on in the world of motorcycle road racing. Will hit a couple of topics very briefly and expand on them in the near future. Then there's a long discussion Ed and I had about endurance racing. But first:

- The philosopher George Carlin said, “I don't have pet peeves - I have major psychotic fucking hatreds.” Over at motomatters.com, MotoGP's Mike Webb is drawing praise for - actually doing his job! The website says that when Webb saw water on the track in Austin, he delayed the start, costing Dorna millions in TV penalty clauses around the world. What a load of shit. Any company broadcasting live outdoor sporting events has insurance that covers losses in such cases. And praising Webb for doing his job, given his track record - the words of the philosopher Chris Rock come to mind: "What do you want, a cookie, you low-expectation-having motherfucker ..."

- Speedweek.com is reporting that Honda and Yamaha, along with Ducati, will actually write the software code for next year's "spec" MotoGP electronics. For you, the loyal readers of MotorBike RoadRacing, this will come as exactly no surprise at all.

- EBR is closing its doors. Thoughts for Erik.

OK, on to more Ed. Enjoy:

Endurance Racing: What Happened?

Ed Sorbo:

In 1986 my friends in Hawaii and I pooled our resources, shipped a  
bike over to the mainland and raced in the WERA National Endurance  
Series as Team Hawaii. Our endeavors grew over the years to include  
Team Hawaii Too, seven 24-hour races and many four- and six-hour races  
mixed in with sprint races at shared events. In 1990 we were high  
enough in the National points that we were guaranteed a starting spot  
at each event. This was important because there was always a waiting  
list, the grids were full all season with 40 bikes lined up for a  
chance to charge around for hours on end.

Fast forward to now. What the hell happened?

Used to be it was easy to find someone who would share a bike so maybe  
rising bike costs are part of the problem. Used to be that you could  
crash your steel-framed bike numerous times, whack the bars back into  
alignment, get re-teched on pit lane and just keep racing. Used to be  
you could work on your bike during a red flag…

Michael Gougis:

Dude, it's not even sharing a bike that's the big problem. When I  
helped start the racing series at Chuckwalla, we incorporated a  
one-hour tag-team event. You could let your friend race his or her  
bike for their leg, then you could do your leg on your machine. The  
freakin' races even had a small cash purse for the teams on the  
podium. The first race, you had to swap transponders. The ones after  
that, you didn't even need to do that - just come into the pits, tag  
your teammate and they'd speed off.

Grids - miniscule.

I wrote the rules for an endurance race Shandra Crawford staged at  
Willow back in 2010. It was just a four-hour.

Grids - miniscule.

I've got one thought as to what happened. With the rising average age  
of racers, fewer were willing to put in the effort of riding that long  
at a time. Part of the reason I've done as well as I have at the Solo  
20-lap races at Willow and elsewhere is that so many other riders  
simply didn't train or prepare mentally to ride for a measly 20 laps.

I think that a culture of six-lap sprint races has left the average  
club racer's body and brain unwilling to try. And let's put this into  
perspective: A 20-lap race at Willow is five laps SHORTER than the  
25-lap AMA Superbike National that took place at the track in 1998.  
But 20 laps is considered an "endurance" race? Huh?

Sorbo:

I agree, Solo 20 is not an endurance race, it’s extra Saturday  
practice.  You’re on to something with the six-lap culture.  I’ve seen  
fast club guys show up at Pro races and only practice for their normal  
club amount of practice time. I never even saw them in the race.

Endurance racing is more work than sprint racing. It takes a different  
outlook and has different goals. It teaches different skills by  
rewarding consistency and planning above outright speed.  It is  
therefore the best way to train. Ask Josh Hayes how many laps he did  
on Team Hammer endurance bikes.

Problem is very few people start out with endurance racing like I did.  
They need to be shown how good it is for them.  At this point any club  
is taking a big risk scheduling an endurance race because most people  
won’t sign up.

In defense of the non endurance wimps, a modern bike with modern tires  
is a much faster combination than the bikes and tires of the eighties  
and nineties and therefore is more work to ride longer. However, that  
is all the more reason to work on consistency.

Whatever shall we do?

Gougis:

Ed, you're wrong, and here's why: It's not harder to ride a modern  
bike than a bike from the 80s. People used to follow me into the pits  
when I raced a GPz550 and ask me what was wrong with the bike, because  
it looked perfectly evil out there - and I was like, what are you  
talking about? That's normal!

I'm not sure it has anything to do with the machines. I think it's the  
generation of riders raised on an 18-minute track day session diet -  
and many of whom can't even make it through a session. Add to that a  
lack of an understanding as to why the club (or even pro organization)  
should offer such races, and the expense involved in doing it, and the  
fact that a club operator figures they can cram three sprint races  
into the space of a one-hour team challenge, and you've got an  
explanation as to the demise of the discipline.

The fix comes in small doses. CMRA runs Solo 30 and Team 60 races.  
They don't do it every round, but when there's time on the schedule,  
they slot them in. Those racers are using the shorter endurance races  
to get ready for the sprints - check out the names atop the points  
tables. And those racers are better prepared for not just the sprints,  
but for the full 4-, 6- and 8-hour endurance races. Moto West Grand  
Prix ran Solo 20 races in 2014. Ron Cole ran them and you could see  
him improve from weekend to weekend. By the end of the year, he was on  
the podium in the expert Formula One races.

The fact is that endurance racing makes better sprint racers - at  
least at the club level. Clubs could market that fact to their racers,  
give them just a bit of a break on the entry fee, and look for  
sponsors to back the races (I'd go with tire and oil companies,  
myself). When I say a break on entry fees, say for a 60-minute  
tag-team race, charge the team the cost of two sprint races. The club  
might be able to run three sprints during that period, so charging for  
two is a bit of a discount.

And stick with it. It doesn't pay off immediately. But I can tell you  
that I know of people who aren't sprint racing on Sundays because they  
no longer get to do long races on Saturdays.

Sorbo:

Dude, you get way too much enjoyment out of saying I’m wrong.  Faster  
bikes are harder to ride than slower bikes.  Lots of reasons why  
endurance racing has bottomed out.  We agree that endurance racing is  
good for you like fluoridated water, vaccinations and the scientific  
approach.

That crazy club based in Texas is doing good stuff with endurance  
races, the mini clubs in SoCal are doing a good amount of endurance  
including true endurance racing, 24 Hours.

The fix is as easy as getting McDonalds to bring back the McRib.  Vote  
with your dollars.  Enter every endurance race you can.  Explain to  
your friends why they should team up with you.  You think tires will  
cost too much?  Use track day tires, they cost less and last longer,  
less pit stops and the whole point is to work on your consistency.

What I Should Have Said ...


In a recent podcast, I mentioned the Mick Doohan qualifying thing. I knew I was getting some of the details wrong, but the idea was correct.

Still, it sent me looking back over the 'net for the details. It happened at Assen in 1998. Here's the back story: Simon Crafar is on pole so far. The session is red-flagged because of a fire in pit lane. There is 2:12 left before the session ends. The lap record around Assen - the long version - is about 2:02. There is a crowd of bikes at the end of pit lane when the track goes green again.

All Doohan has to do is slice his way through the crowd of riders and put in an out lap from a standing start that's within 10 seconds of the lap record. If he does this, then he gets one flying lap to try to snatch pole.

This is, remember, at the track where he crashed and broke his leg so badly that he nearly left the country a crippled amputee.

For Mick, just another day at the office. Enjoy the video:

http://www.gaskrank.tv/tv/racing/legendaerer-kampf-zwischen-mic-7059.htm 

A Glimmer Of Hope ...


Couple of thoughts from the Superbike World Championship round at Aragon:

- The last-lap suicide dive pass into the last corner at Aragon from more than 190 miles an hour is one of the best moments of the World Superbike season. It came in Race One this time, and it's always one of those events that you don't realize how intense it is until you start to breathe again ..

- If the Ducati was so competitive at a track where it traditionally gets its V-twins handed to it on a platter, might we see a performance adjustment later this season, when we get to "Ducati" tracks and the bike smokes everyone else?

- The Kawasaki, Aprilia and BMW used to own Aragon. What a difference a year, a lack of factory interest and a few changes in the rules make. Honda is really struggling ...

- P.J. Jacobsen led two laps of the Supersport race. He's the first U.S. racer to lead a lap on a WSBK weekend since Spies. I think he's the first U.S. racer to lead a race at any WSBK or GP weekend since Spies. Ouch. P.J. is a real pro, though, and might be our best hope in a while ...

- And ... I realized what bugs me most about the success penalties concessions in MotoGP. At no point in 2015 do all the machines have to compete on equal terms. If the idea is to equalize things, at some point everyone must be running to the same rules. But Ducati, Suzuki or Aprilia can win all the rest of the races, and they still get to keep their advantages over Honda and Yamaha.
The "H" Word ...


After Qatar, the common bleat on the 'net was that Marquez showed he was human.

Many people are eating that word after qualifying today. Broken bike, run down pit lane to backup bike with wrong tire, mistakes big and small on the one flying lap he did - and pole and new track record.

To an Alien, "human" probably isn't a compliment. Maybe Marc got sick of hearing it ...

Speed And Spain ...

 
Looking at the qualifying results at Aragon, you start to see why some in the World Superbike paddock are complaining about the last-minute change to the rules allowing the Ducatis to remove their intake restrictors.

Over the past few years, the strength of the Ducati was in its handling and grunt. The 1098R would get slaughtered on the long straights, but kicked butt on handling circuits. A good rider (we hope you're well, King Carlos!) could ride the thing well enough that even at circuits with long straights, he could keep it at the front.

The Panigale - well, its riders say it handles great right up to the moment that it pitches you onto the ground. But it has been closing in on the top speed front. At Aragon, which is all about speed, Chaz Davies just qualified second. Teammate Xavi Fores, filling in for the injured Davide Giugliano, was fifth in his first Superpole ever. The top speed traps show the Panigale absolutely on par with the four-cylinder machines.

Just saying that tomorrow's races might not be the Aprilia/Kawasaki parade they were expected to be.

Also, a shout out to Ayrton Badovini. Thrown onto the BMW Italia S1000RR at the last moment, the experienced Italian - who's ridden a S1000RR in three of his last four seasons, but who was on a Panigale last season - capitalized on Aragon's top speed orientation, putting the underdeveloped beast into sixth. Nice ...

Time ...

... is the medium in which we all live. It's on my mind today because:

- ... of the story of Geoff May. Nothing can make the death of Dane Westby less of a tragedy. But the family moving forward is heartening, and putting May on the bike for the AMA's 1000 Superstock class was just awesome. May was a rider without a ride, a guy who used to have an image and/or personality problem, depending on who you spoke to in the paddock. Someone with better 'net search skills than I can probably find the embarrassing pages-long and now-deleted thread on the WERA BBS bashing the guy's wife. May sucked it up, survived a gruesome year on the World Superbike circuit on the EBR, and raised his own money to race the Daytona 200 this year. He put it on pole. He said he wanted to prove he still deserved a ride, that he still knew how to race. And now he has that ride.

- ... it's Nicky Hayden's 200th GP. I hope he's still making a pile of money and having fun at what can be one of the hardest jobs in the world.

- ... Cameron Beaubier looks like a real threat to Josh Hayes in AMA Superbike racing this year. Age catches us all, even those who appear to be immune. Is it time Hayes will meet a real challenge within his own team?

- ... I am aware that age is catching up with me, too. But time is the only resource that we have that is infinitely finite. So my hands aren't fully healed from the last crash. So I'm utterly swamped with my real job, and I blew up my van and am driving an old Honda Accord. It doesn't matter - it's all about being on the grid when I can, simply because I still enjoy riding a motorcycle at speed (and I bought a Suzuki Bandit 1200 for a street ride - talk about speed! Woo-HOO!) Above is the bodywork for my R1 at the painter. I'm doing track days and a few Solo distance races this year because - one day I won't be able to.

The Beast From Bologna, And The Problem With Success Penalties Concessions ...


It is important to listen to the soldiers on the front lines. When the Ducati GP15 showed up at pre-season testing, none other than Marc Marquez started to talk about what a threat the bike would be. Being someone who actually races next to the Ducs on the track, he could spot things that we sitting on the sidelines couldn't.

Slowly, the universe of racing observers is catching on to something that I've been writing about for a few weeks now: The combination of Gigi, the Andrea Twins and a big head start in the rulebook is a real threat for race wins and not nearly as long a longshot for the title as some might think.

The argument in support of the concessions granted to Ducati, Suzuki and Aprilia was that when they started to be competitive, the concessions would go away. But the reality is that they won't, or not in a way that matters. 

No matter how many wins the Duc takes this year, it always will be allowed to carry more fuel than Honda or Yamaha. No matter how many wins Ducati takes this year, it always will be able to run 12 engines and develop those engines all year, as opposed to five per rider for Honda and Yamaha. And while testing for Honda and Yamaha is highly restricted, Ducati can test all it wants, no matter how many times it wins. All Ducati (or Suzuki or Aprilia) lose, under the current rules, is a qualifying tire and two liters of fuel they don't need, no matter how many times they win.

Trying to balance performance always, always opens the door to controversy. Watch for a full-blown handbags-at-dawn outbreak in about three races.

The sad thing is that Gigi doesn't need extra engines or more fuel to create a truly competitive racebike. The guy put together a team and a bike that is the real deal. But every time the Duc wins, the win will be marked with an asterisk in the minds of many fans as a win that the company and rider didn't earn, but was handed them by a rulebook designed by a company trying to sell a "show."

p.s. Go Nicky ...

Maybe Stuart Higgs Needs To Experience A Highside At Coppice ...


If a race series decided to offer a bonus - say, $1000 per race - for any rider who agreed to give up the protection of a full-face helmet and race in a 3/4 helmet with a clear shield, most race fans would, I think, be furious. The concept sounds so grotesque and morbid that it would be a non-starter. Imagine the outcry if the series simply banned full-face helmets and mandated the DOT-legal half-helmets popular with the cruiser crowd. Most of us would find such a regulation just - sick.

So why aren't those fans upset with race series that ban traction control?

Watch the first BSB race at Donington Park from last weekend. There were more highsides in that race than in three MotoGP weekends. Thankfully, everyone got up. But every time I saw someone get flicked through the air and slammed to the ground, sometimes at triple-digit speeds, I couldn't help think that the system on a box-stock Kawasaki ZX-6R probably would have prevented that crash.

I really wonder how much longer BSB can or will hold out on its no-traction-control policy. Personally, I think that the policymakers, like Stuart, BSB series and race director, should be forced to highside a motorcycle at more than 100 miles an hour, then decide on a TC ban.

TC is no longer magic or unobtanium. It's a safety measure nowadays, as leathers, body armor and Airfence are. And while some "fans" think it's "better" for racebikes to not have such rider aids, I can't help but notice they're not the ones on the bikes. There are well-known motorcycle racing writers on the 'net who are totally opposed to electronic rider aids and who have never raced a lap in their lives.

Maybe we can get them and Higgs on that Ducati MotoGP two-seater and give them the triple-digit highside experience.

Not only do I race, but pro racers aren't just blips on a TV screen for me. They're my personal friends as well as members of my extended racing family. I shipped off pictures yesterday of a young racer to his dad; I've known the family for years. My entertainment isn't worth increasing the risk of tragedy to that family with the ban on a simple, effective safety mechanism.

One last thought: If a lack of electronica is designed to make for closer racing, watch the first race at Donington, and tell me how well that's working out. What a snooze ... 

Racing For Life, Or Why I Like Kiyo ...


Ryuichi Kiyonari's life sounds like something out of a novel set in ancient times. As a child, he got to play around on motocross bikes like other kids do. But when he was still a child, he was sent to the castle to learn how to spend his life as a warrior in defense of the kingdom. 

In this case, the warrior training taught him how to live his life as a professional motorcycle road racer. 

The kingdom was the empire of Honda Motor Corporation.

At the age of 9 - that's nine freaking years old - he was enrolled in the Suzuka Racing School junior program, the first student of that racing academy. He spent four years there. While you were reading comic books and deeply concerned about the hair growing in places where there wasn't hair before, Kiyo was being trained in the art of knighthood on the battlefield of a road course.

Kiyo graduated in 1995 at the age of 13. For those of you missing a digit and the ability to count, that's 20 years, or two decades, ago. He served his lord Honda ably, winning in World Superbike, filling in where needed in MotoGP, and ripping the British Superbike series a new one, winning the title there three times.

Of course, the analogy goes only so far. He's not actually sworn his soul to Honda. So when Honda didn't offer him the ride he wanted, he shopped his services elsewhere.

For today's British Superbike races, Kiyo is on a BMW.

And on pole.

There's something to be said for commitment and dedication to an ideal and a lifetime of sacrifice in pursuit of excellence.

Oh yeah. Reason #2: Best helmet design ever. I loved my Kiyo rep from Shoei. Worst part of the crash in Vegas all those years ago was destroying this helmet ...





Sanity And Electronics ...




The 2016 rules at least drive the final nail into the coffin of the idea that somehow Dorna was going to be in control of the electronics for the MotoGP machines. Faced with the Handjob and Whiskey Dilemma (see "Words Archive" tab, very bottom) the promoters acquiesced.

In a brilliant job of face-saving, the rules still say that all bikes must start with the same ECU and same software. But the way it will work is this: If Honda, Yamaha and Ducati all want the software changed, Dorna MUST give them the change they seek. If Dorna wants to change the software, ANY of those three can veto the change.

Sure, it's spec software in name. But it will start with nearly every functionality now available to the Factory bikes. And it will only get better and more sophisticated as time goes on. What will happen is that the different manufacturers will see things they want, all will agree on a package that meets all of their needs, and they will demand all of those changes, even the ones a given manufacturer doesn't need.

The pointless Luddite crusade against electronic rider aids was based on a premise advanced by some that manufacturers were choosing not to participate in MotoGP because the electronics were too advanced. But the manufacturers - at least Honda, Yamaha and Ducati - were very happy to keep pushing development along these lines, as was Aprilia and Kawasaki in World Superbike.

The real conflict with electronic rider aids was with "fans" who simply didn't understand them, objected to "computer nerds" infiltrating the realm of "manly men" who fixed racebikes with sledgehammers, not laptops, and who missed the days when Rossi won everything.

It is only a matter of time before the three manus with voting power come to the point where all of them will want to include ABS on their MotoGP machines. BMW already runs such a system on their World Endurance racebikes. And I can't wait. Having ridden machines with crappy ABS, I would LOVE to have an ABS system that has been tested and refined in the brutal realm of MotoGP competition.

You Say Concessions, I Say Success Penalties ...


Dorna, the FIM and the MSMA have finalized the rules for the 2016 season. Part of the debate, the reason it took so long, was that the parties understood the need for a single set of rules for the MotoGP class. Factory, Factory With Concessions, Open, CRT, it was hard to know who was riding on what tire, how much fuel they had to burn, etc., and it was hard to compare the performance of two riders, let alone explain to someone else what was going on. Read the comments on any racing fan forum and it's clear that even people who are racing fans don't understand who is racing under what set of rules and why.

The need for a single set of rules is clear.

Yet MotoGP's bosses failed to accomplish this simple goal.

For 2016, the series will adopt a "concession point" system. I'll spare you the sick details. It works like this: The worse you perform, the more fuel you get, the more testing you get, you get different tires. The better you perform, the more your opposition gets to ignore the rulebook.

It's a stunt like reversing the qualifying order, or picking grid slots out of a hat. In some car racing series, it works a little differently - the more you win, the more weight you are forced to carry. They keep piling weight on until you start to lose. So that means that all your hard work, all the effort of your driver, ensures that at some point during the season, you will go to the grid with no chance to win.

Nice reward for hard work.

Most of us think of NASCAR as the lowest form of motorsport pandering to an attention-challenged audience. But not even NASCAR stoops to success penalties. Jesus.

Intergalactic Specicide, Rugby And Motorcycle Road Racing ...


So the other day, I caught a few minutes of rugby on the TV. To the untrained observer, it looks like one of the silliest sports on the planet. Curling looks more evolved than rugby. Perhaps it is my U.S. sports-based bias, but to be honest, I think NFL football is just as silly as rugby.

Anyway ...

The reason I'm writing about it here is I think that rugby might be the end of life on this planet. If an alien species were to detect radiation created by nuclear powerplants and warheads on this planet, and sent someone in a spacecraft to investigate, they might stumble across rugby.

Now, ask yourself: If you found a species that had created nuclear weapons but still thought rugby was a neat idea, what would you think of that species' level of sanity?

Exactly. If I were said intergalactic scout, and I observed the simultaneous existence of nuclear weapons and rugby on a planet, I'd probably blast said planet to kingdom come on the spot. No telling what kind of damage those lunatics might do with their nuclear weapons if they ever got out of their solar system.

But ...

If said intergalactic scout stumbled across motorcycle road racing, we'd be in good shape. Any vehicle that can cross the distances involved in intergalactic travel has got to be one seriously bad-ass hot rod. And the pilot of something like that - I don't care if it is covered with slime and has tentacles and gills. The pilot would see a MotoGP bike and recognize it for what it is - a seriously bad-ass hot rod. That pilot would settle back and watch a contest of speed that he, she or it could completely relate to. As Sorbo says, no one has to explain motorcycle road racing to an F-22 pilot.

These are the kinds of philosophical ramblings that keep me from teaching at the good schools ...

I Don't Run HRC, But If I Did ...

Perhaps the biggest news to come out of Qatar was the revelation of the extent of Dani Pedrosa's physical difficulties. They may very well be career-ending. And that is huge news because it has been years since an Alien has looked at retiring, and when one did (Stoner) another was waiting in the wings - and if you really were shocked at the way Marquez took the MotoGP class by storm, well, I hope the rock you were living under was air-conditioned, or at least cheap in terms of rent.

Anyway ...

- Dani, please consider retiring. You're a multi-millionaire. Honda loves you, because you've been a stellar employee all these years. Any project you want to pursue in the paddock will have HRC's backing. You are still, on your day, as fast as anyone on the planet. And as Ed puts it, you can still wipe your own butt.

- If Dani needs to take a break, temporary or permanent, who to put on the bike? Livio Suppo says HRC test rider Hiroshi Aoyama is ready to step in if necessary. But I think that's missing an opportunity. Think about it: The next race is in the U.S. The only U.S. rider on the grid is Nicky Hayden. His team is having sponsorship difficulties; they'd be happy to have someone take a rider salary off of their hands for a few races. Hayden is riding a Honda, gets part of his salary from Honda, has ridden for the factory team and won races and a title for Honda. He won't embarrass the team, and the publicity factor would be amazing (see Bayliss, Ducati and Phillip Island a month ago).

- Sadly, Dean Adams over at Superbikeplanet.com is still so bitter over Pedrosa's crash in 2006 that even during one of Dani's darkest personal moments, he still can't resist taking shots at the guy. Jesus, Dean, you've become the Donald Trump of the motojournalism world. It's an embarrassment. I recommend you spend a moment and Google the most famous words of Joseph Nye Welch, Dean, and ponder them for a moment or two ...  

A Public Apology To Gigi, Or Why You Should Probably Always Listen To Ron Dennis ...


Being an experienced racer, I have learned to always have an excuse/rationalization/reason ready and at hand. In this case, I will simply say that every time I was bashing Ducati's cojones for not bringing its new machine out earlier, I would always qualify the nut-crunching by saying that McLaren head Ron Dennis always believed in stretching the design and thinking time to the very last second, maximizing the amount of thought that went into a new machine.

I thought Gigi's approach at Ducati was insanely risky. And it was; he left the intro of the GP15 so late that the company had exactly one shot at getting it right at the season opener. As deadlines approached, he kept his cool and held to the course that he had chosen. Nerves of steel, this guy.

But there is absolutely no denying the fact that the GP15 just flat works. On pole in its first outing, a double-podium in its first race, a missile in a straight line and fast on used tires. There's a reason Dovi and Crazy Joe are smiling, and have been since the first time they threw a leg over the GP15.

This year, they have a real racebike.

Roll On, 2015 ...


What better way to start the season than to put our predictions on the line? Here's an email conversation that Sorbo and I had a while back ...
MOTOGP IN 2015:


Ed Sorbo:



I think 2015 will be another mind boggling year of MotoGP racing. The unanswerable question is who will win. The four Aliens have the speed to win. They all work hard, understand how to find the best set up, communicate well with their team. They all make good strategic and tactical decisions - in other words, they are chess masters sitting still and going 200 mph.

During the off season, the stage will be set by unnamed gear heads and geeks. By staffers, planners and drivers. By the changes the riders make in their training. By the support given by family, friends and significant others.

Who is the most motivated? Who learned the most useful new thing near the end of 2014? Who will have the most luck?

Don't underestimate the effect of the gear heads and geeks. We are in a new era of bikes with more power than they can use. If the code is wrong and the bike can't hook up or the cuts are too big, there is little any rider can do in that race but ride for points.

I say Dani Pedrosa. Most will pick Marquez, I understand that, I love how Lorenzo rides and I want the old guy to win as much as any other AARP member. But Dani knows he has to step it up. He made a big change to his team. You can be sure he is motivated and has changed his off season approach. His racing family knows this too, they will be working and thinking just as hard. Don't judge a book by it's
cover, put away your anger over that mistake years ago, look for the guy with the drive.

Open class: Nicky Hayden. His wrist is fixed. His bike will be much faster and he has the drive too.

Michael Gougis:

Ed: You couldn't be more wrong.

In terms of motorsport, 2014 might have been the biggest ass-kicking of modern times. Of four people on roughly equal, front-line competitive machines (the Honda and Yamaha factory bikes) one guy took 72 percent of the wins.

He beat his teammate on the same bike 13-1. During the "bad" part of his season, he won more races than anyone. During the "bad" part of his season, he won as many races as Dani Pedrosa (the third-winningest rider in MotoGP history) and Valentino Rossi - combined. He beat Rossi by the number of wins - 11 - from Rossi's best year, which last happened a decade ago!


And this is nothing new. He dominated the 125cc class when he rode there. He demolished the Moto2 class of "equal" machines. By the end of his Moto2 career, race organizers were making up reasons to make him start from the back of the grid. I didn't know the MotoGP rulebook forbid wearing white shoes after Labor Day. He didn't give two craps - he would just slice his way through from the back and win.


Marc Marquez has more of the one thing that matters more than anything in racing - speed. He has had this advantage in every class he's raced in, over several seasons. And nothing that racing has thrown at him over the course of several years has fazed him. Most of the time, he is riding with speed in hand, waiting for the right moment to simply pull away from the best riders in the world.


Predicting anyone other than Marquez to win is like predicting a shift in the orbit of the Earth tomorrow. Not saying it won't happen, but based on the evidence at hand ...

Sorbo:


MG, you ignorant slut:

No problem being more wrong, picking anyone outside the Aliens would do just fine for that.

MM has been winning, we all saw that. He looks set to continue. Step out on a limb and pick the guy at the top of his game, you are in the majority. I’m not saying he will slow down. I think he will be faster and stronger than ever. But it’s harder to take big risks when you have a big advantage, you have more to lose.

Pedrosa has the least to lose, he has the speed, the bike and a new crew. He knows what he needs to improve, the first third of the race.



Buy popcorn in the economy size bag. Turn the volume up to eleven. Lets get ready to bask in the reflected glory of what these humans will do.

Gougis:


Who you calling ignorant?

It's not just the record. It's the margin, the gap that the opposition has to close. I'm looking forward to, say, this year's Superbike World Championship, because the rules have been gerrymandered to try to get a Ducati into the winner's circle - and quickly. There's a change in the machinery that could - potentially - shake up the order.


Similarly, in AMA Pro Road Racing, the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 has been not too far off the pace of the Yamaha YZF-R1. The first few races will tell the tale, because if the Yamaha guys are off their game just a bit as they work with the new bike, the Suzuki guys will pounce. You don't ever underestimate a Hayden in leathers. And the existing gap is small.

But in MotoGP for next year, there is a huge gap between Marquez and the rest that would have to be closed for things to be different. And the rules are the same, tires are pretty much the same, and the machines and riders remain unshuffled - with the possible exception of Ducati finally figuring out how to get a bike to turn.

With so little change to the elemental components, it's hard to see the final amalgam looking much different.

Sorbo:


Rules, data, cams and gears, computer code, all important, true. None of that has heart, drive, determination, emotion. Multiply that feeling by the crew, the staff, family, the desk clerk who says “Go get 'em” as you walk out the door on the way to the track and you have the power to change the world.

The gap per lap between MM and the other three is small. They don’t have to beat him like he did to them. Only one of them as to earn just one more point than MM does.

Either we will see another exciting repeat of last year or we will see the wins spread out evenly between all four. I see the battle coming down to the last round with three of them in with a chance for the title and one spoiler trying to help his team mate, if that team mate has been nice to him.

Pedrosa is the Little Engine That Could.

Future Thinking ...

Floating around the web in various other languages is a recent interview with Carlos Esmerelda, or whatever the Dorna head's name is. He talks about his vision for MotoGP's future, and it's interesting, if not rooted in reality.

Ezpeleta says that from 2017 on, MotoGP will have six manufacturers on the grid - Honda, Yamaha, Ducati, Suzuki, Aprilia and KTM. He wants long-term contracts with each to provide bikes for four riders per season. Two will be factory machines, two will be satellite machines built to a price. 

Dorna will provide financial support to the satellite teams in some fashion. If one manufacturer doesn't want to build a satellite machine, or their satellite machine stinks, a satellite team can go to another manufacturer, which can build up to six bikes.

Not bad in theory. And the reality is that once you accept the idea that a satellite machine doesn't have to be a potential race-winner, it should be easy enough for any factory involved to build a customer bike. Ducati's year-old stuff is plenty good enough to get you on the grid, as is the bargain Honda customer machine.

Two things:

- If the factories are agreeing to build and support that many machines, they will have significantly more say in the rules. Expect a bigger gap between factory bikes and non-factory machines.

- The biggest challenge will be how to keep a manufacturer involved who doesn't want to be there. If Aprilia keeps making up the last row of the grid, how long will it stay? And contracts are made to be broken, or at least modified. Kawasaki was contracted to provide a machine to MotoGP, and did so with the absolute minimum effort with the Hayate.

The fact is that the grid-fillers usually have come from one or two manufacturers. If they're geared up to produce four bikes, and suddenly they need to make eight or 10, you're in trouble.

Funny Money ...



Motorcycle racing is an excellent way to deliver an audience of motorcycle enthusiasts to an advertiser. But given the limited appeal of the sport, there's almost always another way for an advertiser to reach the motorcycle enthusiast for less money. 

The single critical exception is when you are advertising motorcycle-related products. Those folks have been the most stalwart supporters of the sport, aside from the recent influence of some international energy drink companies. Monster and Red Bull have been solid; others far less so.

Today's news brings reports of two more teams losing their title sponsors. 

Aspar has lost Drive M7, a small energy drink company, leaving the team in the lurch hours before the Qatar MotoGP round starts. It's not a big surprise; it was hard to see what an expensive international promotion campaign (which is what sponsoring a MotoGP team is) was doing for what was, realistically, a local product, unless I wanted to order it on the Internet and have it delivered to my home. Kind of hard to justify when I can buy all the energy drinks I want at the local dollar store, usually for well under a dollar a can.

It was, interestingly, even less of a surprise that the London-based CWMFX foreign exchange trading firm has bailed, although apparently it has happened less than voluntarily. Authorities raided the company, arrested a bunch of people and charged them with various offenses. LCM Honda, reportedly, has had to remove the CWMFX.COM logos from its bikes and transporter at the last minute. This had to smell suspicious from the beginning; why would a foreign exchange trading firm want to advertise its services to the audience watching MotoGP?

This all follows the collapse of JR Racing in the Superbike World Series, where an investor allegedly trying to generate publicity for a proposed racetrack in the Dominican Republic had formed a squad to race BMWs in the series. The team manager recently held a news conference announcing that the financiers had not provided "a cent" to the team.

The common thread? All of these sponsors were from outside of the world of motorcycle road racing and motorcycle manufacturing and support. Inside-the-industry companies can justify their support of teams because there is no more cost-effective way for them to reach the very specific audience of motorcycle enthusiasts who purchase motorcycle stuff. Outside-the-industry companies have a million ways to "brand" themselves and "build image." They tend to not stick around for long.

Just another painful lesson not yet learned by those who still, somehow, insist that pro-level racing simply needs a good marketing manager and all of its ills will be solved.

- Thoughts to Dane Westby's extended family, and that means damned near everyone in the AMA paddock. A nice guy who wanted to race, and did it to the best of his ability.

Thoughts From Thailand, or The PATA Alumni Posse ...

Ruminations from the World Superbike round at the Chang International Circuit:

- Put a professional racer on a slow but good-handling machine for a long time and they will get better and better as a rider. By that I mean they will be able to ride closer to the limit, brake harder, and develop better throttle skills. Proof of this theory, I believe, is in the performance so far this year of the PATA Honda World Superbike Team graduating class of 2014 - Jonathan Rea and Leon Haslam. Saddled with the relatively uncompetitive Honda for several seasons, the pair honed their riding skills by pushing the machine over its limits, week after week. And having been handed competitive mounts this season, they have locked out the top two spots on the podium for the first four races of the year. Impressive.

- Fast tracks make for better racing. This track was stop-and-go. The racing sucked.

- The Ducati has definitely closed the top speed gap to the fours, clocking just 2.5 miles an hour slower than the fastest of the Aprilias and almost exactly on par with the rest of the pack. It was interesting to watch Haslam trying to pass Chaz Davies on the straight, and the Aprilia having to work hard to pull it off - something that would have been unthinkable a couple of seasons ago.

- Thanks, Troy Bayliss, for coming out to play. You gave us geezers the absolute luxury of reasonably hoping for a miracle, being able to root for the impossible, for a couple of weeks, and to toss around an old Bayliss tale or two. Excellent!

Haaaang On Nicky, Nicky Hang On  ...


So far, it's been business as usual for the Drive M7 Aspar squad of Nicky Hayden in MotoGP. They are a small team, Nicky gets some money from various sources to keep the U.S. flag in MotoGP, and they put together a professional operation that can't hang with the full factory squads or the satellite teams. They are a true customer team, and that means they develop the bikes themselves.

Last year, that was good enough to fight around the bottom of the Top 10. It looks to be a little tougher this year, as there are more factory bikes in the equation, and the Ducati is a lot better. Nicky was 16th in the last Qatar test session, about 1.2 seconds off the pace. (By the way, if there are 16 bikes within 1.2 seconds, the racing promises to be excellent. That's World Superstock grouping.)

But ...

Midway through the season, the factories hit a deadline for developing their own electronics software. They will transition to the system that will be used next year. That system already is in place on Nicky's customer Honda; that team will be using it this year and into the future. It requires optimization that the Drive M7 Aspar team can't afford to do.

Next year, all machines get 22 liters of fuel, up from 20 for the factory squads. HRC will need race teams this year to test fuel consumption vs. power in race conditions. Nicky's customer bike races under Open rules and gets 22 liters this year.

Point is, HRC will need to start devoting its attention to next year's machines sooner rather than later. They will need data. Expect to see more and more HRC engineers dropping by the Drive M7 Aspar garage to upload a software tweak or two as the season progresses.

Hang in there, Nicky.

Cool Stuff ...


Little cool things that I've noticed in the racing world:

- A sign of the future: Kawasaki has filed for U.S. patents for a mass-production electric motorcycle. Laugh all you want, but I've talked to people who've ridden the 155-mph Energica, and I know people who know things about the battery industry. These bikes are getting more and more serious, and you're going to start seeing them on more and more racetracks. I've been fortunate enough to work on some stories on the Formula E single-seat racecar series, and I know just how serious those guys are. I doubt electric bikes will ever completely replace internal combustion bikes, but they'll be an interesting addition to the world of motorcycle road racing.

- The first test of the 2015 MotoAmerica/AMA race teams at COTA showed that the Superstock 1000s are no joke. The Superstock Yamaha R1s of Dane Westby and Jake Gagne were fourth- and fifth-quickest of all the literbikes at the test, and the Superstock Aprilia RSV4s of Dustin Dominguez and Devon McDonough were eighth and tenth. If someone put some top-flight riders on those Aprilias, the fight for Superstock supremacy would be a blast to watch. Superstock, EVO, whatever you want to call it, a second-tier class for less well-financed teams is always a good idea.

- Bayliss was up to 7th-quickest after just two practice sessions at Chang. His teammate Davies got his elbow down in all the wrong ways (see above). I'm telling you, this Ducati/Bayliss thing has the potential for a surprise or two ...

True Story, Bro ...


So last night Sorbo and I were doing podcasts, and Ed is busting my cojones, telling me that I had to pick which Ducati rider I thought would win in Thailand in WSBK. He suggested that logically, it would be Chaz Davies, not Troy Bayliss, who has been given another wild card ride on the factory Panigale for the weekend.

Logically, he's correct. But it's a long season for Davies. For Bayliss, this might be his last race ever. His appearance at Phillip Island was a last-minute thing, a publicity stunt that made Bayliss realize that he really, really missed racing. It was like giving a recovered heroin addict a handful of Tylenol 4 pills.

True story: In 2006, the Ducati factory MotoGP team loses (or has stolen) a laptop computer with insanely valuable data for its MotoGP bike. Some race fans find said computer, realize what they have in their possession, and return it to the Ducati team.

Ducati team is over the moon and says, if you guys can make it to season-ender at Valencia, we will hook you up sweet when you get there. Guys get there, and Ducati is true to its word. The dudes have access to damn near everything except getting to ride the bikes.

Troy Bayliss has wrapped up the Superbike World Championship for Ducati and has been given a wild card ride by Ducati for the Valencia MotoGP race. The dudes are eating lunch with Bayliss, and they keep asking him things like how much of an honor it is to be given the wild card ride, how much fun it must be to ride a MotoGP bike with no pressure, etc.

I will never forget Bayliss' response to each of these inquires. Time after time, he says:

"I'm looking for a result."

He won.

You really gonna bet against this guy this weekend?




The Other Ducati ...


The Thai round of the Superbike World Championship this weekend at the new Chang International Circuit should show us a greater representation of how well the new rules suit Ducati.

As mentioned here in the past, the restrictions on gearbox ratios are expected to favor the torque-rich Twins, and since EBR is working through other issues, that really means that at the front of the field, Ducati is the winner on that front.

As not mentioned here in the past because I only recently found out, at the last minute before the 2015 season the 50mm air intake restriction for Twins was removed from the rulebook. That means that the big torque is now combined with better top-end horsepower. At Phillip Island, Chaz Davies' best top speed was exactly the same as Jonathan Rea on the Kawasaki ZX-10R and Leon Haslam on the Aprilia RSV4.

And the Chang circuit has long, long straights, a hairpin leading onto those straights, and an "infield" portion where passing looks to be difficult. The Ducs look like they will have an advantage coming out of corners and the power to maintain that advantage down the straights.

It has been years since a Ducati won a Superbike World Championship race. This may be their best chance in a very long time.

Cost Savings And Getting Racy ...


Need just a little more data about the GP15 before we call it a complete success, but it's been a blast to watch how happy the Ducati guys are. It's hard to watch racers sentenced to ride uncompetitive machines. The Andreas are acting like prison inmates who got a call from the governor!

What we don't know yet comes down to one word: Fuel. The Ducati always has been fast in a straight line. We don't know how much they're burning in testing - in other words, we don't know if the lap times are coming courtesy of top speed and corner exit speed that would burn too much fuel to make it to the end of a race. The data at MotoGP.com doesn't include trap speeds in testing. Bummer.

It has had more fuel to burn - and skip the silly 24 liter capacity, Ducati usually does the race with 22 liters. But even if Ducati starts to hit its performance penalty marks, it will only lose only two liters of the 24 it is allowed under the special "Ducati" rules. Honda and Yamaha may soon be demanding the ability to carry 22 liters, or demand that Ducati drop down to 20, as they have.

Which is not unreasonable, either scenario. Is it really crazy to expect one set of rules for everyone?

OK, on to cost savings. Part of the reason it took Ducati so long to create a competitive machine was the "cost saving" engine limitation. It did, indeed, push development of engine longevity and fuel mileage. But that came at the unintended consequence of slowing Ducati's work on its chassis.

Allowing manufacturers to develop their machines allows them to catch up, and even surpass, their competitors, who go back to the drawing board and test track and make an even better motorcycle.

What happens when you restrict development too much? Did anyone see the F1 season-opener yesterday? Once again, a Mercedes 1-2, 34 seconds ahead of the third-place Ferrari. And the "cost-saving" engine development restrictions mean that the other teams are highly restricted in their ability to catch up.

Ducati, Development And Doomsday Scenarios ...


Day One of the Qatar test is in the books, and the Ducati GP15 is a hit. Andreas Dovisioso and Iannone were 1-2 on the lap time charts, absolutely giddy about their new machines. Dovi even has new, unashamedly proud-of-Ducati insignia across the booty of his leathers. The bike looks good and goes fast. Regardless of whether the times were set on a soft tire or hard, there is a sense of actual optimism in the Ducati garage.

There's one other thing that was interesting to see - a rapid Suzuki. Aleix Espargaro was flying, and put his bike into fourth on the time charts.

Granted, it's testing, and the track was dirty and times were a full second off of last year's pole. And there's still a long road ahead of massaging the bikes into race-winning trim. But the bikes look a lot better than the Aprilia does at this point.

But what has happened over the past few years that has allowed Ducati and Suzuki to build machines that aren't an embarrassment on the MotoGP grid their first time out?

Two things:

- The tiered rules of development allow for new teams to test and modify a lot. The engine limitation restricts chassis development. Allowing the teams to test a lot - which Ducati and Suzuki have done - allows them to work the big problems out quickly. Aprilia sort of made a last-minute decision to jump into MotoGP, and even though they had a sort of platform to work from with their CRT and WSBK machines, they're way behind Suzuki and Ducati in terms of testing their MotoGP race platform.

- The most important thing, though, has nothing to do with MotoGP. It's the worldwide economic recovery. Bikes are selling again, and that means the companies that have sportbikes are willing to put effort into building racebikes again.

Think about this: All of the whining and bitching on the Internet about Honda and Yamaha (mostly Honda) writing rules to limit competition, the cost of electronics, the cost of the bikes, the engine limitations, all of the things that Web pundits have complained were keeping manufacturers out and Ducati from being competitive? All of those things are still there! This year's machines are no cheaper than last year's machines. And next year, all the manufacturers will have the same fuel, same tires, same engine allocations (assuming they are relatively successful) and incredibly sophisticated electronics.

Sometimes the simplest explanations are just simple, not correct. The easy-to-spot things about MotoGP weren't to blame. It was simply a matter of companies being interested in and committed to GP racing - as it always is. And the rules and the cost are among many factors when the boardroom battles over the racing budget begin.

More Wilco, Roger ... 

Wilco Zeelenberg's comments go beyond fuel consumption. They go to the heart of the reasons that manufacturers race, and the benefits we get from them doing so. It's not about the show; you want entertainment, go see a Broadway musical.

Two areas that Zeelenberg addresses specifically:

Engine longevity: "In the past we were also able to use as many engines as we wanted. We didn't focus on that. Now only five engines are allowed and this improved the bike a lot. We can race for 3000 km with one engine and it doesn't lose performance. We needed a lot of development to create those engines, but now the cost is stable and the competition is close"

Electronics: "What we learn from the MotoGP electronics, we really use in the R1. The R1 has the data and electronic system from the M1 basically. It has the six-axis giro and all the experience from here we use there. This will be gone because we will not create much more. You could not imagine ten years ago that what we are doing now you could control with the electronics: Lap-by-lap, corner-by-corner, shift-by-shift. We can adjust everything. But now we will not get 'bigger'. We are limiting the development of electronics to the areas we have now. There won't be any new thinking."

This lack of new thinking may or may not make the racing closer - other factors certainly play just as big a role as restricted technological development in terms of making for closer racing. But it will definitely drive out the factories that make the machines, and that will mean less interest in the racing. As the website Superbikeplanet.com pointed out, you're not going to have to go to a scalper to get a ticket for this year's Daytona 200! Meanwhile, pictured above, 57,000 fans showed up at Suzuka earlier this month to watch demonstration runs of motorcycles and formula cars. That's about 57,000 more spectators than will be at Daytona.

"Yamaha is basically here because we want to show that we can prepare a race-winning bike and can develop," Zeelenberg says. "Moto2 is nice. But finally you want a battle between companies. When you see the fans they are for Yamaha, or for Honda. For some fans it doesn't matter who is on the bike because they support that company. This is what racing is about for me."

Word ...

For images of the empty paddock during the Daytona 200, click below:

Racing Improves The Breed - Zeelenberg Speaks ...


It is always worth the time it takes to read the Wilco Zeelenberg - Jorge Lorenzo's manager at the Yamaha factory MotoGP team - interviews over at Crash.net. The most interesting part to me is that, as closely allied with the factory that he is, it is more than likely that his views represent that of Yamaha.

I'll be picking this one apart for a while, but I'll start with the fuel limitations. Those who don't understand why it's so critical to let manufacturers develop machines through racing raised holy hell when the 20-liter fuel limit was introduced. But the fact is that the two companies who have supported GP racing steadily for decades now wanted the challenge, and learned from it, Zeelenberg says.

"At first it was a lot of work but there was a plan behind it and we learned a lot by development. Both manufacturers [Honda and Yamaha] probably thought they had an advantage and could manage so it stayed at 20 litres. Finally the good riders are all still together and the only disadvantage is that the other manufacturers cannot keep up," Zeelenberg says.

The other manufacturers - Ducati, Suzuki, Aprilia - simply can't make a MotoGP bike that can make it to the end of a race on 20 liters. Yamaha and Honda agreed to give up this advantage to keep the others in the game. But they have learned critical lessons by forcing the engineers to create impressively fuel-efficient engines, he says.

"That's why the fuel limit is going up. They cannot reach, so we get some more fuel. So it will level out, but to help them again. Because we are okay with 20 litres at the moment. We have no problem. At this moment the M1 is using less fuel than the R1."

Think about that last comment. If you needed any more proof that racing improves the breed ...

The Crash.net interview:

BMW Bummer ...


There is a lot of sad about the JR Racing BMW team's failure to materialize for Superbike World Championship competition. Lots of bad will, riders Toni Elias and Ayrton Badovini get to sit unpaid on the sidelines for a year, 18 people in all who basically lost a year's worth of employment. And while that's bad for a mechanic, that's really bad for a racer, whose career span tends to be much shorter than the person spinning wrenches.

It's also bad news for Sylvain Barrier on the BMW Motorrad Italia team, which now is the sole BMW team with front-running potential - the only other two S1000RRs on the grid are a couple of privateer bikes run by a Hungarian rider whose whole career has been self-financed battling for 15th. Now Barrier is doing all the sorting and setup for a WSBK-spec bike himself, even though he has access to data from other BMWs in other series. That stuff will help, but it won't move him to the front of the pack.

And that may be the biggest disappointment of all. In the right hands, the BMW is a WSBK-winning machine. I suspect that of all the inline fours, the BMW's engine would have suffered least from the new 2015 regulations. Even in the trim it is in, Barrier clocked the same top speed at Phillip Island that Troy Bayliss did on the newest Panigale. It is too bad that the S1000RR isn't likely to be fighting for wins.

But remember that BMW has gotten what it wanted from its factory involvement in WSBK - image. The S1000RR now is one of the world's best-selling sportbikes. And now BMW is more interested in turning a profit on customer racing than it is on losing money on an image-building effort. So I don't expect to see a factory BMW on the grid anytime soon.

As someone once said, the answer to 99 questions out of 100 is money.

The Bayliss Question ...


It makes perfect sense for Ducati to keep Troy Bayliss on the bike while Davide Giugliano heals up. The engine allocation rules (if Bayliss rides three rounds, he becomes a separate entry and his engine use isn't counted against Giugliano's allocation), his experience riding Ducatis, and the fact that he's retired with no commitments makes him the perfect substitute.

But ...

... the history of motorsport is dotted with the bodies of racers who didn't know when to stay retired. And Bayliss didn't really want to go in the first place; his sense of duty to his family compelled him to step down, and when he wanted to reconsider his decision, Ducati firmly told him no, he couldn't have his factory ride back.

It is wonderful to see the fire in Bayliss' eyes when he talks about racing again. And no matter what he does, his reputation will remain untarnished; a wildcard MotoGP win as well as the Superbike World Championship in 2006 make him unique in the world of motorcycle road racing.

But all of the reasons Bayliss retired in the first place are still there. Along with my thoughts for all the other racers out there every time the garages open and the bikes are fired, I hope Bayliss finds what he needs on the track, and finds peace off of it.

My Lottery Fantasy, Current Edition ...


There are two groups of racers - the ones who dig bikes and the ones who dig competition. When you can't compete anymore, and you're one of the latter, it's easy to walk away. But what if you're one of the racers who digs bikes, and just because you can't win anymore, you start the slow slide of being kicked out of the paddock, off of the really cool machines? Or what if you're injured and get replaced while you're healing? Or have a family and do the responsible thing, but want to occasionally be blissfully irresponsible?

So here's a fantasy that I roll around in my head while I'm training to keep my mind off of the physical exertion.

I find a recently-retired Superbike crew chief. We sit and have a chat about building a bike with a really good electronics suite, good brakes and excellent handling. Ease and fun of riding is key here. I'd probably hire Sorbo - he's very, very good at this sort of approach, and he'd learn the electronics stuff quickly.

Depending on the size of the fortune I'm gonna piss away, I submit an entry into either the Endurance World Championship, the Hottrax Endurance series in the U.K. or the U.S.N E. series. The longer the races, the better.

I enter myself as lead rider. Then I call up retired GP and Superbike stars and offer them guest rides. Wave a check as big as necessary to get them to come ride. Or call up some of the backmarkers in those series, people who have skills but never got the break, riders who really aren't motivated by the results, but the fun of riding a bike at speed on a racetrack. The endurance race format ensures they won't have to deal with complete newbies and have a semi-professional structure around them.

Then we go have fun.

I get to ride a bitchin' bike on a racetrack. I get to hang around with my heroes, who are in my garage riding for my team. Racers who still need the occasional hit of speed (Troy Bayliss, Casey Stoner, Miguel Duhamel) get to race in a very low-key environment, where if riding is what they miss, they can do all they want. We'd likely win or get podiums, because they're fast enough to compensate for my slowness. 

And if it all goes wrong, we blame Ed.

A guy can dream, can't he?

MotoGP, Michelin and Marketing ...



Michelin's first MotoGP test with the actual factory racers didn't come off so well. While times on the company's tires, which will be the spec tire for the class in 2016, were not terrible, the number of crashes was. Jorge Lorenzo, Alex Espargaro, Andrea Dovisioso and Jack Miller all bit the ground hard at speed.

Michelin will get it right, or right enough. A spec manufacturer has an interesting goal - beat the last manufacturer's tires within a reasonable period of time and create tires that most racers can use. Pirelli has done a very good job of this in WSBK.

But underlying that is another, more fundamental goal. Michelin bought the spec tire contract with MotoGP to market its goods (note that on the shot above from the Michelin test, the Bridgestone logo on the front fender is missing). And that means that its goals are in conflict with one of the opportunities of spec tires - to slow the vehicles down or create "better" racing.

To make the vehicles slower requires a tire with less feel - which doesn't work, because having MotoGP stars crashing their brains out on your stuff is precisely the raw material of the Marketing Department's fever dream nightmares. Or it requires a tire with less grip, which means slower lap times - see the fever dream nightmare reference above. (As an aside, Fever Dream Nightmare is an excellent band name.) Or it requires a tire that degrades as in Formula One, and again, see FDN above.

This from an interview over at Crash.net with Michelin Racing technical director Nicolas Goubert:

"Goubert instantly ruled out supplying fast-wearing tyres, which F1 insisted upon to help spice-up the racing action.
“No,” he stated. “One of the key elements for the Michelin brand is always the longevity of the product. So every time we do any racing we always to try to have the best compromise possible between grip and longevity.
“Here [in MotoGP] we'll do everything we can to have the fastest lap on the last lap of the race. I mean to have no degradation. And basically what Marc did today we are already very close to that. We do not intend to work in a different way.
“Talking about Formula One, that is one of the reasons why we didn't go back to Formula One. We were very interested, but not with the regulations they have and not with what they asked the tyre maker to do.
“Because for us it's exactly the opposite of what we want to show. It would be counterproductive. So no way were we willing to do that.” 


BSB Comes Face To Face With Reality ...


The British Superbike series is often cited as a model for Superbike racing around the world, with incredibly large grids and sometimes close racing at the front - although, in reality, the racing is usually just like most Superbike series, with a couple/three potential winners and a large field of no-hopers.

One of the things that is often cited as a reason for the success of BSB is that the series runs a spec ECU and bans all form of traction control. We've discussed how the top teams functionally get around that ban. But - and this is critical - trying to emulate the function of a reasonably competent suite of rider aids isn't the same as actually using them.

The issue was brought into sharp focus yesterday, when four-time and reigning BSB Superbike Champion Shakey Byrne got highsided to the moon during testing and went to the hospital. Thankfully, it was nothing more than a broken hand. But it follows on the crash of Riyo Kyonari at the end of last season, another highside that injured him and put him out of the final races, handing the title to Byrne.

The BSB riders can say little - one of the truths of being a modern athlete is that in exchange for that paycheck, you give up the right (sometimes contractually, always practically) to criticize your series or league.

But British riders like Cal Crutchlow, Michael Laverty and Tom Sykes all have raised questions about the wisdom of continuing with the ban on traction control (see images below). Sykes says simply that anyone opposed to TC "has no idea."

I'm inclined to take the words of the people whose bodies, health and lives are at risk.

Photo above from:


 
A Real AMA Rebirth ...



I realized a couple of days ago that I am actually excited about the start of the AMA Pro Road Racing season, more so than in previous years. I was thinking about why, because it's likely to be another ass-kicking lesson delivered Yamaha-style in the Superbike class. I think it's down to the following reasons:

- I cannot get enough motorcycle road racing, and the more the better.
- There are more classes that actually interest me. The Superstock 1000 class will have Aprilia RSV4s and the new Yamaha YZF-R1s, in closer-to-street form, ridden by new faces. The KTMs at least look like real racebikes, and there will be two 600 classes to pick from.
- Those 600 classes look like they'll be dogfights. Big names like Josh Herrin and big teams like Team Hammer in the Supersport class, let alone the semi-factory efforts in the Supersport class. And the Superstock class looks like a place for the smaller teams and shops to be able to battle. Cool!
- The Harleys are gone.
- With five classes that look interesting, the day will be filled with action on the track.

Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but there's something that feels real about this. Like it's not a plaything, but a business, supported by the industry, which realizes that this may be U.S. roadracing's last chance.
The Melandri Quandry ...


Marco Melandri has a dream job, and he doesn't want it.

Back when it looked like Aprilia was not going to participate in the Superbike World Championship on a factory level in 2015, Melandri was given a couple of choices: Ride our new MotoGP machine or look for work elsewhere. Contracted to the Italian company, he chose the former. The latter - including, most likely, riding for Red Devils Roma in WSBK - would undoubtedly have meant a big pay cut, and the new rules looked like they weren't going to allow the RSV4 to be competitive. If you're going to get your ass handed to you, you may as well be paid for the beating you're going to take.

But around the beginning of the year, Aprilia realized just how badly they were going to be beaten in MotoGP, and that there was still an opportunity for the company to look good in WSBK. So it shifted some resources around. And suddenly the WSBK machine remains a race-winner. And if you're going to be on the track, you may as well be racing a bike that has a shot at the podium.

The fact is that Aprilia has no chance of being competitive in MotoGP this year, and that is like a life sentence to Melandri, a racer who has won MotoGP races and had the opportunity to be on the podium in WSBK. And Melandri is closer to the end of his career than the beginning. A season of shit results isn't going to help him get a better ride in 2016. No wonder he's depressed.

As mentioned earlier, pro racers sometimes get paid to throw away a season. But this one is a hard pill to swallow for Marco. He's a glorified test rider in 2015, trying not to get lapped on the world's most visible motorcycle road racing stage.

How bad is it? When talk of swapping Melandri back into the WSBK team and making rookie Jordi Torres, riding the RSV4 for Red Devils Roma, do the donkey work of developing the MotoGP machine, Torres started waving his WSBK contract in the air and yelling, thanks, but no thanks! MotoGP can wait!

Melandri was famously sent to a shrink by Ducati when he couldn't get their factory MotoGP machine to work. He doesn't need a shrink here. He's got every right to feel rotten. His job is to go out in front of the world, put his life on the line, and if he does everything perfectly he might finish fifth from last.

Ouch. Sometimes what looks like a dream is more of a nightmare.

MotoGP: The Customer Bike ...


A few years back, when MotoGP grids looked thin and getting thinner, organizers asked the participating manufacturers to make bikes available for lower cost to the teams that filled out the field. Ducati started dumping their old bikes to other teams, Yamaha started leasing out-of-date machines to Forward.

Honda's response was to build an all-new bike. Now known as the RC213V-RS, it is essentially the works machine without the stupid-trick transmission and with the spec electronics that are mandatory next season.

Much has been written about how "slow" the bike is. Hayden was faster than he's been since signing for Drive M7 Aspar team, but he was still just 17th on the timesheets at the end of the Sepang test.

Critics forget that this bike is the bargain of the paddock, well under Euros one million per season. It also has accomplished its primary goal, which was to attract teams that were racing those CRT bastardizations and put them on decent GP machinery.

But the big reason for the lack of pace here has nothing to do with the machine and everything to do with the team. Not that it is bad, but that it is small. Hayden says the bike needs work on its electronics. Drive simply doesn't have the engineering or technical resources to sort that stuff out.

It would be very, very interesting to see what would happen if HRC threw the Repsol squad and Marquez at the bike for a test weekend or two.

WSBK: Rookies And Geezers ...


Before leaving Phillip Island, a shout out to the Superbike rookies and the Supersport geezers.

Jordi Torres and Michael van der Mark made impressive debuts in the big leagues. As noted here before, van der Mark is a two-time Suzuku 8 Hours winner, so we knew he knew how to ride, but pushing the Honda into the lead of Race Two exceeded even my expectations. And Torres was impressive as well, running in the podium positions, close to the leaders, until he made a silly mistake after passing - passing ! - Tom Sykes, a guy who is a handful of points away from being a three-time WSBK Superbike champion!

Impressive stuff.

I know some will argue with me about Supersport - that it's a class for the young riders, a place for up-and-comers to show their stuff. I disagree (hard to believe, huh?). Lorenzo Zanetti has a decade of professional racing experience; Kenan Sofuoglu has a dozen. Jules Cluzel started in 2006 at the GP level. The field has experience and youth mixed together.

I believe that pro racers are paid to race and win, to showcase their teams and their sponsors as best they can. And I believe that teams have the right to put the best possible rider on their machine. It's not about showcases for young talent or any other form of handicapping. Supersport is a race, a battlefield where factories show off their middleweights. Winning here is critical to teams, to factories, and to the riders whose career depends on wins and podiums.

And whine all you want about electronics, but the fact is that over a period of time, they make the racing safer. Those older guys are still racing because electronic rider aids, safer tracks and better safety gear mean they are still in good enough physical shape to ride longer into their lives.

Give 'em hell, geezers.

Seamless, Shiftless ...


One of the technological changes introduced at the Sepang MotoGP test is the new clutchless transmission on the Yamaha. Clutchless downshifts offer the potential for saving tenths of a second per lap, which, over the course of a race, can mean ten seconds at the finish line. If you are looking for wins, you've got to have one.

There's an easy way to do it - the dual-clutch transmission, where one clutch drives the even-numbered gears and one drives the odd-numbered gears. Because two consecutive gears never are selected, you can move up and down in the transmission freely without manually de-clutching. It's cheap and effective, and found on several road machines in your Honda showroom.

But this technology is banned in MotoGP. So, instead, Honda, Ducati, Aprilia and now Yamaha engineers have created clutchless gearboxes that mimic this effect, within the rules, at insane costs. The Honda clutch comes out every night in great secrecy and is rebuilt; most of the Repsol and LCR teams never have seen the clutch on their machines!

One of the simple beauties of racing is that which offers an advantage will be pursued. The best the rulemakers can do is to try to push development along economically affordable lines. But you can't simply block avenues of development. Engineers are problem-solvers, and if there's an obstacle between them and an improvement in the race bike (like an ill-advised, outdated rule) then that's just another problem to be solved.

MotoGP: The New Duc Breaks Cover ...

Ducati has learned a few things about managing expectations. Claudio Domenicali, Ducati Motor Holding CEO, said last week that when the GP15 was introduced, he did not expect it to suddenly shoot to the front of the field.

"We need some time," he said. "The bike is brand new, so we must sharpen our weapons yet. We do not expect that it is immediately faster than the GP14.3."

But it seems clear already that the bike is, in actual fact, better than the GP14. And that is the first benchmark of any new racing machine - it has to be better than the one it replaced. Most importantly from a rider point of view, it feels better to ride.

“Normal! Everywhere. With the throttle, without throttle... Now I can say the bike enters and turns in a normal way. About that I am really happy and we are quite OK," Andrea Dovisioso told Crash.net.

You can sense the teenager girl-like giddiness of the Ducati riders from halfway around the world, as the MotoGP crew goes through Day Two of the second Sepang test.

It's called hope.

Ducati, what took you so long?

WSBK: The PATA Honda Trap ...


One of the interesting things about Round One of WSBK was that not one, but both of the riders from the PATA Honda/Ten Kate superbike squad last year won in Australia. 

They are both highly capable riders and smart enough to figure out that the CBR1000RR is not a title-winning package. The fact is that while the Ten Kate folks may get a bit of help from the factory, it is not a factory effort in the way that the Kawasaki, Aprilia and Ducati teams are arranged. They're amazing bikes, incredibly well developed, but they likely always will be one step behind the true factory efforts.

So the question is, why ride for them? Why would any rider sign, year after year (Leon Haslam rode for them for two years, Jonathan Rea for six) for a ride that was B-level at best?

Because winning is defined differently for professional racers. I'm a club racer; my success is defined by whether I get a trophy and how much fun I had. These guys support their families with a job in which one small mistake can literally crack your spine.

For the professional, winning is getting someone to deposit a large chunk of dough into your checking account every other week. Once that agreement is reached, now it's about riding the machine to the limits of its capabilities, no matter what they are in comparison to other machines.

Ten Kate has been around forever, has solid sponsorship backing, and always fields a good, if not always great, machine. Their checks don't bounce. If it is your job to race motorcycles, you sign for them and worry about results later.

One does wonder, though, if Rea and Haslam made the same decision last year: I've got a retirement based on Ten Kate money already set up. I don't need the difference between a Ten Kate salary and, say, a Red Devils Roma salary. I've accomplished my monetary goals.

Time to go win races.

WSBK: Thoughts From PI, Part One ...



It is interesting to look at what all the much-discussed and debated rules changes have wrought after the crates are packed in Australia.

In the end, the new for 2015 regulations in World Superbike did little to change the finishing order or even the performance of the bikes at Phillip Island. Granted, this is an unusual track. But not only was it another Kawasaki/Aprilia benefit, the bikes were almost exactly as quick as they were last season. In 2014, Tom Sykes' Kawasaki topped the charts at 321 kph, with Marco Melandri on the Aprilia clocked at 320. This year, Jonathan Rea's Kawasaki ticked off the radar gun at 320, rookie Jordi Torres an amazing 324 in Race One on his Aprilia, and even the Ducati was clocked at 320 down the straight.

Really, the only change in the finishing order from last year was the disappearance of the Suzuki - unfortunately, I was correct in predicting that Alex Lowes would put the GSX-R1000 on the ground, and his weekend just fell apart afterward. That moved the Ducati up from a pair of fourths last year to a pair of thirds.

It's wonderful to watch the racing at Phillip Island. Like Thruxton, a fast, flowing track that leads to amazing overtaking. It was a nice reminder of how important clear, safe runoff room is when you saw Kenan Sofuoglu fire off the track at about 150 in Turn One and have plenty of room to gather things up and rejoin the race.

WSBK: Rookies In Ascension ...


The first Superpole of the year threw a few new names into the mix of potential race winners. Jordi Torres and Michael van der Mark, rookies, put their machines at or near the top of the charts, and got closer to the top every time the bikes hit the track. van der Mark was especially impressive, as the Honda really hasn't performed as well as some of the other machines in recent years. What's really funny is that van der Mark was only one spot behind Leon Haslam, who left Honda last year. And Torres was in front of 2013 Champion Tom Sykes.

Torres is a bit of a surprise. His past few years have been spent on a Moto2 machine, and he's not exactly been at the head of the field. In 54 starts, he's landed three podiums, including one win in 2013, and was nowhere last year, his best a pair of 8ths. His World Superbike form, so far, is impressive.

van der Mark is less of a surprise. As noted earlier, the kid not only demolished the World Supersport opposition last year, but his two straight wins on a literbike in the Suzuka 8-Hours endurance race indicated that he can ride a bigger, more powerful machine well.

van der Mark will start fourth, Torres seventh. Best to them both ...

MotoGP: What We Learned at the Moto2/Moto3 Tests ...




- The times are particularly tight at the top of the Moto2 charts. But a Kalex vs. Suter war simply doesn't light my fuse. Moto2 has become a diversion for fans at the track, not a separate class of multi-faceted competition that captures my attention in the way that WSBK, MotoGP and Moto3, and even World Endurance bikes do.

- The Moto3 timesheets were topped again by young French rookie Fabio Quartararo. You might want to learn to spell and pronounce this kid's name. He was fastest in five of the nine sessions, including the last three, and was a half-second quicker than Jack Miller's pole time from last year. The quickest KTM was in seventh. As mentioned last season, Honda was really pissed off that KTM was abusing the rulebook. As a result of Dorna's inability to enforce its own rules, Moto3 is now the home of $400,000 or more 250cc four-stroke racebikes.

- I'm very glad that Alex Marquez won his world championship last year. The opportunity was there, and he came through. As I predicted last year, I don't think he's got the talent to shine in Moto2, and I doubt he'll ever land a front-line MotoGP ride. He was 16th at the end of the test, 1.1 seconds off the pace - a lifetime in Moto2 terms - and nearly a second behind his teammate.

World Superbikes: What We Learned At PI, Test Two ...


- A modern Superbike is not a remote-controlled machine that anyone can ride to the limit. Look at the number of riders who went down in two days of testing. Ask Giugliano or Guintoli - both of whom suffered spinal injuries - if these machines can no longer be high-sided or crashed.

- It's good to be right, but sometimes it's better to be wrong. And I can't be happier about being wrong about the pace of the EBR. Granted, the bike is still last of the factory machines, at a circuit that plays to what strengths it has, but it's no longer an embarrassment.

- Calling in Bayliss will put butts in the seats in Australia. That is the beginning and the end of that story.

- If you want to dismiss Phillip Island as an abnormality that allows otherwise non-competitive bikes to shine, Lowes seems determined to make the most of the opportunity. It's like a racer knows when there's a chance, a break in the cloud cover, and knows to throw in that last bit, to shave the margin to disaster that much thinner. I expect to see Lowes either atop the podium or on the ground.

Can't wait for this weekend.

World Superbikes: What We Learned At PI, Test One ...



- Alex Lowes put the Suzuki atop the time sheets. Whether the new electronics are paying off, or if we are seeing the phenomenon of the bike simply suiting the circuit (remember, Laverty won his only race of the season here last year) remains to be seen. 

In perfect conditions, they were still a bit slower than last year's race pace, and 1.3 seconds off the pole time of last year. And there's a good chance that Lowes' team threw a qualifying setup - or at least a fresh tire - on the bike to put in a good one-lap time.

But credit where credit is due - Lowes was second in the Jerez test. Maybe there's real progress here.

- The Aprilia looks promising, with Leon Haslam in third and his teammate - Superbike rookie Jordi Torres - in fifth, less than a half-second off Lowes' time.

- The Hondas do not look impressive. Guintoli is riding with a spinal injury. That scares the crap out of me.

- The EBR, in the hands of Niccolo Canepa, was only 1.7 seconds off the pace. That was 14th, and that's progress, I suppose ...

Speed ...

 
Pretty much since Shinichi Itoh popped the 200 mile an hour barrier on his Honda NSR500 at Hockenheim back in 1993, there have been concerns about the top speed of GP bikes, with cries of varying intensity to slow them down. 

Talk about coincidence: I was watching highlights of that race last night as I went to sleep, and this morning on Crash.net there's an interview with Corrado Cecchinelli, MotoGP's director of technology, where top speed is the issue under discussion.

Top speed, he says, really isn't a pressing concern. The crashes don't happen when the riders are pinned in sixth; they happen under braking and coming out of the corners. And really, it's kind of remarkable how little top speeds have increased in 22 years with little restriction on technology. The current top speed record is held by Andrea Iannone at Mugello, a tick over 217 miles an hour. 

Compare that, if you will, to the evolution of car speeds at a place like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where the cars went from an average speed of just over 200 mph in qualifying in 1977 to practicing at an average of just shy of 240 mph just 19 years later.

Motorcycle road racing machines will kind of limit themselves on top speed, because they race on road circuits. That means the bike has to not just be fast, but it has to brake and handle, too. It's interesting to note that the Duc has been plenty fast in a straight line for years; it has also failed to make the top step of the podium for years.

Cecchinelli points out that a rev limit would slow the bikes, but that the manufacturers - Honda in particular, with Yamaha on board - aren't interested in rev limits yet. See the archives here; a MotoGP formula that allows for anyone to build a race-winning engine is a formula that no one will be interested in.

Slowing the bikes is easy. Limit tire size, mandate harder compounds, restrict the fuel, restrict the air inlet size. Doing it in a way that keeps the manufacturers interested is the key.

Cecchinelli adds that he doesn't expect 2016 to see slower machines. Any fractional reduction in speed from fractionally less-functional electronics packages will be offset, he says, by the factory teams getting two more liters of fuel. It's funny how some of the motojournalists who so loudly bleated about "the end of electronics development" in MotoGP in 2016 have become strangely silent as more and more details of 2016 emerge.

Talent ...

Not everyone who deserves a shot at a factory ride gets one, although, in the real world, pretty much everyone who has a factory ride has the talent to justify having that ride. But it's interesting to find guys who are world-class talents in the paddock at your local club race.

Shawn Higbee was at the WERA West season-opener at Auto Club Speedway on the Brough Superior. Much has been written about the bike, but the rider is something pretty special, too.

Higbee won the AMA Harley-Davidson Twinsport championship back in 1996, won some Formula USA and NASB titles, and although I don't think much of real road racing, I have nothing but respect for the guy for standing on the box at Macau in 2001.

I remember Higbee for showing up at Willow Springs, back in the days of serious, National-level racers throwing serious machines at the Formula One race, on a Moto Forza Ducati 1098 and holding off David Anthony to take the win. An amazing ride; Higbee was not going to be beaten on this day.

Cool to see him still racing. Never know who is going to show up at your local club races ... 

A Fast Bike Still Needs A Fast Rider ...


Allow my boredom and my single-minded fascination with motorcycle road racing to work to your benefit. I speak, of course, of the 2005 British Superbike round at Thruxton, a crazy-fast track of which I have waxed eloquently in the past. 

Big, fast tracks with big, sweeping corners lead to great racing, and that is exactly what takes place in this particular meet. Watching the Thruxton event, all of it as it was broadcast on Sky, is a wonderful way to kill some time when you are completely bored out of your mind, especially when you get to see some world-class riders in their prime and in their early years.

But I digress.

If you watch this YouTube video:


... fast-forward to the 19:45 mark or so. Ryuchi Kiyonari is in third place on the HM Plant Honda CBR1000RR. The bike is quick, no doubt. Kiyo has survived a massive crash the day before, and limped to the bike to start the race. But watch the move he makes to take two places and fire that big Honda into the lead.

Holy *&#(@*$&(*&$(@*Q&$(@*&#!

You could give me a YZR-M1 and I'd be slower on it than I would be on my SV650. A fast bike still needs a fast rider. It says a lot about Kiyo that heading into the 2015 BSB season, he is, a decade later, still considered one of the men to beat.

In The Mind Of A Champion ...


Over at crash.net there's a great interview with Tom Sykes, who came within, what, 6.5 points of winning the Superbike World Championship three times straight, rather than being a one-time World Champion.

Sykes does not mince words - which is why it is such a great interview. The thing I like is that it shows a level of mental focus that you just don't see in other sports, or in daily life. We tend to think being a racer would be so cool because you just ride a motorcycle a few days a year. The reality is that it is a year-long job, the physical training is brutal, but the biggest price you pay is the mindset you adopt, the world view, that warps your reality. You are incredibly self-focused and, to a greater or lesser extent, at war with everyone.

Sykes says: 

"I've lost the championship two years out of three and I put it down to other riders' miscalculations that have really cost us. As a rider when it's not your fault it's very difficult to accept because it's almost like your goal is within reaching distance and then somebody takes it away from you. Now maybe that's just my perception but I'm very bitter with things like this."

Few champions have avoided this mentality. They tend to be the supernaturally talented ones who are never really threatened. The rest of the champions fight and scratch for their success - not by bashing other riders off the track, but by digging within themselves to find every edge, whether it's the battle for a factory ride or the last tenth in the final corner that puts them on pole. More Sykes:

"I'll just focus on my own issues," he says.

Great interview.

As an aside, check out the people assembled in this picture. Racing is, most definitely, a team sport ...

 http://www.crash.net/wsbk/interview/214502/1/exclusive-tom-sykes-qa-interview.html

MotoGP: What We Learned At Sepang 1 ...

- I saw a continuation of the pattern we've seen in the past few years in the MotoGP paddock - the Yamaha seems easier to set up, while it takes the Honda a bit more tinkering with to get it perfect. Once it is perfect, it is stupid-fast. The pundits who forgot or failed to notice this concluded after the first day of the test that the Yamaha was superior. They have got to be feeling a little dumb right now.

- You can judge the machine by the performance of the "B-rider." It was clear in Formula One last year, for example, that the Mercedes car was dominant, in that if both cars were running at the end and there were no dramas in the race, they usually finished 1-2. Few people would rate Dani Pedrosa on equal terms with Marc Marquez, yet it was Dani who set the fastest race simulation. So the Honda was fastest over a single lap (a 1:58.8 by Marquez, Jesus, and Dani was close behind) and over race distance. Honda brought a lot of stuff to test, to sort through, and seems to have found the answers it was looking for.

- Ducati is stuck with this sort of Faustian bargain - if tires are the ultimate determination of a machine's performance, and it has the option of using tires that look good but won't last race distance, what do they do? Must they develop a bike around a tire that is doomed to fall off before mid-race? The "old" bike looked halfway good at Sepang, but the best description Andrea Dovisio could come up with for his race simulation was "interesting and constant." Uh ...

- Over at Crash.net, there's some idiot calling himself TF2 who keeps commenting about how MotoGP isn't a "true rider's championship" or some such nonsense. Every thread devolves into his personal vendetta and destroys any further discussion among others. If you've ever read the essay "The Braindead Megaphone" you will be familiar with the phenomenon. I mention it because - well, take a look at the pic of Pedrosa above. How many people, how many employees, how much effort does it take to give Dani the bike he has and put it on the track in race trim? Racing is rarely a solo endeavor, although in the end, it is the racer alone who must ride the bike. Professional racing is a massive endeavor, a competition among armies of hidden warriors, and the racer him or her self is merely the highest peak of the visible part of the iceberg. 

MotoGP: What Makes A Factory Team So Good ...

The long, cold winter is coming to a close, with MotoGP machines back on the track in Sepang. Perhaps not to anyone's surprise, Marc Marquez is quickest, with Rossi and Lorenzo close behind; the top five were separated by less than half a second after the first day of testing.

What was interesting to me was what Honda brought to the test. Bikes. Lots of bikes. Marquez and Dani Pedrosa had a choice of last year's machine, the prototype of the 2015 prototype that was tested in Valencia, and a brand-new machine that combined the characteristics of those two machines.

Meanwhile, Ducati is still working on its 2015 contender, the bike they say they've been working on since the middle of last year. Next test, they say ...

A National-level Superbike team principal and I once had a long conversation about what makes a factory team. Clearly, it's not just the machinery. LCR Honda and Marc VDS each have a full-factory-spec satellite RC213V at their disposal for Cal Crutchlow and Scott Redding. They were 10th and 11th. Assuming that those machines were essentially last year's bikes, they are still well off the pace set by Pedrosa and Marquez on those machines.

Maybe the secret is simply the resources and effort companies like Honda put into the sport - resources and effort that a satellite team can't hope to match. LCR can't afford to hire Casey Stoner to test their bikes, can they? I can't help but admire the dedication it takes to show up at the first test of the year with multiple versions of the machine. Effort = results - end of story.

The Pulse Of MotoGP, Part Five, Or, How Honda Might Lose ...

It's not completely inconcievable that Marc Marquez could lose his crown in 2015. Racing is filled with weird stuff that happens, and one of the weird things that occasionally happens is that despite all of its effort, Honda gets the racebike wrong.

The race on the track is only one of the races that take place. Another is the race by the engineers to get the bike right first. Given equal resources and unlimited time, nearly any manufacturer can make a race-winning machine. The race is to get it right before anyone else does.

At the end of last year, it was clear that if the Yamaha YZR-M1 was inferior to the Honda RC213V, it wasn't by much. The days of the Honda clearing off from the starting line and charging into Turn One with a big lead were gone; it had been a long time since anyone had marked out the "Honda Lanes" on the fast tracks.

The pure, otherworldly skill and desire of Marquez kept the Honda at the front of the pack. As others have pointed out, take him out of the equation in 2014 and the other Hondas don't look so good, especially the full factory satellite bike of Stefan Bradl.

And Jorge Lorenzo wasn't just blowing smoke when he said at the unveiling of the 2015 M1 that the 2015 Honda appeared to have some challenges, based on testing and the comments from Marquez after trying the machine. The Yamaha guys have had a tough couple of years; Honda and Marquez have made them look pretty second-rate. They are motivated, the machine is good, and you don't need to show them a chink in Marquez' armor twice.

Honda (and Yamaha) eventually get nearly every machine right. The question is all in the matter of how long it takes, how many race wins get pissed away before the successful combination is found.

Honda is, right now, in the middle of a private test with Casey Stoner, trying to make the 2015 work.

We will know next week who got it right first.

The Pulse Of World SBK, Part Eight ...

The first round of testing is complete, and the results are interesting in the change they revealed and in the lack of change that occurred.

As predicted by Brian Gillen, head of the MV Agusta Reparto Corse racing department, the new rules for 2015 have benefited Ducati. As the only front-running twin in the field, it will suffer less from having a single set of gear ratios, Gillen said, and testing showed that the Ducati did indeed move to the head of the field. Granted, it was on one flying lap by Davide Giugliano, this generation's Ruben Xaus, destroyer of all things Ducati bodywork-related, and granted, Giugliano lobbed the thing into the weeds so hard on his next lap that his day was done. Still, fast is fast ...

 Jerez is an interesting track, tight and short, so the Ducati transmission advantage may be magnified here.

 An interesting comparison is to the qualifying results from the race at Jerez in September 2014 - under the "old" rules. The ranking in qualifying was Kawasaki, Ducati, Kawasaki, Aprilia, Aprilia and Suzuki. In testing, the ranking is Ducati, Kawasaki, Kawasaki, Ducati, Aprilia and Suzuki. Seems to me the biggest difference, other than the transmission issue, is the fact that Aprilia have reduced their level of support for the moment.

As always, it is the interest of the manufacturer that makes the difference in the results of any racing series over the long term. One of the reasons that Toyota's failure in Formula One is so fascinating is that it is one of those rare cases where a major factory really did invest heavily - and came up empty. Most other times, if you look behind the failure, you'll find a factory racing effort whose resources and commitment did not match their words ...
Raw Speed ...


Off season means watching races I haven't seen before. As mentioned, I've recently watched a few of the 500cc GP races from the late 1980s, and one of the things that struck me when listening to the hyper-excited commentators is the average speed of the things around the tracks of the time on the rubber available.

Make no mistake, the 500cc GP machines were beasts, pushing well over 160 horsepower and touching 200 mph under the right circumstances. Fearsome creatures. But the average speed for the lap record around Donington Park for the 500cc GP bikes in 1988 was about 87 mph; the average speed for the same bikes at Laguna Seca that year was just shy of 89 mph.

There have been dramatic increases in the speed of the machines in the ensuing years, as you might imagine. Tom Sykes got his Kawasaki ZX-10R around Donington last year at an average speed of 101.539 mph; Marc Marquez fired his Honda RC213V around Laguna in 2013 at an average speed of 97.131 mph. Most of the improvement is coming in cornering speed; this should make it obvious why it's so important to have massive amounts of runoff room and soft barriers at the track.

But that's not why I'm writing this.

What watching those old races made me think about was how stupid-fast the big track at Willow Springs is. When I was ordering a new exhaust canister after my recent crash, my friend at M4 exhausts (love those guys and their stuff, btw) said to me, "Any time you crash there it's a big one."

Pictured is one of the racebikes I wish I'd kept, a mid-1990s MZ Skorpion with a 660cc single from a Yamaha off-road quad. It made 43 horsepower when I got it. I dumped a bunch of money into it and got it up to 46 horsepower.

On my best day at Willow on it, I turned a lap barely in the 1:38 range. If you call that a 1:39 flat, that's an average speed of 90.909 miles an hour - faster than the fear-inducing 500cc GP machines of the late 1980s at the tracks they raced on. And that was on a bike that, I'm sure, barely topped out at 110-115.

I used to laugh when I'd see racers come in off the track after their first session at Willow. Their eyes were as big as dinner plates. Props to the guys who can go fast there. In the Battle Of The Twins Lightweight class at WSMC, I set two lap records aboard my SV500. They are among the proudest accomplishments in my life.



The Ducati Dilemma ...


It's still mystifying to me that Ducati is waiting until so very late in the game to unveil its 2015 MotoGP challenger - now the factory says the bike won't be ready until the second test of 2015.

As I've mentioned before, there is precedent for the Ducati strategy. You wait and wait, work and work, up until the very last minute on design, and only after you've thought and studied and thought and studied for as long as you can do you start cutting metal. OK, that makes sense - in theory.

But by late February, if there's anything significant wrong, it's going to be half a season before the company can do anything substantive to fix it, judging by past efforts and judging by the pace that we've seen the company performing at during the last few months.

And even if the bike is generally correct, Ducati now is behind in the process of fine-tuning, the endless, subtle tweaking that turns a third-place machine into a winner, or a fifth-place bike into a podium contender. And such a process must take place, because (we hope) the thing is different than the machine that was so uncompetitive last season. Ducati is cutting new metal, one hopes, and no matter where they start from, they can't short-circuit the process of honing the edge of the blade.

Ducati has gone four straight seasons without a win. It doesn't appear that its approach to racing has changed in those four years. It will be interesting to see if the lack of change in its approach to racing equates to a lack of change in the results.

p.s. Marquez already has sent Honda back to the drawing board for its 2015 contender. Honda has built, tested and discarded a 2015 machine before Ducati has put its on the track yet. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere ...

Road Race Mini-Thoughts ...


More little stuff:

- Every motojournalist who wrote about the "end of electronics development in 2016" for MotoGP needs to look at the recently released "Agreed Principles" for the bike specs in 2016. What is clear is that the motorcycles still will have incredibly sophisticated electronics, and they will still vary widely from manufacturer to manufacturer, from team to team. I've been hearing the panderers and luddites bleat about "removing electronics" for nearly a decade now, and so far, it's pretty much been full steam ahead for electronics development on the racing front. I don't expect it to change anytime soon. For more of my thoughts on this, click the "Words - Archived" tab and search for whiskey and handjobs. Full principles here: http://www.crash.net/motogp/news/213007/1/agreed-principles-for-2016-motogp-ecu.html

- KTM's RC 390 Cup racers are going to sell for $10,000! That's way too much for a spec racing single. That's within a few bucks of a podium-capable 600cc SuperSport machine. The AMA would have been far better off going with a spec series for one of the little Japanese machines. Sorry, but this street-bred 390 is only a little less expensive than the full-race Moriwaki MD250H.

- Marco Melandri says he is looking forward to the task of developing the Aprilia MotoGP machine. I'll translate that for you: "I'm gonna get beat, and badly."

MotoGP Mini-Thoughts ...


Not enough for a full post on each, but still worth mentioning:

- Mike Leitner's decision to work with KTM on the MotoGP project suddenly makes the whole thing a lot more interesting. Trellis frame and non-specialized suspension handicaps aside, Leitner, Dani Pedrosa's longtime crew chief, knows how a MotoGP bike is supposed to work. KTM now have at least someone who can guide the ship in the right direction. And Leitner won't have to travel, or even have much of a commute, as he lives in Austria, KTM is in Austria, and the whole country is about the size of a Walmart parking lot.

- Speaking of Pedrosa, spare the guy a kind thought. He's a tiny man in a world that praises size and strength. In a massive overcompensation, he rises to the very pinnacle of a sport that makes strong men back away, mopping their brows to take away the fear-induced sweat. And then Pedrosa gets criticized for being too small and that his LACK of size is unfair. No wonder the poor SOB never smiles. And Leitner, who has worked closely with Pedrosa as any other human being, says Dani's stature is a disadvantage, not an advantage. Leitner says at last year's Australian Grand Prix that none other than Casey Stoner told him that he has no idea how Pedrosa manages to hang on to a modern MotoGP machine. Respect where respect is due.

- Speaking of a lack of respect, in Michael Scott's latest "column" for Cycle News, he suggests that Honda engineered the "murder" of two-stroke GP bikes because Soichiro Honda didn't like two-strokes. This is the motorcycling equivalent of the longstanding myth that Hitler's anti-Semitism was caused by an art school rejecting him as a student. Honda didn't like two-strokes initially, true. But the idea that a decades-old preference of one technology over another dictating the 2015 decisions of a multinational corporation - how utterly stupid. And it completely overlooks the fact that once Honda wrapped its head around the fact that it needed to build two-strokes to compete in GP racing, it built the best in the world. Honda's first 500cc two-stroke took the 500cc GP manufacturer's and riders titles in its first attempt in 1983 and held the manufacturer's crown for three straight years. The company won the last 500cc GP crowns (rider and manufacturer) in 2001, nearly two decades later, and won more two-stroke 500cc GP manufacturer's titles in between than anyone else. And it dusted off the shelves to provide Hiroshi Aoyama with the firepower to claim the last-ever two-stroke 250cc GP title in 2009, battling back a horde of factory-backed Aprilias. I'd say that Honda has gotten over its dislike of two-strokes. But hey, I could be wrong ...

Two-Stroke GP Revival: Smoke And Mirrors ...


Echoing through a few motorcycle blogs and columns lately is the idea that two-stroke technology has advanced to the point where GP racing should consider going back to two-strokes. The ideas, summed up, suggest that the machines would be less expensive, and racing them would drive technological advancement on that front.

These writers are guilty of pandering to their ever-shrinking audiences in the worst way. They know better, but hey, gotta fill the column-inches with something, and the old way of doing things was always best, right?

Here's the deal:

- Factories don't care how much it cost to go racing. They were the ones who wanted to ditch the two-strokes in the first place, knowing full well that four-stroke racing was more expensive. It's the value of competing, the cost vs. benefit, that matters. The difference between the cost of a full factory four-stroke and a full factory two-stroke isn't going to make a difference.

- Racing doesn't exist to push all technological frontiers. It exists (at least in part) to develop the technologies that the factories find useful and marketable. Right now, two-stroke motorcycle technology isn't marketable for road machines, so why bother pushing the technological envelope on that front? But Honda actually has a brief explanation of Traction Control on its motorcycle web page; expect to see them advance that technology in racing. And ABS is next.

- Motorcycle manufacturers are heavily invested in the production of four-stroke machines. These are what they sell. Re-tooling to invest in two-stroke production, emissions certifications for markets around the world, etc., isn't a wise investment in resources. Quite frankly, they're too busy getting ready to start producing electric motorcycles; we're one generation of battery technology advancement away from large-scale production of electric sportbikes.

I miss two-strokes, too. Those 500cc V-4s were just gorgeous, truly two-wheeled F1 machines. But you know what? I've been watching some old 1980s-era 500cc GP races on Youtube. And a lot of them - complete snoozefests. Careful of looking back through rose-colored glasses.

The Pulse Of World SBK, Part Seven ...


The rest:

- Sadly, I think we can safely ignore Buell. I recall reading somewhere that they tested with a traditional front brake and gained entire seconds per lap. If they cling to their old technology, they're hosed before they get off the trailer. They were slower than many of the Supersport machines - the 600s - last season, and when they finished, they were invariably the last of the factory machines, and sometimes the last of all machines. BIG improvements are needed here, and switching riders is like swapping deck chairs in Pompeii (God, I love mixing metaphors). Eric has buttered his bread, and now he has to sleep in it (see what I mean?)

-  MV Agusta may be quicker than EBR, but won't challenge front-runners. Don't have the money to do development like the front-running teams.

- BMW is the wild card here. I really don't know which BMW will show up. On paper, the machine is more than competitive, and Toni Elias and Sylvain Barrier are race winners. But ... the S1000RR has a reputation for being difficult when you push it to 101 percent. It's a missile when you don't pump up the power - in other words, the bike is a monster in Superstock competition and has been very, very effective in the Endurance World Championship. But when you build SBK power into it, it becomes - let's say tricky. It throws the rider down the road a lot.

Cannot wait for the season to start.

The Pulse Of World SBK, Part Six ...


OK, back to Superbike and the likely-to-be-also-rans ...

It's hard to throw the Pata Honda squad into that category. The CBR1000RR is not that slow in a straight line. But not only is the bike old, it's got a unique electronics package by Cosworth. Since that team is the only front-line squad using it, they've got to do all their own data stuff. It's clear they're still struggling; it's kind of hard to believe some of the stuff that was coming out of the mouth of Rea and Haslam last year about the engine braking settings being off.

And the Honda is kind of a unique package; it started life with a different shock linkage, and the team has done a lot more hard-part engineering than other teams. Once again, that means more time required to refine the package. Anyone can build a Superbike. I can build one in my garage. Building a consistently winning Superbike, on the other hand ...

It's hard to see the Honda surging to the fore unless the team manages to get the Cosworth package dialed in - or just throws in the towel and goes the Magneti Marelli route. Expect to see Guintoli at the front in the rain or at Imola, though ...

The Pulse Of MotoGP, Part Four ...


If you gave the satellite teams full factory equipment, and the factory teams satellite bikes, how much would change in terms of performance? Not much, says someone who would know.

There is an EXCELLENT interview with Tech III's Herve Poncheral over at Crash.net today. In it, he pierces the bullshit surrounding so much of the complaining about rules and technical status of the MotoGP series.

One of the most important behind-the-scenes concepts that he points out - one that so many people forget - is how close the satellite bikes are to the full factory stuff. 

"I understand why the media, fans and sometimes riders talk about suspension, electronics or technical crew as the problem. It's because they don't like the brutal fact that someone else is faster," Poncheral says. "The difference between the factory or satellite package is already very close."

"In the Valencia post-race test we got our 2015 material, which was basically what Vale and Jorge used during the last grand prix. So it was the final evolution of the 2014 season for the factory team. This is what we will run again in Sepang I. But after that it all depends on what is happening in terms of development, or what can be changed given things like the engine freeze. As Masao Furusawa [former Yamaha MotoGP boss] always said, 'Yamaha have four factory bikes. Not two factory and two satellite'. 

"Clearly the most advanced spec and the latest developments are the priority for Vale and Jorge. But there is a big stock of spare parts and different things that Yamaha carries from track to track that are distributed according to what the riders request and their riding style. What I can tell you without appearing like I'm polishing the shoes of my technical partner is that we have a very competitive package and both of our riders can go quicker. They have got to learn and understand how."

I'd like to cut and paste the whole thing here, but I'll summarize. Rules come and go, the 2016 package might make things a little closer, but if Herve wants or needs anything to be competitive, he wants Marquez on his bike.

"But we must never forget that in our sport the biggest factor is the rider. Full stop," he says.

And the biggest impact of the 2016 rules is that - I'm paraphrasing - they might be enough to fool someone into giving a satellite team enough money to hire a guy like Marquez.

"My dream is that sponsors will devote enough financial resources to convince a top rider to come with us, or any other satellite team," he says.

http://www.crash.net/motogp/interview/212980/1/exclusive-herve-poncharal-motogp-qa.html 

The Pulse Of World SBK, Part Five ...


If Ducati has a transmission-related advantage, and Aprilia - and to a lesser extent, Kawaski - have a horsepower advantage, what of the rest of the field?

Interesting question. Predictions usually aren't worth the paper they're printed on, but it's fun to speculate. So with private testing underway prior to Phillip Island's season-opener, here's what it looks like, for me, for the rest:

- Suzuki may show better form, even though the GSX-R1000 is so old that it has drum brakes and wire-spoke wheels. The Voltcom team is switching from its Motec electronics to a Magneti Marelli system similar to what its National Superbike and MotoGP teams use. Its riders have complained in the past that the bike needed an upgrade in the electronics department, and maybe this is it. 

The bike also could use a little more top end, but generally the thing handles well and brakes well. Not an accident that the only win for Suzuki last year came in the very first race at Phillip Island, a track with long, long high-speed turns that rewards stability and corner speed and doesn't punish underpowered machines too badly.

(Digression No. 1: Back in 2012, the last season Ducati won, Checa took a victory at Phillip Island on a bike that was much, much slower in a straight line than its competition. He also won at Imola, another track that favors handling, and at Miller, which even though it has a stupid-long front straight, rewards machines that handle well and doesn't necessarily punish a lack of top end so much. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but look back over the winners at Miller.)

(Digression No. 2: The Aprilia RSV4 factory superbike has an electronic control function that the company calls "Antijerk." You can use that as the punch line for the riddle, "Why will (insert your least-favorite rider's name here) never ride for Aprilia in World Superbike?" You are welcome.)

More tomorrow ...

The Pulse Of World SBK, Part Four ...


So what do the Ducati folks think of 2015? Pilota Davide Giugliano says not to read too much into the preseason tests to date, as the tests this week will show more of the form of the machines as they've been developed over the winter.

"I do not think it's fair to say that Ducati is favored," Giugliano told GPOne. "With the new regulation, if anything, we have reduced the gap power than the four-cylinder, which has demolished in the past and that has led us to have to do things on the track that were not simple. Other accelerated much more. In early tests, Ducati rode the bike in 2015 for quite some time, with a team tests available. It is normal that we were already quite forward with development. We are working on some parts of the bike where we know we are missing something already seen in the past year, intervening especially in electronics."

So, based on what we've seen and heard so far in the off-season, here's what we can make of it: 

The four-cylinder bikes last year could not only blow away the Ducati on the straights, but could out-accelerate them out of corners. The new rules take away part of that advantage by hamstringing all the bikes with fixed ratios, something that disadvantages the fours more than the twins.

The four-cylinder brigade will try to compensate by building more horsepower into their bikes and relying on their electronic suites to manage that additional power. Honda got a jump start on that; back at the Portimao round in 2014, Jonathan Rea tried a new, upgraded engine, but it did not work out for that weekend.

Kawasaki seemed as though it was caught off-guard in the very first post-season tests, but remember that Kawasaki doesn't race in GP; the Superbike is its only real race machine, and all of the factory's efforts can be concentrated here. In addition, Kawasaki ran an EVO-spec machine last season, so it has some data it can fall back on.

Aprilia does have a MotoGP machine, but according to statements made by the factory, the MotoGP engine still is based on the RSV4 production machine. That means at least the possibility of MotoGP horsepower trickling down to the Superbike. The factory, as noted below, says it is doing development of the Superbike for 2015.

The first clues about the acceleration vs. top speed will come as testing resumes this week. Bikes on the track - woo-hoo!

p.s. Saw a picture of Max Biaggi at a charitable event recently. Looks like the Roman Emperor is putting on a few pounds. I couldn't be happier - it is hard to retire from this sport and settle into civilian life. Making the transition well is an accomplishment.




The Pulse Of World SBK, Part Three ...
Much has been written about the new Superbike World Championship regulations for 2015. But I haven’t seen much substance to those writings, and a lot of empty conclusions parroted. Getting to the source of the information, in my journalism career, has provided much more useful information – although one must always take what one hears with a ton or two of salt.


Over at GPOne.com, there’s an interview with Carlo Fiorani, racing manager of Honda Europe. Fiorani was speaking about the 2015 version of the CBR1000RR that will be campaigned in SBK by Michael van der Mark and World Champion Sylvain Guintoli.


Big changes? Try virtually no changes, Fiorani says.


“Updates have not been particularly drastic,” Fiorani says. “Our (electronics package) is one of 2014 with somewhere that costs less. For example, a sensor of a different brand but that can perform the same function. "


Fiorani also sees Ducati as benefiting most from the new regulations.


“I think that Ducati will be competitive as last year. But they start with a base purely race, just look at the list price (of the street machine),” he says.


Ultimately, Fiorani says Aprilia and Kawasaki are likely to stay at the front, simply because they are investing more than other manufacturers in their bikes and their teams. Honda’s best hope, he says, is that youngster van der Mark and old hand Guintoli will be able to drag the Honda up to the level of the competition.

Chili And The Jackass ...


Recently watched the documentary "Superbikes: When Britain Ruled The World" while traveling. Fun stuff - the bikes, especially the Japanese ones, look so big and ponderous compared to their modern-day counterparts.

Pierfrancesco (P.F.) Chili featured in the documentary. Chili, as you longtime racing fans know, was kind of a journeyman, racing satellite 500cc and 250cc GP machines from 1986 to 1993. While he took one GP win under controversial circumstances (the top riders boycotted the race due to weather) he was never a factory rider, and never really had a shot at a title.

Chili switched to the Superbike World Championship series in 1995 and put in another three years on a satellite Ducati, notching a handful of wins. His performance landed him a factory Ducati ride in 1998. Finally, Chili had the team and the machine to give him a shot at a World Championship.

But (and you knew the 'but' was coming ...)

Chili had an absolute mental meltdown after crashing while battling Carl Fogarty at Assen. When I say meltdown, he attended the post-race press conference in a bathrobe, seized the microphone and berated Fogarty, and had to be physically restrained. The video is on youtube; above is a frame capture of Chili standing outside in the paddock, blue bathrobe, on mike and on camera. Yipes!

Ducati was not amused and fired him. This was a problem for Chili, as Ducati was in the middle of a seven-year Manufacturer's Championship run, and if your name wasn't Colin Edwards or John Kocinski and you weren't on the factory Honda RC51, you were either on a Ducati or you didn't win the Rider's Championship.

That meltdown was the beginning of the end of Chili's career. He would get increasingly uncompetitive rides, and while he would occasionally snag a win or a podium, his shot at a World Championship was gone, melted away in that outburst in Assen.

In 2012, when Chili was interviewed for the documentary, this is what he had to say about the incident:

"I don't like to remember this, because I don't feel good now to see myself in this position ..."

It takes more than speed to be a Champion. And I was thinking about this because of a comment Sorbo made about GP racer and full-time pouting brat Jack Miller after his meltdown after the season-ender at Valencia. Sorbo said something like, "You know, maybe he'll look at the tape of himself after that race and go, 'Who is that asshole? Oh shit, it's me!' and clean up his act."

One hopes so, and you hope it won't take 14 years like it did for Chili. As P.F. knows, it's really, really easy to throw away your shot in life.

Conspiracy Theory? Got One ...


I honestly don't believe that Ducati cares if it ever wins another MotoGP championship. I think being on the box in half the races in a season, with a win or two, would be successful enough - the bike would appear competitive, and that's the goal of being in MotoGP, to showcase your product and make it look good. 

Without a technological revolution - and the increasingly-restrictive rules make revolution less and less likely - it's doubtful Ducati will be a title-contender. But I think, thanks to Ducati's exotic, high-end reputation and image, that MotoGP needs Ducati more than Ducati needs MotoGP.

But the Superbike World Championship - that's a different story. Ducati used to own that series, and it also used to own the entire high-end sportbike market. Think back 15 years; no BMW S1000RR, no MV Agusta F4, no Aprilia RSV4. The Honda RC51 had little appeal to the buyers of exotic sportbikes. And Bimota's production numbers and dealer network made them quirky rather than exotic. When you got done with Japanese bikes, you went Ducati.

Today, an entirely different environment.

BMW's top-line S1000RR models are exotic, sophisticated, available and reliable, and are among the world's best-selling sportbikes. Aprilia's RSV4 offers MotoGP engine architecture. MV Agusta is picking up steam with its amazing triples and revised F4 models. Hell, even the "mere" Yamaha R1 comes in an exclusive version that oozes exotica, not to mention the supercharged Kawasaki H2 and H2R.

And BMW, Aprilia and Kawasaki have kicked the crap out of Ducati in recent years in the series Ducati used to dominate.

OK, so let's look at the pieces:

- Ducati losing in MotoGP.
- Ducati losing badly in WSBK.
- Dorna willing to give Ducati crazy concessions to keep them in MotoGP, because having high-end brands in the sport improve the sport's image and prestige. (Imagine what would happen to MotoGP if Ducati left and, say, Kymco, introduced a MotoGP machine. Who's Kymco? See what I mean?)

I'd imagine that Ducati gave their buddies at Dorna a jingle and said something to the effect of:

"Hey, Carmelo. Remember how when we were talking about leaving MotoGP and you changed the rules to make us look a little more competitive? Well, we need some help in SBK. Yes, we know a four-cylinder bike is better, but we market twins, we're stuck selling twins. You want to find out if you can sell SBK to promoters without Ducati? Alright, then shut up and listen, punk. We don't start winning in one of these two series, we pull the plug on both. You give us an advantage in SBK, we'll keep filling your grids in MotoGP. You know what's good for you, you do what we say. Capisce? Good."

I have absolutely no proof that such a discussion took place. But a conspiracy theory doesn't require proof of its validity; it requires the absence of proof that it is wrong. And you don't have any evidence that such a conversation never took place.

Next: The fundamentalist Christian conspiracy in your bowl of Lucky Charms. Thank you, Patton Oswalt ...

The Pulse of World SBK, Part Two ...


Last month, Superbike World Championship rider Jonathan Rea said the 2015 rules were "swinging toward Ducati" in terms of giving the twin-cylinder machine an advantage over the four-cylinder bikes. 

It's hard to make sense of that comment at first blush, since electronic hardware will be limited and engine mods limited for everyone, and Ducati has had large pieces of its ass handed to it on a platter for several seasons in SBK competition. Granted, Ducati, BMW and Aprilia make road bikes that are amazing starting points for SBK racing machines. Each of them make a sportbike that, as it sits on the showroom floor, features equipment and technology banned in SBK and MotoGP. And as I posted here much earlier, when you limit the changes that can be made to a road machine for SBK competition, then the manufacturers who really want to win badly simply make crazy-trick, limited production "homologation specials."

A bigger clue toward what Rea was talking about emerged earlier this week on Roadracingworld.com in an interview with Brian Gillen, the head of the MV Agusta Reparto Corse racing department. Gillen was talking about next year's F4-RC model - a limited-edition, super-expensive, super-trick street machine that MV Agusta will use as the basis for its SBK machine. Little factories have one advantage in this scenario: When the rules limit you to stock from the factory, then the little factories just do all the race prep on the "stock" machine's assembly line for you, and sell just enough of these "homologation specials" to meet the minimum production requirements. MV Agusta is only going to make 250 of the F4-RC models in 2015. Honda dropped that many motorcycles off of forklifts in the warehouse last month.

Anyway ...

In that interview, Gillen was upset with the new-for-2015 SBK rule that limited each machine to one set of gear ratios for the season. Aprilia was upset because it had designed its RSV4 with a quick-change transmission so it could select the best ratios for any given track, in any condition, and has lost that advantage. But Gillen goes a step further and says the rule is a blatant gift to Ducati:

“With the [new Superbike technical] rules this year you only have one set of transmission ratios homologated for the whole year. Who does that help? Does it help someone who is going World Superbike racing with a four-cylinder machine? No. To make six sets of different gears and six sets of the same gears costs the same amount of money. If you have a 1200cc V-Twin that makes a lot of torque you can get away with one set of ratios at all the tracks. If you have an Inline Four that makes less torque gear ratios become really important.”

Tomorrow: A conspiracy theory for which I have absolutely no proof. but might explain the little gifts that Dorna is giving to Ducati in MotoGP and now Superbike ...

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/mv-agusta-to-announce-lighter-210-horsepower-f4-rc-in-january/ 

It's All About Traction ...


Indy 500 winner Mark Donohue used to talk about the "friction circle." It's the idea that at any moment, the tires have X amount of traction available, and it is the driver's job to divide that total traction up between the various forces - braking, acceleration and cornering - in the manner that gets the vehicle around the corner most rapidly.

I've added, in prior posts, that the quickest way around any corner in any racing vehicle at any time is right at or slightly above the limit of traction.

Technology - be it tires, frames, suspension or electronics - move that limit around. But the racer's job is always to be on that limit.

Why am I prattling on like this? Too much coffee? Never a bad guess. But no, there's a great interview with former 500cc GP winner Daryl Beattie over on Crash.net in which he talks about riding a modern MotoGP machine. While so many on the 'net (mostly non-racers and non-winners) prattle on about how electronics are ruining racing by taking the rider out of the equation, here's what Beattie has to say about 2014:

"So much has changed since the days of Barry Sheene, in terms of the tyres and electronics, but the guys now are certainly tucking and sliding a lot ..."

Even with the amazing rider aids of 2014 tires, suspension, chassis, brakes and electronics, it's all about putting the thing on the edge of traction or above, every corner, every lap, as it always has been.

It's funny how so many are talking about the "resurgence" of dirt track training for GP riders. Guess they've never heard of the Haul-Ass Hickman Club (Kenny Roberts' famous dirt facility, where Jorge Lorenzo trained back in 2007), or Rich Oliver's Mystery School, or the other places where GP riders have been training in the dirt for years.


The Pulse of World SBK, Part One ...


Rules changes for 2015 were what drove Aprilia out of factory involvement in the series. Aprilia designed its RSV4 to take full advantage of the SBK rules, and incorporated an adjustable frame, quick-change gearbox and ride-by-wire throttle into the beast from the get-go. Combine that stuff with a powerful engine and top-level riders, and you get three rider's championships in the past five years.

For 2015, the advantages of the quick-change gearbox have been eliminated - each bike gets one set of gear ratios for the whole season. And everyone gets ride-by-wire. Aprilia looked at those rules changes, as well as the electronics changes and homologation requirements, and said, screw this, we're out.

But they've recently looked again. And what they found should frighten the competition. 

For the factory now says, in a recent article on GPOne, that it will provide budget and development support for the RSV4 for the upcoming season. Red Devils Roma will run the team, but they will do so with money and technical support from the Aprilia factory.

My read: They've looked at the new regs and figured quickly how to adapt their existing electronics strategies to the new devices (really, it's just swapping the ideas from one box to another. Time consuming, but not brain surgery). There's going to be the potential for more horses from the V-4 than the other engines on the grid. GPOne says they've found an additional 20 horses in the motor department over the off-season.

Don't count the Red Devils riders, especially Leon Haslam, out this season. He's going to be on full factory equipment that has proven fiercely competitive, and he's got something to prove. 

Lessons From The Past ...


While doing a bit of traveling for a family emergency, I watched the broadcast of the 2008 250cc GP race at Sepang. The discussion pre-race was fascinating because the announcers were talking about how the class was collapsing. Honda was leaving the class, KTM was pulling the plug; at the first race of 2009, there were a pile of Aprilias, a few private Hondas (and one very nice factory-supported one) and that was it.

The announcing, as it usually does, centered on the cost of the bike - because that fact is the simplest one to understand for most race fans and the announcers. But as is all too often with the simplest explanation, it is not the best.

Honda hadn't made a 250cc two-stroke streetbike in years. KTM didn't make one either, but it had made a 125cc single-cylinder engine for off-road and on-road use, and as other manufacturers focused on four-strokes for street and race use, KTM decided that GP racing was where it could show off its two-stroke acumen and draw attention to its two-stroke dirtbikes. It had built a 250cc machine as well, and entered 250cc two-stroke GP racing in 2005, as the Japanese manufacturers were solidly turning their attention to the four-stroke MotoGP bikes. Less competition meant a greater chance of a KTM machine atop the podium.

By the end of 2008, KTM was out of the 125cc GP game entirely, and didn't want to fight Aprilia any more in 250cc GP racing. Aprilia had become the 800-lb gorilla in the battle, because it sold a ton of little two-stroke scooters and streetbikes. Aprilia wanted to be known as the company that made awesome two-stroke roadrace bikes, because it and parent company Piaggio sold two-stroke road machines. The connection is easy to see, even to the people in the marketing department.

It wasn't the cost of the machines that killed off the 250cc GP class. Had it continued, it would have become an Aprilia Cup class (which, ironically, would have driven down costs). It was the lack of interest by other factories that killed it off, and that lack of interest was created by a lack of a link between racing in the class and selling motorcycles. It was not only going to become a one-manufacturer class, but also one that featured machines that no one else was building for the street, and a second Aprilia Cup class - the 125cc class had devolved into Aprilias and rebadged Aprilias.

Seriously, though, Hiroshi Aoyama's machine above is pure GP sex, isn't it?

Turning Up The Heat ...

Learning from others is a good way to improve. It's the off-season, so I'm stuck watching car racing. There's a GT series that I enjoy that races on several European circuits like Nagaro, Paul Ricard and Zandvoort. They do qualifying in an interesting manner - there's a race on Saturday that pays a few Championship points and sets the grid for Sunday's main Championship race.

I think it's a concept that motorcycle road racing could benefit from, one that lots of off-road and flat track motorcycle race series use.

Here's one way to have MotoGP (and quite frankly every other top-line series) do qualifying. Do the existing three practice sessions. From those times, create four heat races. Divide the riders up as follows: Heat One is the fastest rider, the fifth-fastest rider, the ninth-fastest, the 13th, etc. Heat Two includes the second, sixth, tenth, 14th and 18th-fastest riders. You get the idea.

Run four five-lap sprints. Best time of each rider sets their grid position.

Benefits:

- More races, more podiums. Gives the backmarkers a chance to claim a top-three finish sometime during the weekend. Gives them a "podium" finish to sell to sponsors. Gives the backmarkers a chance to chase a rider that's slightly faster in race-like conditions. Gives the front-runners a few laps of absolutely clear track with no one trying to steal a tow off of them.

Drawbacks:

- Possibility of a mixed-up grid because weather has changed during the hour this is taking place. Oh well.

Biggest hurdle: 

- The "We've Never Done This Before So It Can't Possibly Work" mentality. 

Pity. This would make for one fun, interesting Saturday afternoon.

From The Ground Up ...


So yesterday's entry got me thinking about Sorbo and the time he spend in Canada working with young riders on the CSBK spec 125 series. These were Honda CBR125R single-cylinder machines, ridden by kids. A few things came to mind:

- Ed recalls that it was a running battle with the parents to keep them from trying to eke out a performance advantage from the machine wherever they could. If it was a battle to do this with the parents, how hard is it going to be to fight that battle with factories?

- These spec series are all over the place! Now CSBK runs a Honda CBR250R class at their Nationals - horsepower and weight restricted, no pros, championship winners don't get to come back next year. Honda and KTM and others run spec series for smaller machines in the U.K., Germany, all across Asia, in Mexico ... Your kid wants to race, there's zero reason you can't already do it. Pictured here are competitors in the Asia Dream Cup series, another scholarship class supported by Honda - just show up and ride, Honda provides the machines. And if you dig bar-to-bar action, you cannot beat the European Junior Cup, available at 2wheelstv.com. Watch all the action for free. Those kids race like someone told them, you don't win, you don't eat.

- Honda puts a lot of effort into these grass-roots series. Sure, they're trying to keep and expand the rider base. But it also allows them to keep a worldwide ear to the ground for the next Marquez ... 

Sounds Good, But ...
 
The FIM's Superbike Commission says it will form a working group to develop a class structure (I know, coma already, right?) for a new, low-cost, entry-level class based on the little 300cc class machines that have been introduced recently by several manufacturers.

It sounds, to me, like one of those things that are proposed because they make the proposer sound good. But in reality ...

Couple things:

- The proposal calls for varied displacements and engine configurations. There goes your "low-cost" idea right there. Now it's competition between manufacturers - and that's always as expensive as the manufacturer feels the championship is worth. If riders are buying 100,000 of the 300cc-class machines in, say, India, no manufacturer is going to want to lose that championship and lose sales in that market segment. It quickly becomes a factory race special battleground. See Moto3.

- It will be a never-ending battle to "balance" machine performance between displacements and configurations. If the aim is to develop new talent, as the announcement suggests, then no rider is going to want to take the chance of being on the wrong machine. Professional racers get paid to be on the wrong machine sometimes. Developing riders don't get that chance.

- It sounds to me like they are re-inventing the wheel. There are already loads of race classes for up-and-coming talent around the globe. Every club in the U.S. has a class for 300cc twins and little singles. And isn't there already a European Junior Cup that races at the World Superbike events that offers a screaming deal for those who want to race? There's even a separate class for young female racers! To illustrate, this is from the EJC website:

The entry for the 2015 European Junior Cup is priced at Euro 22,950.00* and includes ownership of the race prepared motorcycle and its road equipment (with a specification value of over Euro 10,000), Supersport tyres according to the series schedule, fuel, oils, brake pads, motorcycle transportation, storage, workstations, plus coaching and technical support.

All you need to do to compete is show up!

More racing is better, but PR stunts waste oxygen.

'tis The Season ...


'tis the season for brotherhood. So here's an old forum post about a team effort that turned out well. Pictured above, Pittman Wallace gives me a push after a pit stop is complete as Papa Zader looks on. Happy Holidays!

CVMA Round 4 Race Report - Going Full Stupid, FTW! 

Last edited by morbidelli17; 09-26-2011 at 09:53 PM. 

There are opportunities in life when, with one simple act, you can step into a multi-layered pile of stupid. I like to jump into these opportunities head-first.

Pittman Wallace was looking for a dance partner for the Team Challenge race. He has a 2007 Honda CBR100RR, and offered me a chance to race it if I'd be his teammate.

Now you have to understand:

- I never race borrowed motorcycles.
- I am not used to Pirelli tires.
- I have never ridden a literbike on the track, let alone raced one.

Pittman's offer was the dumbest thing I could possibly agree to.

"I'm in," I said.

We went back and forth throughout the afternoon as to whether I'd race my SV for my leg or we'd use his bike for the whole race. I think when the race started, with Pittman on board, the plan was for me to ride the SV. But Palmer and Papa Zader came up to me and offered to refuel the Honda during the pit stop, so we went back to doing the whole thing on Pittman's bike.

Oh yeah; I don't remember who it was, but after the race started, someone made a passing comment about GP shift patterns. I thought, huh - I've never ridden a bike with a GP shift pattern.

Pittman came in and I was waiting. I can't imagine what he must have thought when he didn't see my SV there. He jumps off, someone starts refueling the bike - his bike - and I start yelling at him, "GP shift or regular shift?" It takes a couple of tries to get the question through his head. He finally blurts out, "GP shift!" I go, "Shit!" Palmer says, "Just leave it in third."

So I did. For about 37 minutes.

The bike didn't handle badly, although the brakes were VERY mushy, and that was a problem when turns are hurtling toward you faster than they ever have in your life. But I just settled into a routine, and refused to be baited into a battle, even when Coyner came by and gave me his trademark one-finger salute. I know I rode the thing like a complete wuss. I actually thought out on the track, here I am on a literbike and getting passed by SV riders. This is like going out on a date with porn triplets and getting as far as a firm manly handshake.

The funny thing is, I was - I am certain - by far the slowest of the six riders on the three two-rider teams in the class. But the really fast guys binned it in the first 10 minutes, and they were out. Then the other team didn't get their pit stops right, and lost at least a lap to us in the process.

I knew their second rider was faster than me. I needed to be smooth and consistent, and finish the event. It was actually a relief when the sun dropped behind the hills. But I wanted to keep going, because Pittman had trusted me with his bike, and I wanted to reward that trust. I was sore, tired, and starting to make mistakes when I came out of the last turn and found the checkered flag waving.

I also saw Pittman leaning over the pit wall, both fists in the air. I was pretty sure at that point we'd won. I suspected something else as well, but I wasn't sure yet. So I went around the track, thanked the cornerworkers, and cruised back to the pits.

After they pried me off the bike and I was pretty sure I wasn't going to throw up, I looked at Pittman. He was bouncing around like a high school girl who'd just found out she was going to the prom with the captain of the football team.

I asked him, "Is this your first race win?"

He screamed, "YES!"

Then he asked, "Can I keep the trophy?"

I said, "Absolutely."

One of the best moments of my racing career.

Rossi Of The Year ...


So in poll after poll, Valentino is winning the MotoGP "Rider Of The Year" award. Hard to fathom at first glance; some other guy named Marquez set record after record again, and Rossi beat that guy head-to-head exactly once in 18 tries.

Popularity plays a role in the polling. But the folks at crash.net note that Rossi was just as popular during the Ducati years, and he was only 10th and 11th in their poll during those years.

They forget the power of the narrative. Story telling is how we shape our reality. And Rossi's story has changed. 

In 2010, people expected Rossi to jump on the Ducati and take titles, to finish the job that the slacker Casey Stoner couldn't complete. He failed to meet the audience's expectations, and the audience punished him for that.

In 2014, the expectations were much lower, Frankly, all anyone really wanted was to see Rossi luck, think or strategize into a win once over the year. We got it twice. It was like - well, a fairy tale. And say what you want about humans, we love our fairy tales. It's like watching a Ferrari win at Monza, or watching Louis Rossi (the French rider) take his one and only GP win in a rain-soaked Moto3 race in France and leading the crowd in singing "Le Marseillaise," the French national anthem, from the top step of the podium. Brings a warm, fuzzy feeling to your cold, hard racer heart, don't it?

It's unfortunate that some feel the need to denigrate Marquez' achievements to justify calling Rossi "Rider Of The Year." Most wins in a season and 10 wins in a row, and that's not good enough. Sadly, that's all too human, as well ...

Tune in tomorrow for a special Christmas story.

Single Guy ...


Jack Baker has been racing forever. He's always been attracted to single-cylinder machines; "Singles, as you know, don't scare you silly very often," he told me - Jack and I have raced against each other on single-cylinder bikes in the past. No, let me be more clear; Jack has kicked my butt in the past.

I've always admired this single that he's owned, a 2005 Suzuki RM-Z 450 with Honda RS250 bodywork and a GSX-R600/750 front end. Supermoto wheels complete the package. It's simple, light (237 pounds fueled and ready to race) and just runs and runs. He's got 14 wins in a row to date in WERA competition.

Not only do I like the bike a lot, it's an interesting reminder of how pro motorcycle racing works. I was at the Laguna Seca MotoGP race in 2009 where the SuperSingle concept was unveiled. The operators of AMA Pro Road Racing were looking for a youth class and thought converted motocrossers would be a great idea. The concept met with a vicious backlash and went nowhere.

The reason offered was that singles would explode - a lot. But the reality is that no manufacturer made a 450 single racebike or streetbike, and didn't see the connection between road racing a SuperSingle and selling machines. So they spent zero effort in support of the concept - and it died.

Fast forward to 2015. AMA Pro Road Racing will feature a class with - yep - 390cc Singles. The class has been well-received and applauded. What's the difference? The manufacturer support. KTM makes a 390 single sportbike, sells a 390 single sportbike, and wants publicity for a 390 single sportbike.

See the pattern?

Nice bike, Jack. I'll post up the pictures of your other Singles later on. Thanks for sending them in.

The Pulse Of MotoGP, Part Three ...


I used to work as a journalist in Chicago, where every spring the sports reporters and fans would start talking about how this was going to be "the year" for the Cubs. I'll leave it at this: Since winning the World Series in 1908, the Cubs have not won another overall title. Since losing the World Series in 1945, they haven't even made it to the big show. This did not keep the ignorant from bleating on, spring after spring.

We have seen much of the same from "motojournalists" who have been pushing the idea that the new rules for 2016 are suddenly going to change everything in the MotoGP game. I, as always, am skeptical, and the new regulations for 2016 announced yesterday indicate that my skepticalness (it's a word now, dammit) is well-founded.

The decision: All machines for 2016 will be limited to 22 liters of fuel. Currently, the worse you perform, the more fuel you get. Open-class machines get 24 liters, Factory-class machines get 20.

So ... what happens in 2016 is that the Open teams that needed the extra fuel to be as competitive as they were will lose that advantage, and the Factory teams that were kicking their butts and winning everything with 20 liters now will have even more fuel at their beck and call.

Even more ominously for the naive "Cubs fans" of the racing world, the regulations for 2015 now state that all Factory teams must use unified software from the beginning of July onward, but different teams on a given manufacturer's machine may use "different versions" of the unified software. And for 2016, Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports said, "Basically, the Grand Prix Commission approved the working system for the creation of the electronics packages for 2016, proposed unanimously by the members of the MSMA."

It shows that the rules changes for 2016 are going to have a very limited impact on the outcomes of races. Money, the money to hire talent, and the money to do R&D will always reign supreme.

The Pulse Of MotoGP, Part Two ...


It's never a good idea to confuse cause and effect. 

Some are bleating that the move to a spec ECU and software in MotoGP have convinced Suzuki and Aprilia to return to the series.

This ignores the fact that Suzuki had been testing a prototype for what seemed like years before - and actually announced their return to MotoGP months before - the spec ECU/software deal was announced. Suzuki's return actually was delayed when MotoGP went to a spec ECU but allowed factories to use their own software. Suzuki hadn't used the spec box before, and had to transfer all of its software to a new box, a process that took months.

And Aprilia - in effect, the company has been booted from World Superbike by the new rules next season. The engine advantages have been removed, a new ECU required. So Aprilia chose to hand over the reins of the RSV4 Factory racers to satellite teams, and with a MotoGP machine in hand and no where else to go ...

Hey, never a bad idea to be lucky. But self-delusional never is a good idea.

The Pulse Of MotoGP, Part One ...


Ah, being right. One of the joys in life.

One of the fascinating things about mass communication texts - stories, blog posts, etc. - is that the explanations for things must meet the audience's pre-existing expectations and understandings, not reality. If the audience doesn't already understand an idea or concept, it is harder to grab and hold their attention with that idea. So reality gets ignored and text producers - writers, bloggers, editors, etc. - trot out the ideas that already appeal to their audiences.

So ... one of the utter bullshit myths thrown around the Interwebs by bloggers and posters follows this easy-to-understand logic: Make GP racebikes cheaper, and more factories will come race GPs.

Perfectly logical - and completely wrong.

I have offered this formula before as an explanation for factory involvement in any motorsport: The money a factory is willing to spend is directly related to the value the company places on a given level of performance in that particular arena of competition. It doesn't matter to, say, Triumph, if it costs $25 million or $250,000 to race a season of MotoGP. Triumph isn't going to benefit from participating - it doesn't move vehicles on raw performance, but on a blend of function and style. It can do all the racing R&D it needs in a lesser series. You could PAY Triumph and it still wouldn't show up on a MotoGP grid. Suzuki does not need to win in MotoGP - so it will spend less than Honda or Yamaha. Being competitive in the MotoGP arena is good enough for Suzuki.

So trying to increase factory participation in GP racing by mandating cheaper bikes = pointless. Companies always will spend their entire racing budget on - well, racing.

Another Crash.net interview with Repsol Honda team manager Livio Suppo drives home the point:

“Filippo Preziosi [who led the design of Ducati's MotoGP machine from 2003-2012] taught me years ago that the [R&D] cost is not related to the rules, but related to the interest in the championship," Suppo says. “Formula One is a good example. When they stopped doing tests [to save money], they started developing the simulators and now I think they spend crazy money on the simulators. This is normal if you are in a competition and you want to win. If you cut this or say you cannot do this, the engineers will do something else. That is competition. So I think to speak about competition and reduction of costs is kind of a mistake in my opinion."

More later. Read the interview at:


Still Alive And Well ...

I dislike Facebook very much. But lately, I've found that sending people messages via that system works better than trying to find their phone numbers. So I logged into my account that I haven't checked in more than two years recently.

I found friend requests from several people who have quit racing in the past two years. I found friend requests from two people who have died racing during that period.

I've always tried to be sensible and careful about my racing. But I know that blind stupid luck plays a big part in all of this. I'm happy for my sensible approach to all of this, and I'm grateful for the luck.

As Johnny Winter sang, "Every now and then I know it's kind of hard to tell, but I'm still alive and well."

The BMW Strategy, Part Three ...


These aren't just my rantings. These are the thoughts of the people who are in charge of racing BMW's highest-profile team in the highest-profile series the company competes in on two wheels. Consider the comments of Andrea Buzzoni, manager of next year's WSBK entries for BMW Motorrad Italia, in an interview on GPOne: 

"A racing department official as Kawasaki and Ducati continues to be an advantage, but the regulation closer to production is an opportunity to be seized with determination," Buzzoni said.

He goes on to say that it will be easy to make 220 horses from such a potent stock machine, that the stock frame is up to the task of Superbike competition, and when it comes to electronics, BMW is ahead of the game. The plan, he says, is to make the S1000RR the bike of choice of the majority of the field.

It's a strategy that mirrors the strategy of Porsche in the sports car world. That car company will sell you a race car that's built upon an amazing street car, and will make you part of the company's racing family. (True story: In the 1960s, Porsche decided to enter every major endurance race with a brand-new car for reliability purposes. It built something like 52 race cars for the factory team one season. This policy cause an explosion in the popularity of endurance racing, which suddenly featured huge grids populated with barely-used cars that private customers snapped up the minute the factory put them on the auction block.)

But it requires a stunning machine to start with, and BMW keeps building a better streetbike. The newest model features auto-blipping for clutchless downshifts, as well as adjustable-on-the-fly suspension and race antilock brakes.

BMW might have started racing the S1000RR as a way of shaking off its reputation as the builder of odd and bloated touring machines. But what the company has discovered - and taken to heart - is that racing is its own justification, and that it can make solid economic sense. And because it has done so, the company now offers for a relative pittance (about the cost of a Honda Accord) you and I a machine that is so sophisticated that it would be banned in WSBK and MotoGP competition.

The BMW Strategy, Part Two ...





Top speed alone does not make a winning racebike (see Ducati, MotoGP, for several years now). You've got to make a machine that accelerates, brakes and handles well. And that means electronic rider aids in every race class except for Moto2 and BSB (sort of). Since I'm not a technophobe, I'm calling this progress. 

One of the things that the anti-tech luddites overlook is that by now, purchasing, installing and dialing in a decent electronics system is a hell of a lot cheaper in the long term than some of the other things that you'd have to do to make a bike handle better. Imagine the cost of chopping and re-welding a frame, running it at the track long enough to figure out if it's better or worse, then disassembling the bike again, cutting and welding, re-assembling the machine ... 

You get the idea. There's a lot more work in dialing in suspension and chassis the old way than the old-school dinosaur commentators out there care to admit. It's just that they're too old and trust a TIG welder but fear a laptop.

But there's a catch. As inexpensive as it is to dial in the last bit of electronics tuning, it is a lot of work in putting together an electronics strategy if you're starting from byte one. And it's easy to chase your tail.

BMW solves this problem, according to Chris Ulrich's article in a recent Roadracing World review of BMW racebikes, by adopting the Barney the dinosaur approach - sharing is caring. According to Ulrich, "Any owner of an S1000RR can buy the maps developed by BMW's official race teams and use them in their own track bike."

With lots and lots of teams turning to BMW as a solid, powerful starting point, the company has lots of bikes on racetracks, developing and improving electronics strategies that flow back to the company and are made available to race teams and private riders.

Not a bad way to build a worldwide base of privateer and small-team race customers. 

The BMW Strategy ...


Take a look at the announcements of new riders and teams going into Superbike classes around the world, and three letters keep popping up - BMW. The company will have a front-line presence in WSBK, in BSB, and more significantly will be the weapon of choice for the mid-packer and smaller teams in several series.

How did a bunch of touring bike guys pull this off?

Right bike, right time.

BMW's strategy for breaking into the sportbike market was simple: Make the fastest thing in a straight line around. I remember clearly the first time we put an S1000RR on the dyno as part of a seven-bike shootout. The other six literbikes all made within 10 horses of each other, between 155+ and 165. The BMW kicked out 185.

The economic collapse of the late 2000s meant that European machines suddenly were priced competitively with high-end Japanese stuff.

And ever-tightening rules packages meant that tuners and manufacturers had less and less opportunity to take those Japanese and Italian machines and build big horsepower into them. Suddenly, stock BMW horsepower is looking realistically competitive! I interviewed a Canadian Superbike privateer who could occasionally podium on an S1000RR with a street motor. Not street-based, street. He rode it around on the street to break it in. Then he put a Power Commander and a pipe on it. With race fuel, he had to carefully de-tune it down to the 190 BHP limit for the class.

Limits on modifications mean that the better the bike is in stock trim, the better it becomes for the privateer and small team. The flip side is that if the rules are too restrictive, the factories - the big companies that support the sport - leave. In BSB, Suzuki just lost its leading team; the rules keep the company from building its GSX-R1000 into a competitive racebike. Suzuki GB now has partnered with a team that has "some podiums" for the upcoming BSB season.

And while I totally dig the S1000RR, the fact is that BMW doesn't have a factory team in any series, nor does it support the sport in the way other manufacturers have.

A double-edged sword, to say the least.

Look At Me ...


To paraphrase a comment from Zaphod Beeblebrox IV, the grandfather of Zaphod Beeblebrox (the chronological confusion was caused by an accident involving a time machine and a contraceptive), "One of the best things about being dead is that it gives you such a wonderful sense of perspective."

Spending too much time on the Internet (especially Facebook) is a lot like being dead. But it can give you a sense of perspective.

Three items in the news this week that are related:

- AMA Pro Road Racing announces that its races will be shown on a cable channel. OK, so it's not the one that either WSBK or MotoGP will be shown on, but at least it's on. I will bet my last dollar that AMA Pro Road Racing, itself or though a sponsor, is paying for that package. That is the norm for smaller sports nowadays.


- MotoGP continues to struggle to attract viewers as it shifts to a pay-per-view model.


- And the overly-worshipped BSB series suffers yet another setback as Rapid Solicitors bails out as sponsor of the title-winning PBM team!


The function of any commercial text (news, sports, weather, talk shows, anything) is to attract attention. What is clear is that even BSB can't draw enough viewers for TV alone to make it worthwhile for a non-motorcycling company to sponsor a team. That is, specifically, what Rapid Solicitors told Paul Bird when they fired him (via email. That sucks.) 

Exposure - attracting eyeballs - is the name of the game here. That is why AMA Pro Road Racing is likely paying to air its races. Without that, sponsors don't show up.

But it can only be part of the deal. And that is why the increasing MotoGP/Dorna reliance on pay-per-view TV revenues is such a short-sighted plan. The scary thing about the state of MotoGP finance is not only MotoGP owner Dorna's crushing debt load, but that Dorna is now the main sponsor for several teams on the grid! "Like it or not Dorna has been for some teams the main sponsor for many years and to do that they need money," says Repsol Honda team manager Livio Suppo.

To get more money, Dorna is chasing a pay-per-view model that pays off in the short term - basically, the first contract you negotiate. But it drives away the ability of the teams to attract sponsors. They wind up addicted to money from Dorna, which is trying to sell an increasingly-less-valuable product (the race video broadcast) because the audiences get smaller and smaller. 

To quote from crash.net, "F1broadcastingblog.com states that BT Sport's live UK coverage of the Valencia MotoGP season finale peaked at just 151,000 viewers (average 110,000, slightly more than the 101,000 spectators present at the actual track on race day)."

Those numbers are, by no stretch of the imagination, large enough to attract sponsors of any size. 

I am reminded of a Dilbert cartoon in which the punch line delivered by Dogbert is four words:

"How about Death Spiral?"

Off-Season, Non-Sense ...



One of the things I always find most tiresome about off-season motojournalism is that, freed from the need to stare actual facts in the face (say, race results), reporters tend to stray toward flights of fancy that might capture the interest of some audience members (the primary function of any commercial media text) but are made up of complete fantasy.

Mat Oxley continues his back-to-the-past obsession with his latest blog post, in which he asserts that the 2016 MotoGP regulations will "essentially end electronics R&D." On Crash.net, another article says that the 2016 regulations will make for "equal, easy and safe" electronics. Look around and you can find equally inane commentary around the 'net.

Couple of things:

- No one who is actually racing MotoGP machines thinks that electronics development is going to stop. No one. Too late. The only difference is that once one manufacturer develops code, they have to share the raw code with others. They don't have to tell the others how to use it. It might help some of the no-hopers get closer to the mid-pack. But in the words of Livio Suppo, Repsol Honda team manager, to Crash.net: “One thing I'd like to underline that doesn't seem clear in some interviews, is that in this new situation we will still allow the companies to develop something. This is the reason why Honda accepted, finally, the single software for everybody. Because one thing is to have a single software and you have to use it, and the other is the situation where we finally ended up, which is that a group of people from each manufacturer will give their suggestions to Magneti Marelli to develop the software. This keeps alive the need of the companies to justify racing, as a way to develop technology.”

Translation: Honda and Yamaha are confident they can develop electronics code, give it to Aprilia, and still kick Aprilia's ass. And if Aprilia or Suzuki actually come up with something that might have given them an edge, now they have to give it to Honda and Yamaha!

- The other thing is that in recent seasons, when riders are asked where their competitors' machines are better, the answers have had nothing to do with electronics. Honda's MotoGP bikes have been better on corner entry; Yamaha has been a bit better mid-corner. The differences have come down to chassis and the ability to adapt them to whatever spec tire Bridgestone has thrown at them that season.

It's funny, but the people whining loudest about the need to "rein in electronics" are the ones who also bemoan the declining popularity of sportbike sales. Hey, maybe, just maybe, you can't sell your grandfather's BSA to a kid who was born with an iPhone in his hand.

Just a thought.

Getting It Backward ...


MotoGP has announced a four-year extension of its deal with Honda as the exclusive supplier of engines to Moto2. Honda will keep delivering its 599cc inline-four in a mild state of tune to the series, which will distribute them to the teams via a contractor that handles rebuilds and maintenance.

It's cheap. That's exactly why the deal was done. 

MotoMatters reports that what I suspected a few posts ago is, indeed, true; that a Moto2 machine, with unlimited frame, bodywork, suspension, etc., has become far less expensive than a full factory Moto3 bike.

Dorna has managed to get the relationship between the two classes exactly wrong.

In failing to clamp down on KTM when the Austrian company blatantly did an end run around the Moto3 rules and introduced full factory bikes into what was supposed to be a beginner class, Dorna ensured that Moto3 would become a factory battlefield.

The problem is that - drumroll, please - no manufacturer sells cutting-edge 250cc single-cylinder sportbikes for the street.

KTM's lightweight single is a 390. Honda's former 250cc street single bears the same relationship to a GP NSF250RW that the Yamaha FZ-6 bears to a Yamaha YZR-M1. Little bikes don't sell for much, so the gap between their technology and the Moto3 GP bikes is huge.

On the contrary, the street-going version of a Honda CBR600RR would be illegal in Moto2 - it's too technically advanced. Same for the Kawasaki ZX-6R.

Moto3 should be the cheap class. Moto2 should be a middle ground between a highly-restricted, nearly spec Moto3 class and a technically advanced MotoGP class. Everyone makes a 600cc sportbike (or a 675 triple). Dorna is blowing the opportunity to bring them on board. And the single-engine class, cheap as it may be, is always going to feel like the unloved stepchild in the paddock.

Van der Mark, Get Set ...



Spent much of the holiday binge watching World Supersport races that I didn't get to see during the regular season. Couple of things caught my attention:

- First, in a class that is known for cutthroat racing, most of it was remarkably clean. There was occasional contact, but it really seemed accidental, not deliberate. And Jules Cluzel, who was blazing fast, also showed that he knows the rules of engagement. I watched him give up positions at Donington Park just in case he'd passed under a yellow flag, and that move might have cost him the win. But it showed that he's a professional.

- Watch Michael van der Mark. The kid showed the sort of dominant speed in a minor class that marks him as someone who needed to move up. And he's shown - by winning the Suzuka 8-Hours twice in a row - that not only can he handle a bigger machine, but that he's got the mental capacity to think his way through a long, difficult stint. It takes more than just speed to succeed in the big leagues. So far, van der Mark seems to have the Right Stuff ...

The Race You Can't Lose ...




Winter testing rocks for a couple of very powerful economic reasons. 

You can put cool liveries on the bike that you can't run in the season - the past couple of years, I feel that the Yamaha MotoGP bikes looked way, way cooler in testing than they did in race day decor.

You can use the opportunity to market some stuff. How long until someone comes up with a decal kit to mimic the ZX-10R black/white scheme seen below? And Rossi uses a special paint scheme for his off-season testing helmet, which AGV then markets as a limited edition. There's money to be made here, yo!

But the best part is that no one checks for compliance with regulations, so you can do whatever you want. And that might mean running a bike, tires, whatever, that will allow you to put the bike at the top of the testing charts. For one day this week, the Suzuki GSX-R1000 was the fastest Superbike in the world! That can't hurt sales. A couple years ago, the Graves Yamaha squad put UK-made rear tires on their R6s for a test at Homestead, and Cameron Beaubier was nearly a second quicker than anyone else on the U.S.-made tires that were specified for the series. Sure, Beaubier couldn't run the U.K. tires in a race, but he won testing!

And if your bike or rider is slow, you have the perfect excuse - it's just testing.

Win all around.

Wax On, Wax Off ...




It is the quiet, methodical pursuit of perfection that makes the difference between the top step of the podium and the bottom step - or making it to the podium at all.

World Superbike is going to a "cost-capped" electronics regulation for next year, and there's some things inside the motors that you can't do anymore. Make no mistake, the biggest change is the electronics. Some of the teams have to chuck the systems they've carefully honed over the past few seasons, and they are scratching to come to grips with the new systems.

But the ultimate capabilities of the new systems aren't going to be much different, according to SBK Technical Director Scott Smart. The only difference is that the raw software packages the factory teams are running have to be provided to all the teams running the same bike.

As discussed below, that's not going to help those smaller teams at all. The big teams will still bring in a brigade of engineers to sort out the new boxes. And the regs simply say that all the teams will have all the same code; how to set it up is up to each team.

That's what is going on during the winter tests. While the smaller teams scramble for track time, the factory squads are putting in miles, with engineers hovering everywhere in the pits, gathering data on how to set up the new machines. It is the quiet, non-glamorous, incremental trial-and-error money and support gets you. It is that effort that will make the factory bikes dominant in 2015, just as they were last year.


Racing As A Mirror Of The Soul ...


Watching Lewis Hamilton win the Formula One title today gave me a great deal of satisfaction. And that led me to think that I've gotten a lot of satisfaction in how the year has played out in motorsports. I am a big fan of each of the riders who took the titles in MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3, WSBK, the driver in Formula One, Audi (which won Le Mans again). It's been pretty cool this time through.

Which made me wonder - why am I fans of some riders and not others? Some teams and not others?

Who knows, really - ultimately, irrational hatreds of and affection for athletes and teams are the luxury that sports affords us as fans.

But I know I like to see talent and hard work rewarded. I became a Tito Rabat fan when I learned about just how hard he worked and trained. I became a big fan when I learned that he's been racing professionally since 2005. Rabat's worked hard, with very little recognition, for years. (The picture above is of Rabat in the 125cc GP class in 2007. Rabat started in 2005, but didn't win a race until 2013.) When that level of drive and persistence is rewarded, all is right in the world.

I like to see people who are courteous and conscientious of others rewarded - especially in an arena where being a complete Jackass can pay short-term benefits and tempt some to treat others poorly.

Maybe that says something about how the world I'd like to live in, and try to create in my immediate environment in my dealings with others.

The Teammate Nightmare ...



Winter testing is where the racing starts. And it may be the most important race of all - the race against your teammate.

There are never two "Number One" drivers or riders on a race team. Someone is always the favored. Someone's mechanics always stay a little later. Someone's crew chief always is trying a few more things. Someone always tests one extra tire.

Pre-season testing gives you the opportunity to plant that idea in the head of your crew, your team owner, your manufacturer - I'm the racer to back if you want a title this year.

That is the platform from which champions are built.

In the first post-season test of 2012, Sylvain Guintoli joined the Aprilia WSBK factory team and was quicker than Eugene Laverty, the heir to the throne and destined for the World Superbike title, according to the British press. Guintoli's immediate speed, I believe, split the team's allegiances. And although Laverty would win more races than Guintoli, he had a crappy first half of the season and lost the title.

Laverty was shuffled off to a second-rate Suzuki WSBK ride this year, and will motor around at the back of the MotoGP field next year, earning a few bucks from his personal sponsors for being in the big show.

Guintoli, having marked the Aprilia team as his own, now is Superbike World Champion.

In the first post-2014 test, Jonathan Rea - a guy who can ride a Superbike - joined the factory Kawasaki squad and was quicker than 2013 Champion Tom Sykes.

If I were Sykes, I would be worried. Very worried.
Crashing Sucks, Part Two ...




Today was the day for the calls of shame. The poor critter needed new rearsets, new exhaust canister, new clip-on bar, bodywork repair.

So call after call went like this:

"Hi. I need to order some parts."

"Crashed, huh? Why'd you do that?"

Oh, everyone's a freakin' comedian ...

Crashing sucks.

At least the transponder still works.

Object of MotoLust, Part Two ...


























So AMA Pro Road Racing/MotoAmerica is going to do a spec class based on the KTM RC 390 single. Not a terrible first salvo.

Spec racing is a good way to do a support class. World Superbike has done it for years, sometimes with KTM, most recently with Honda. BSB is going to do a spec RC 390 series, as is the German IDM series. The Canadian Superbike series runs a Honda CBR250R series. The idea works - if it is done correctly.

Here's the defining phrase in a rulebook that effectively monitors a spec series: Stock and unmodified. Anything not specifically allowed must remain stock and unmodified.

Stock means the pieces that came on this particular bike. If the stock cams from an RC8 happen to fit, no dice - they didn't come with the bike. Unmodified means unchanged from stock. I've written enough rulebooks (and interpreted a few to the displeasure of race officials - HA!) to know that without those words, a spec bike series rapidly becomes a non-spec-bike series. And that defeats the whole purpose of doing this.

Personally, I'd hand out ECUs with rpm and horsepower limits mapped in. Collect them every time the bike comes off the track. But the other series seem to do OK with stock, carefully policed stuff. A keen radar gun can pick out the riders who are five mph faster than everyone else on a "spec" machine and haul that little puppy (bike, not rider) into tech for a quick look-see.

The other thing you're going to deal with is something I've written about in the past: In a series where the machinery all is identical, the only thing that makes the difference is the rider. I don't want to see that in the upper ranks of pro racing: I want to see teams and factories and tire companies make a difference, all pushing each other, with the rider only one part of the equation.

But when it comes to the spec class, I fully expect one or two riders to run away with it.

Questions:

- Will AMA/MotoAmerica have the spine to truly enforce spec rules, or will this class go the way of the Moriwaki MD250H class, which started as a spec series and devolved into an unaffordable GP-spending-level club series?

- Will AMA/MotoAmerica have the spine to not meddle with runaway wins and tell pestering parents to shut the hell up?

All I know is this: Occasionally, you see a bike and you just know that at some point you will own one. That's how I feel about the little KTM. Expect to see one coming to a garage near my bedroom soon ...

Handicapping The Field ...


Over at crash.net, there is an interesting story about the principal players in MotoGP discussing 2014. Generally, Honda and Yamaha are happy with the rules, even if they're giving Ducati a 10-yard head start, metaphorically speaking, with more engines, more fuel, more frames, and a Q tire.

Why?

Because it's good to have manufacturers in the field, the more the better, and best of all if you can kick their butts weekend after weekend in front of the world.

That's why Repsol Honda team manager Livio Suppo said:

“This is a competition and it is good, as it will be next year, with many manufacturers. The more manufacturers here the happier we are. We totally understood that last year the results of Ducati were not enough to make everybody happy and this means [we needed] to improve the chances of Ducati remaining in this championship for a long time. This is our aim because Ducati is a strong brand and brings value to this championship"

Translation: Kicking Ducatista butt makes Honda look better. The trick is to keep Ducati showing up and taking their ass-whuppins.

This is racing, and there are no altruists here. The goal is to win. It's just that some wins are worth more than others. Believe me, if Ducati start to win on a regular basis, every one will hear Honda and Yamaha point to those rules advantages, loudly and clearly.

Crashing Sucks ...


This is what's left of my Shoei after a get-off on the warmup lap yesterday. I thought I was doing the same thing that I'd done a million times before, but I didn't listen to that voice in my head that was telling me that the track was cooling and rapidly. I remember the rear going sideways at about 95 to 100 mph, thinking, "wha ..." and then sliding across the track. The corner workers told me I was out for about two minutes. Other racers came up to me later with real concern on their faces. The guy behind me on the track when I crashed told me I bounced about three feet into the air after the initial impact, and he said, and I quote, "You ate s**t, brother!"

All I knew was that I had qualified on pole and intended to be first across the line in the race. Sometimes desire clouds your judgement.

I am grateful once again to all of the gear makers that saved me yesterday. Shoei, AGV Sport, Gaerne, Racer, Knox body armor - because of the things that companies like these have developed, I have only a splint on a finger and some bruises. I walked away from the crash truck, and will go to work tomorrow.

And it's a reminder of how brutal this sport really is. Anyone who thinks a little more contact is what this sport needs can take the next shift of sitting next to my wife in the ER as I'm being taken away for a CT scan.

Keeping Racers Safer Makes All Riders Safer ...







Inflatable protective vests have been around for a long time. The catch always is the triggering mechanism. As riding styles have evolved into hanging further and further off the motorcycle, the tether trigger has become less and less effective - by the time you pull the tether, you're already pretty close to the ground, leaving the inflatable vest very little time to deploy.

The makers of inflatable race suits (as worn by the GP guys) managed to thrash the problem to the ground by putting sensors on lots and lots of riders and crunching insane amounts of data. They came up with algorithms that could, with the aid of GPS and motion sensors, tell the difference between a crash and Marquez-esque cornering - which, let's be honest, often look very much alike to the naked eye until the bike either comes firing out of a corner or grinds to a halt in the gravel. The former event triggers the airbag; the latter does not. It's a mind-wrecking technological accomplishment. No tether necessary.

But even harder is trying to figure out when to fire the airbag on a system worn by a street rider. Racers are only going to contort in certain ways and subject themselves to certain forces. God only knows what a huge number of street (and adventure) riders are going to do. 

Now, Alpinestars has come up with a computer-driven airbag triggering system that actually works in a street setting. If the racing airbag is mind-wrecking, this one simply seems like magic. And it's an example of racing-driven technology making life safer for every rider, track, street or off-road.

R&D might not be the only reason companies go racing. But it's almost always one of the reasons - and a damned good one.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T ...


The World Superbike and Moto3 title fights were not straight shootouts. In each, other riders played a role, either giving points to the title contenders or refusing to give up positions and points to the title contenders.

What is fascinating to me is how the personalities of the title contenders played a role in whether other riders helped them or hindered them.

In World Superbike, Loris Baz was asked by his team to give up a spot to Tom Sykes in the next-to-last race at Qatar. Baz, criticized by Sykes for much of the season in public and private, refused. In an interview over at crash.net, Baz said: "I think it's also normal not to help someone who has gone out of his way not to help you back. If I'd had a good relationship with him I would have wanted him to be world champion and would have helped him. Maybe he will never need me again in his racing life but then he needed me and the relationship wasn't there."

The short translation: F**k you, Sykes, for being a douchebag to me!


In comparison, Moto3 riders Alex Rins and Efrem Vasquez were ebullient about their efforts to help Alex Marquez win the title. 

Vasquez couldn't have made it clearer - he sat up and waved Marquez past during the race! Check out Vasquez' Twitter feed: His fans are bragging not just about how well he did this year (his first two wins in his GP career) but they're thrilled that their man helped Marquez take the title.

And post-race, this is what Rins had to say:

"I saw that I didn't have a chance of winning the race, because the rear tyre would not have lasted, so I decided to try to help my teammate. I shouldn't forget that thanks to him I've got where I am. We've been riding together since 2010 and over the past two years he has taken a big step forward - that has made me grow as well."

Turns out that treating your teammate and the other riders with respect pays dividends. Maybe Aretha Franklin was right:






Once In A Lifetime ...


It's hard not to like the Marquez racers. They seem happy, rarely complain, and they are more than competent at the job that they do. But I was especially happy to see Alex Marquez win the Moto3 title for another reason - it likely was his last shot at a GP championship.

Winning any championship takes so many things to fall into place perfectly - the right team, the right machine, the right tires (in a non-spec class), a major amount of talent and a bit of luck. Having crazy speed helps. But it's not the only thing that makes a difference. Colin Edwards and Cal Crutchlow both have said to me, personally, that they were shocked when they moved into the upper ranks at exactly how fast the other riders - ALL of the other riders - were.

And Alex is quick, but I have not seen him show the speed this season that tells me he's going to win a title in MotoGP, or even Moto2. To be fair, no one has. Even a rider like Maverick Vinales, I doubt, will win a MotoGP title, and I think the younger Marquez doesn't have the pure speed of Vinales.

Like Sylvain Guintoli in WSBK, I think that Alex wound up in a place where he had a shot - probably his only shot - at a title. And it was nice to see him grab that opportunity with both hands. No matter what else happens in his career, he now is a World Champion.

Honda ought to give him a ride on their World Endurance Championship team. He's got the speed to run up front there, and his maturity will allow him to compete in an arena where thinking and maturity pay dividends. He'd raise the stature of their efforts, the profile of the whole series, and he'd likely have a long and happy career racing motorcycles - and that's not something that often happens to racers at his level of raw speed.



Blowing The Budget, Bit By Bit ...


In the latest issue of Roadracing World, there is an excellent article by Mat Oxley about Honda's development of its latest Moto3 machine. Stung by KTM's flaunting of the rules, and Dorna's complete unwillingness to enforce its own rulebook, Honda was forced to built a full-factory Moto3 machine to the limits of the rules - and fast.

You have to understand that the rules for Moto3 engines are incredibly restrictive - as Oxley points out, the restrictions on the engine in Moto3 are pages longer than the rules on MotoGP engines. Oxley goes so far as to declare that the Moto3 engine is, essentially, designed by Dorna.

So how do you get a useful advantage when the rulebook doesn't give you a way to get one? You look for a million different little advantages. Oxley details all the development that Honda has undertaken to get its machine to be competitive with the KTM. It's exhausting to read. And it's clear that Honda has been forced to spend a big, big chunk of change to build a competitive machine within the confines of the rulebook.

It's an oxymoron, but it is true - the tighter the rulebook, the more expensive the machines at the front of the field will cost. It would not surprise me if the cost of a front-running Honda or KTM Moto3 bike is now more than the cost of a front-running Moto2 bike ...

Smoke, Mirrors And The Suzuki Shortcut ...


In horse racing, they call them the "bug boys." They are the apprentice jockeys whose horses get to carry a bit less weight, and in the racing form, to let the gamblers know that the horse is running at a lighter weight, an asterisk - a "bug" - is placed next to the jockey's name.

Suzuki, like Ducati this year and likely Aprilia next year, is going MotoGP racing with a bug. The company is going in with the special allowance for losers - more fuel, soft tires, more engines and more development opportunities. But it's part of the dance, the smoke and mirrors that goes on behind the scenes, a key element in seducing the company into going racing in the first place.

Look, these guys aren't knuckleheads. They know that they're not likely to win anytime soon. You don't just waltz into the arena where Honda and Yamaha have been slugging it out for decades and join the dance at full speed. When Ducati was winning MotoGP races last decade, you could look at it as Honda and Yamaha abandoning their years of two-stroke know-how and playing catch-up with the years of Ducati four-stroke experience - experience that allowed Ducati to spring the occasional surprise, and regularly be competitive, at least until the Stoner era ended.

So the new guys are going to take advantage of the "apprentice" breaks written into the regulations - more fuel, softer tire - to ease the shock of getting their butts handed to them on a plate by Honda and Yamaha.

The interesting thing is that it's not the racers or the race teams who need to be coddled. It's the boards of those companies, the people who are writing the checks. They want to see results.

We racers see the events - what happens between the lights going out and the checkered flag. We forget that to get the team onto the grid, there's a vicious battle going on within the companies for board approval of expenditures. The directors have got the ATV department clamoring for those funds, the piano producers, the turbine department - the boards are juggling lots of demands for cash from within the companies. Hell, in the motorcycle division, there's a group that says that GP racing can go sod off, let's just build a supercharged hot rod and get lots and lots of positive attention that way. Chillingly, that worked perfectly for Kawasaki.

The best way for board members to justify spending money on racing is to win - or at least look like you've got a shot. 

(Incidentally, saying that you're getting R&D benefits helps in the board room, too. There's a reason MotoGP machines are running on paltry fuel loads - the race department is able to sell "fuel economy research" as a reason the company should fund the race team. Sweet!)

That's what the soft tire and the fuel advantage does. It's not likely to make any difference in the outcome of races for a long time - and when it does, the advantages disappear. But it might give Suzuki, Aprilia or Ducati the appearance of competitiveness, some positive television footage, some ammo for the race team when the anti-race-spending brigade opens fire. The occasional front-row start goes a long way to slapping some industrial-grade duct tape across the mouths of the naysayers in the board rooms.

And the evil genius of the soft tire is that it's self-correcting. The bike with said tire goes like stink for a few laps, then fades, and the real contenders move to the front. It sucks if you're the factory guy who loses time stuck behind the rider on the "Q" tire, but no one said racing was easy.

My only issue is that Dorna should have had the sack to stick with its original Factory 2 plan - because the fact is that a bike with a bigger fuel load and different tires isn't a Factory bike. It should be considered a different machine.

But I get what the goal is - to allow the race departments to sell racing in MotoGP to their boards of directors. Because, like it or not, if the Directors of your company can't see the benefit of going racing, they don't write a check, and you're not going racing.

And here's the harsh reality of real-world racing: It really doesn't matter if you win or lose. What matters is looking competitive enough that the board feels like it's gotten its money's worth. If they do, then giving them a "bug" for a while might keep the checks flowing and keep more bikes on the grid.

Of course, all of this is moot the minute Dorna starts mucking with the rulebook to give someone an advantage ...


The Long Strange Trip Of Sylvain Guintoli, Superbike World Champion ...

The first step toward the title - qualifying at Phillip Island, 2014.

There's little in Sylvain Guintoli's background that would have convinced you to put money on his Superbike World Championship title hopes in 2014. He spent years in the middle of the pack in 250cc GP racing, a couple of seasons toward the back of the pack in MotoGP, and pretty much failed to make an impression in World Superbike when he first arrived, plucked from British Superbike, where he wasn't getting paid much, most likely. 

In retrospect, it really was amazing that Guintoli managed to find rides at all. But he stuck it out, riding for the Effenbert-Liberty team on satellite Ducatis and winning, then winning again on another satellite team after Effenbert fired him for a lack of performance.

When Max Biaggi retired, Guintoli broke a handshake deal to ride a less competitive bike and signed with Aprilia. He was clearly the team's No. 2 rider. Eugene Laverty had been there for a season, and - through the British press - had whined all through 2012 that he was being held back by the team because they liked Max better, boo-hoo. The British press bought into it and picked Laverty as the champion apparent for 2013. Guintoli apparently didn't read those stories, won the first race, and while Laverty struggled through the first part of the season, Guintoli was consistently on the pace. Without suffering a broken collarbone, Guintoli likely would have been a strong contender for the title. But he shrugged it off, trained and got ready for 2014.

Experienced at 32, Guintoli won when he could, took second or third or fourth when he had to and dropped the hammer on the field at Qatar when he needed two wins to take the title. He did so convincingly.

It was really cool to see a hard worker that most would have written off long ago, a clean, mature rider who never had a harsh word for anyone, take home one of the biggest prizes in motorcycle road racing. When his son asked him in parc ferme, "Sylvain, did you win?" not only could Guintoli say yes, but he could be proud of the way he did it, too.

Two Strikes And You're Out ...


There are still the voices who cry for fewer electronics in motorcycle road racing. Those voices took two brutal body blows yesterday, when Yamaha and Ducati unveiled two of the most advanced, crazy-trick sportbikes ever.

The Ducati 1299 Panigale R features Cornering ABS by Bosch. In simple terms, the bike uses sensors to measure lean angle, pitch, braking force and some other stuff and uses that data to allow the rider to grab a handful of brake while fully leaned over mid-corner and the computer will balance braking force with cornering force. The bike slows, doesn't tuck the front.

It sounds like magic. But wait, there's more.

The limited-edition Yamaha YZF-R1M comes with what the company calls Öhlins Electronic Racing Suspension. Yamaha says "the Suspension Control Unit receives data from the Inertial Measurement Unit, which communicates vehicle speed, attitude, lean angle, acceleration and brake pressure, then adjusts the front and rear compression as well as rebound damping for optimum suspension performance. The system comes with two modes. “Automatic” mode continuously adjusts rebound and compression damping as you ride providing ideal damping force for the track or the street and can be fine tuned to the riders needs."

And still more: "The YZF-R1M has an Inertial Measurement Unit - a gyro sensor that measures pitch, roll, and yaw, as well as an accelerometer, or G-sensor, that measures acceleration in the fore-aft, up-down, and right-left directions…all at a rate of 125 calculations per second. The IMU communicates with the Yamaha Ride Control (YRC) Yamaha's most advanced electronics package ever offered on a production motorcycle. Includes Power Delivery Mode, Traction Control System, Slide Control System, Lift Control System, Launch Control System and Quick Shift System."

Yamaha says the systems are lifted straight from their M1 MotoGP machine. That might be marketing puffery. But the fact is that the machine offers a crazy-sophisticated package of electronics on a stupid-powerful, lightweight racebike-with-lights that you can buy at a dealership and ride on the street - for less than $22,000.

Jesus.

Now someone explain to me please why Yamaha and Ducati would want to go GP or WSBK racing on bikes with no electronics. Ban the boxes - Yamaha and Ducati leave. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle ...

Solidifying The Base ...


Thankfully, much of the nonsense about driving the manufacturers out of GP racing seems to have died down (in large part, I suspect, because the titanic battles between the manufacturers in MotoGP, Moto3 and WSBK have produced incredible racing all season long). There are those who still mutter about reducing the technology on the bikes. For what reason, I'm not sure. But at least even they are able to see the reasons for letting the sport's biggest supporters write the rulebooks.

In this interview on Crash.net:


Jonathan Rea's crew chief grudgingly concedes, "I can also understand why a manufacturer is not interested in racing with an ECU that has less functions than their standard road machine."

I quote Chris Pike because of a comment that David Emmett posted over at Motomatters.com. The life of a crew member at the World level is not all strawberries and handjobs. It's long hours, hard labor, brutal travel schedules and then, on top of it, the pay sucks - if you get paid at all. Emmett pointed out that one crew chief that he knows was owed Euros 125,000 by his team. Crew members lose money working at the GP level. I remember going to Laguna one year during the 500 era and sitting down to breakfast at Denny's with crew members from an Italian team. They flew halfway around the world to eat at a Denny's! Yipes!

What's the connection?

I'll bet Pike, who works for the official Honda-backed World Superbike team, isn't wondering if he'll be paid every other Friday.

Manufacturer involvement provides a stable economic base for the sport on multiple levels. End of discussion.

Jackass ...


The sport I love rewards speed and skill. The Moto3 race at Sepang featured neither. What we saw was Jack Miller, an immature brat with a chip on his shoulder, using brute force to try to knock his title rival to the ground.

Miller's pit board indicates that he revels in his "tough guy" image - it refers to him as "Jackass." So let's go through a brief list of the Jackasses who made Moto3 so difficult to watch as a fan and a racer:

- Miller: Talented, but I've written a lot of stories about talented young racers who lacked the maturity and social skills to move to the top ranks of racing. Joey Pascarella won the Daytona 200, and last I saw he was road racing at the club level again (or doing a wild card in Spain, presumably paying for the privilege). Miller wasn't racing in Sepang, he was hunting, and using a motor vehicle as a weapon. Nothing praiseworthy there. You've got to wonder if Honda will actually give this child a MotoGP bike (he's signed with them for three years) or if their lawyers are looking for the escape clause in the contract as we speak. Even if they don't, riders like Miller tend to hit the self-destruct button pretty early in their careers.

- Miller's fans: Hey, you want to see people injure each other, go watch UFC or whatever and leave road racing to the fans of motorcycling. Perhaps the saddest are those who are trying to justify what Miller did as "hard but fair" racing or "controlling the race from the front" or justifying attempted vehicular homicide as something to be expected in a championship race.

- Race Direction: Once again, Mike Webb and his crew of Amphibiosans (the creatures from Futurama who have no bones and are supported by a system of fluid-filled bladders) once again failed in their basic task - to keep racers safe. This time, they ruled that as long as Miller was able to make the corner, it wasn't ramming. As I pointed out earlier, if you fail to penalize something, you require it. Miller and Alex Marquez are going to have huge targets on their backs at the series finale in Valencia precisely because of the utter incapability of Webb to do his job. He should have been fired after the Australian GP debacle last year. So strap in, NASCAR fans, Webb has given you your "rubbin' is racin'" finale, safe from his desk.

Funny, but looking at all of this, it's easy to conclude that Miller is the least of the Jackasses involved ...

Racing, Karma And The Real World ...

I love my 50-mile Solo races with Moto West Grand Prix, and wish they were longer. They're a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon. But in the middle of the summer, the real world intervened. We had to take our dog Sparky to the vet for the shot - it was time, and pets rely on us humans for everything, including knowing when it is time for that final visit to the vet. I was not happy, but Sandy was despondent. So I missed the Solo race that weekend to stay home and take care of my wife.

A couple of nights ago, I noticed that the schedule for the Moto West Grand Prix's season-ender at Big Willow in mid-November had been posted. Even after missing the round, I was ahead - barely - in the points for the FX Endurance Lightweight class. I was looking forward to the final race, but nervous - something can always go wrong to cost you a title.

I looked at the schedule - no FX Endurance races. 

Called the Operations guru at MWGP and she pointed out that it was after the change to daylight savings time, and that they didn't plan - and hadn't planned - to run another endurance race this year. 

For the endurance racers, the season is over.

And I am class champion, as I was five years ago. I am grateful that the racing gods did not judge me too harshly for putting real-world concerns for my family first.

I hope that somewhere, Sparky is wagging.



The Value Of The Old Guy ...


There is little doubt that Valentino Rossi doesn't have the speed he used to have. He has exactly one pole position this decade. And in the MotoGP races this year where both he and Marc Marquez have not crashed, the score is 12-1 in Marc's favor.

But there is a reason to keep a guy like Rossi on the team, if you've got an economic incentive to do so - and as we've noted before, Yamaha can't afford to fire him. Experience is worth a lot. When conditions aren't perfect, it's not about raw speed. Racing is a game where sometimes you can think your way onto the top of the podium, and finesse is an overlooked skill in the harsh arena of road racing.

Winning is all about stacking the odds in your favor. The Australian GP was a tire lottery again - Marquez' crash was, as best anyone can tell, caused by him being too cautious and letting the front tire cool slightly. But Rossi didn't let that happen. He knew, or was able to figure out, the nature of the game that the track dictated that day better than anyone else, and laid his bet on what turned out to be the winning number.

That is what makes an experienced rider worth their paycheck.

Moto West GP: Gunfighters, Racers And First-Time Winners ...

 
 
"With a phantom gun in an empty hand he has bluffed Mike into violating a basic rule of gunfighting. TYT. Take Your Time. Every gunfighter has his time. The time it takes to draw aim fire and hit ..."
     - William S. Burroughs, The Place Of Dead Roads ...

On Saturday afternoon at the most recent Moto West GP round, my friend Ed Sorbo and I were standing at the pit wall at the Streets of Willow, where Ed was trying (pretty much unsuccessfully) to help me get better in the skidpad. Our friend and Moto West GP computer guru guy Shaun Robles walked up and asked for advice. He was running his first-ever FX Endurance race, and he was tackling the tight, twisty Streets on a Kawasaki ZX-10R.

Sorbo and I suggested that Shaun set his pace, one that he could race at for all 20 laps, a strong pace that he could run all afternoon long. We told him about not doing dumb things on the brakes, rolling through the corners with good mid-corner speed, getting on the power smoothly, riding as efficiently as possible. Most of all, we told him not to panic if someone went away at the start. There was time to catch them, and riding over your head is not the way to win a distance race.

The last thing I said to him, thinking of the Burroughs quote above, was, "Every gunfighter has his time. You know your time. Go out and run it."

Shaun was in second when the leader crashed out. And when he was threatened at the end, he had enough in reserve to step up his pace a tick and hold the lead until the checkers. He came up to thank Sorbo and I the next day, and told us the best thing a couple of experienced and sometimes too-cynical racers could have heard - that the win was his first.

Perfect.

Maturity, And When It's Not A Euphemism For 'Old' ...


I suggested a while back that banning electronic rider aids from GP racing would quickly become an unnecessary step, based on the traditional path of technological development. A new thing comes in that is insanely expensive and proves to be an advantage. Then everyone does that thing, and the price plummets.

I also suggested that an indication that we had reached that point with electronic rider aids was when the big players in MotoGP, Honda and Yamaha, agreed to a spec box and spec software. By this point, I suggested, they could get what the wanted from almost any ECU you foisted on them. The technology has matured to the point where the hardware is cheap and the knowledge base had expanded to the point where you can get the bike to do what you want it to do with a relatively cheap box.

To see what I'm talking about, check out Chris Ulrich's on-track review of the BMW racebikes in the latest Roadracing World. Kiyonari's BSB bike, hamstrung with spec software and a spec box, had engine management so carefully massaged and manipulated that it was easy to ride - so easy that it felt like the TC was turned on and that the engine braking system felt like one that was banned in BSB, he said. 

And the electronics on Sylvain Barrier's EVO-spec WSBK machine, based on a $2,500 kit ECU, were as good as the $30,000 Magneti Marelli SRT system on Ulrich's Honda AMA Superbike. (Funny thing was that the most evil beast was the IOM machine, which was built almost like a land speed record bike.)


Of course, you have to have the team and the factory behind you to make it work. Which is, of course, why it's pointless to try to ban technology to make the racing better ...

Legalized Prostitution And The Evolution Of Language ...

When these guys charged into the skidpad, they were definitely not "bunnyranching" it in there.

So in addition to the insanity of watching racers in leather suits, body armor and helmets talk about the danger of ebola, the weekend at Streets of Willow illustrated how language can evolve from the most unusual of sources.

In Nevada, prostitution is legal in brothels outside of Clark County. There is a track near Pahrump that is near a brothel. When I suggested to someone at the track that the proximity of the two was dangerous in non-racing-related ways, he confided that he had done a little on-site research at said establishment and that the prices for basic service started at $2,500.

Being a racer, I did a quick calculation as to the number of sets of race tires I could buy for that amount of money and came to the conclusion that visiting the place would be a waste of money.

Since none of us know the names of any of these places, we quickly grabbed for the only name we knew - the Bunny Ranch, made famous on cable TV. And quickly, "bunnyranching" became a verb. The loose definition (it's still evolving) is doing something that is expensive and pointless, an utter waste. In racing terms, it means to ride in an inept or thoughtless manner.

The following true conversation illustrates the use of "bunnyranching" in a sentence:

AMA Crew Chief and 250 GP competitor Ed Sorbo: "Dude, what were you doing going into the skidpad like that? You were on the brakes way too early, turning in too late, and you were on and off the throttle the entire way through the corner!"

Me: "Yeah, I was totally bunnyranching it into the skidpad."

World Land Speed Record Holder Andy Edwards: "HAHAHAHAHAHA ......"

For your language lesson today - you're welcome.

So Long, Daytona, And Thanks For All The Fish ...


When the news first broke that the Daytona 200 likely would not be on the AMA Pro Road Racing calendar for 2015, I will admit to a moment's hesitation. 

I remember the IRL/CART split of American open-wheel racing, and I know how that turned out. Tony George pissed away a big chunk of the family's fortune, and it took him 12 years, but by hanging onto the Indy 500 and pouring money into building a racing series around it, George managed to force CART to merge with his IRL series.

This will not happen in the post-DMG world of professional motorcycle road racing.

Jim France has no desire to build a new racing series around the Daytona 200. He didn't want the series that he had. And I don't think he wants to lose another dollar on motorcycle road racing. 

The speedway might run the 200 as a stand-alone race for a while. But the fact is that (in part because of the mismanagement of DMG) motorcycle road racing is so devalued in the country right now that a one-off race, no matter how historic, isn't going to attract much manufacturer interest. Even if there is a 200 next year, if it's not part of the MotoAmerica series, I think you'll see very few of the big names and big teams in the sport there.

The biggest reason that ultimately I'm not that upset about losing the 200 is that the event no longer draws an audience. The model of trying to get road racing to survive on generating TV revenue is broken. You need to build a sport of participants and fans on-site at the races. And racing in front of an empty grandstand is not going to help build the sport back to what it was.

So ... I'm taking a deep breath and saying, it's time to move on. Start rebuilding from a solid foundation, not the ashes of the past.

p.s. Over at Superbikeplanet.com, Dean Adams has suggested that there are people on the former DMG payroll that MotoAmerica needs to hire. My thoughts: Not just no, but hell no. Anyone involved in the decision-making processes at DMG needs to be gone. MotoAmerica ought to hold a bonfire in which the DMG officials' shirts are burned to cinders - hey, that would make good TV!

Saving Moto2 ...


Buried in the Schwantz interview is an interesting comment about Moto2's future. Kevin agrees that Moto2 has lost its luster, and says that upcoming rules changes for 2016 are going to open the class to new engine manufacturers.

It probably wasn't a bad idea to go with a spec engine at the beginning of Moto2. Its newness ensured there would be interest, and launching a new GP class in the middle of a worldwide economic meltdown - OK, hedge your bets.

But as mentioned below, identibike racing has a limited ability to hold a motorcycle road racing fan's interest. It's the multi-level competition between riders, companies and teams that make the sport so fascinating.

So, here's what I would do: For Moto2, I can accept spec electronics. Give everyone the same box, the same base code, the same (limited) number of sensors and tell 'em to go nuts. I can - and this is interesting to me - also accept spec or limited gearbox ratios and final-drive ratios, spec tires and even spec brakes. Lastly, I can accept no ABS.

To hold speeds and power down, use a maximum air intake size. It works - well - in sports car and minor formula single-seater racing. And by limiting the air going in, to make more power, you've got to make the engine more efficient. Forcing engineers to work in that direction will pay off in better streetbikes.

Let the factories build what they want otherwise.

A Moto2 class along these lines might attract some factories that can't play in MotoGP because of cost. MV Agusta, Triumph, Kawasaki - all make middleweights, none are in the GP pool right now. Give them a cool place to play, and they might join the party.

The Business Calendar

The only reason someone built this gorgeous Suzuki RGV250 Schwantz replica is because of the corporate sponsorship that put Kevin on a GP bike.

During the discussion with World Champion Kevin Schwantz (see link below), he offered the opinion that without direct manufacturer involvement, professional road racing does not exist. This should be a no-brainer, yet there still are those who insist that racing can follow the model of some other sports that have become TV spectacles and survive that way. That might work for some other activities. But how much does it cost to compete in, say, celebrity poker? How big a crew do you need? How much is air freight for a deck of cards? How much is the rent for a weekend for a poker table? Get the idea? Motorsports costs big money to do, and comparing it to non-motorsports in economic terms is like comparing apples to pi. (Get it? Apple? Pi? That's some straight-up intellectual humor right there.)

Anyway ...

To get manufacturers involved, they need lead time. They are putting together 2015 budgets now, if they haven't done so already. Sponsors need lead time, too. And both are going to want to know the answer to exactly one question before committing to being involved in a motorsport:

What's in it for me?

Publicity (and R&D for the manufacturers, but it's linked to publicity). And to generate that, you need an audience. You need a TV package and a schedule of events.

Right now, MotoAmerica has neither. And with each passing day, more boards approve more budgets for 2015 that do not include racing in the U.S.

Roadracing World's John Ulrich paid the life support bill for U.S. road racing in 2014 by putting together the Superbike Shootout (with the industry's support, it must be said). MotoAmerica has picked up the bill for 2015. It has got to start moving, and fast, to bring back the corporate involvement that U.S. road racing needs to survive. 

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/schwantz-on-everything-part-one/ 
http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/schwantz-on-everything-part-two/

A Brief Blast From The Past



I recently stumbled across an old web post I'd written about doing the Solo race series at Willow Springs back in 2010. Allow me an indulgence; reading this still makes me smile ...

Going The Distance: Solo Summer Of 2010

My first Solo 20-lapper ended in pain. I completed only 18 of the 20 laps, having been lapped twice on my SV500, and I was so sore and nauseous that I had to be lifted from the bike, legs cramping. Maybe Buttonwillow Raceway Park in August wasn’t the best time and place to start, but I was 45 and time to start endurance racing was running out. And besides, AMA Superbike Champion Doug Chandler was older than I, he was pitted next to me, and after his Solo race he looked fine. After mine, I would have punched him if I could have gotten off my chair.

If that was my first experience, why the hell did I go back for more? I’d been enthralled with endurance racing since I was a child and my parents took me to see “Le Mans” at a drive-in. (I blame my folks for my racing addiction; they took me to see races and movies about racing, let me watch Indy, but never let me get a bike. They fed the desire, and gave me no outlet.) The howl of the 12-cylinder Ferrari 512s and Porsche 917s – music of the angels.

So I kept at it, running Solo 20-lap races with Willow Springs Motorcycle Club and WERA in California and Nevada. I noticed that as I did more of them, I wasn’t as worn out as the first time, and that my lap times stayed consistent throughout entire races. Then, in 2009, I actually won the April Solo GT-Lights race at Willow, finishing ahead of a small pack of SV650s on my SV500. Clear track = fast laps for the 500; it’s all about keeping up momentum and corner speed on that bike. I got in front and just pounded away, and it worked. I took a second, a pair of thirds and a fourth en route to second in the championship that year. And all I was thinking was, man, if I could just get close to them in horsepower …

Long story short, a friend sold me her stock-motored SV650 early in 2010, West Coast GP Cycles swapped that motor into the SV500 chassis that I was intimately familiar with and loved, and I focused on the longest, hardest races on the 2010 WSMC calendar. Not only are the races 50 miles, as compared to the usual 20-mile sprints, but they take place in the heat of the summer of the high desert. At least once or twice during the season, the races are flagged off in triple-digit temperatures. Oh, and my Pilot leathers, gloves, Alpinestars boots and Shoei helmet are black. It’s not easy looking as stylish as I do …

April rolled around, and I practiced on Friday with TrackDaz, getting used to a motor with some torque. GPS data showed that the 650 wasn’t that much faster in a straight line than the 500, it just got up to speed a lot more quickly. I rode all day long, and got more and more comfortable with my new mount. I couldn’t wait for Saturday’s Solo race.

The start wasn’t terrible, but I found myself in fourth place behind three of the West Coast riders after the first turn, and I wasn’t happy. I started talking to myself in the helmet; “You don’t have to win this on the first lap, you don’t have to pass everyone on the first lap.” I followed for a lap, and no one was going away, so I tried to be patient.

Then, at the end of the second lap, Tony Moniz tried an around-the-outside pass on Pete Esquivel coming out of the fast, decreasing radius Turn Nine and onto the front straight. Esquivel went wide, Moniz kicked up a little dirt as he was pushed to the very edge of the track, and I thought, screw this, I want nothing to do with these lunatics. I am a disciple of Le Mans 24-Hour veteran Vic Elford’s religion of endurance racing; “The last thing you want to be doing in an endurance race,” Elford, a factory Porsche 917 sports car driver, once said, “is actually racing.”

I got a massive draft from the three bikes – Moniz, Esquivel and Charles Fathy – immediately in front of me, went around all three of them on the front straight, cut back across in front of them going into Turn One, and ran as hard as I could. The next few laps were deeply rewarding; four of them were personal best laps for me at Willow. A few laps of panic followed as I got stuck behind a 600 racing in one of the other classes, but I’d put enough of a lead on the others that they couldn’t make my life interesting. (I like boring when I’m racing, a nice, big, fat, dull-to-watch lead.) After that, it was just grinding out lap after lap, faster and faster; Lap 18 was my fastest, 7/10ths quicker than I’d gone on the 500 in four years of racing it, and I had a margin of more than 20 seconds over Esquivel.

That race was everything I wanted from endurance racing: Powering out lap after lap with a neat, tidy riding style, hitting every braking and corner marker, carrying as much mid-corner speed as I dared, smoothly rolling on the throttle at the exits to preserve the tires. I really felt like I’d experienced The Zone, where every movement of the body is effortless and precise, every input on the bike is accurate, and the more I just let everything flow, the faster I go.

The next month, in May, an old friend showed up. Chris Speights had been building a Kawasaki 650R into a race bike, and he had a beast with a Carry Andrew-built motor. It cranked out at least 10 horses more than mine did, and it didn’t help my confidence that Speights had won several of the 650 twins sprints at Willow in a row. I should probably mention here that Speights beat me by one point to win the Battle Of The Twins Lightweight championship at Willow in 2006, and I’ve been stuffing needles into a voodoo doll painted to look like him ever since. Yes, I have issues. “Well-balanced” is not a phrase people often use when describing me.

I got a better start this time, slotting in behind Speights as we went through Turn One – he started two rows behind me and was in front of me 10 yards after the start. Andrew had done his job – the Kawasaki was a rocket in a straight line at full throttle, and Speights pulled out a lead. But my Dunlops performed better than his Bridgestones, and Speights was having trouble with his motor on part-throttle.



I slowly reeled him back in, and on the sixth lap passed him around the outside of Willow’s long Turn Two. It was unnerving – it’s a fast fifth-gear corner, I’m a foot away from him, both of us with our knees on the ground, I can hear his engine popping and snapping, and I’m just thinking, “Man, if he high-sides, he’s gonna take us both out.” I held the lead through Turn Two; he out-braked me and came across my front wheel going into Turn Three. I went around him again in Turn Two on the next lap, dropped my bike across his front wheel and in front of him, and this time held the spot into the next corner. We each got around two slower 600s on that lap, but I was in front, and I’m at my best with clear track in front of me. I pulled away, lap after lap. Once again, late in the race, on Lap 17, I threw a 1:30.577, a second quicker than I’d gone the month before, and my personal best at Willow. I took my second win in a row, and Speights finished second – more than 28 seconds back.



That felt good.

June brought a new track, the tight, twisty Streets of Willow. It’s not my favorite track – there are some areas that I think are borderline in terms of safety, and some areas where the pavement is just trashed. I go well in high-speed turns; this track has only one turn in anything other than second gear. I feared that if I got stuck behind someone, I’d be there the whole race. If there was one race in my career where I needed to be into the first turn in the lead, this was it.

Depending on who you ask, I either:


A) anticipated the drop of the flag perfectly, or



B) blatantly cheated.

I led halfway through the first lap, then Andy Palmer came past on his dirt bike (dirt bike suspension is probably an advantage at the bumpy, rutted Streets). I didn’t stress too much, because I didn’t think he could go the distance without a fuel stop. I tried to stay close, and just ground out the laps. I was right; Palmer stopped for fuel, and at the end I was 15 seconds ahead of Esquivel. Thankfully, Esquivel, Moniz and Al Garcia battled among themselves much of the race, giving me the breathing space I needed at the front. Afterward, they came to my pits en mass to give me s**t over jumping the start. In my defense, I will quote a teammate whose name I will not disclose: “We were all trying to jump the start,” he said. “You just did it better than we did.”

July was back at the big track, and the Solo race was pretty uneventful. It was scorching hot, well over 100 degrees when the race began. Esquivel led Palmer and me for the first couple of laps, then I got around them both coming out of Turn One. It is an excellent spot for me to pass, because I can get through Turn Two pretty well and get a gap on the rider behind. I was a little slower than I wanted to be, but I was 35 seconds ahead of Esquivel at the end, and we were the only two riders still on the lead lap.

All I had to do was finish in August to seal the title. So I was extremely cautious off the line. Then, at about the fourth lap, one rider’s Suzuki seized and stranded him at the apex of Turn Three, just off the track. It was an unsafe place for someone to stand, so the corner worker told the rider to lay the bike down and move to safety. The douchebag refused; he was later heard in the pits saying that his forks were too valuable for him to set the bike on its side. So, of course, the red flag is thrown and everyone else has to stop to accommodate this guy. Talk about self-centered.

Anyway, I’ve got something stuck in a carb, and the thing is flooding. So when the signal comes to re-start, I hit the starter button and the bike goes chug-chug-chug. The field pulls away, and I’m just sitting there, grinding the starter and battery away. I’m sitting there thinking, there goes my championship! Finally, it catches, but it’s running like crap. I haul ass on the warmup lap and make the grid. Once again, I get a very cautious start and finish the first lap in 12th. The bike (and rider!) slowly regain composure, and as the field strings out, I pick up speed and start picking off my competitors.



Palmer has shown up on a bike that’s more powerful than mine, he’s got a trick swingarm, and he’s a lap record holder. Great. And Esquivel is hauling ass, too. But after a couple of laps, I catch and pass him. Palmer is gone, five places up the scoring sheets, nowhere in sight. I just slip into endurance mode, the body on autopilot, hitting my marks, enjoying the torque of the full 650 motor as it pulls me out of corners, enjoying the feel of the bike underneath me as I flow past the apex and pull myself up into the saddle, chest pressed against the tank, elbows tucked in, just riding …

And suddenly, Palmer was right in front of me, a small mechanical glitch slowing him on one lap enough for me to catch up. My lap times started coming down further, and I was on his tail going down the back straight with a lap to go. He looked back; I waved at him. We railed through Turns Eight and Nine, nose to tail, and he looked back again as we ran up the front straight toward the white flag. I waved again.

Coming out of Turn One, he had difficulty shifting, and I swept past. I burned through Two and took a tighter line through the twisty bits; I didn’t know where Esquivel was, and I didn’t want to get involved in any actual racing with anyone. I led onto the front straight, and with the throttle pinned, sat up and started pumping my fist in the air. This was a mistake, as Palmer was still on my rear wheel, and closed to 0.114 seconds at the line. All I knew was that at that point, I couldn’t stop myself from celebrating. I could push the bike across the line if it broke, and I had secured the title. The win was icing on the cake.

Five long, grueling races. Five wins. Five fastest race laps.



I’d come a long way from the nearly-puking wreck that was picked up off the bike at Buttonwillow. Academic and intellectual accomplishments have come fairly easily to me; athletic accomplishments come much, much harder. To win a single Solo race amazed me; to sweep the series, and to be fastest at each race, at 47 years old, was one of the single proudest accomplishments of my life. But to paraphrase an old saying, you don’t stop racing because you get old. You get old because you stop racing.


Avoidable Consequences ...

 
2009, and I'm racing at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana on the SV500. It's a practice session on Sunday morning, and I come hauling into the last turn leading onto the banking. There's a yellow flag waving, so I back off a bit. Someone has crashed leading onto that banking and required medical care. So race officials dispatched an ambulance. When it arrived on the scene, the driver decided to use the vehicle to protect the downed rider. He parked it no more than five feet off the racing line. I know exactly how close it was to the racing line because later that afternoon, I lost the front in that corner, picked it up and ran straight through the exact spot where that ambulance had been parked.

It's heartbreaking when you see race officials throw all the hard work to make a race or circuit safer out the window with a bad decision. Jamie Bowman is dead because someone left a C-rail where it shouldn't be and he ran into it head-on at Laguna Seca. And I'm thinking about this because Jules Bianchi is in critical condition after crashing into a tractor - a goddamned tractor - that was in a run-off area during a downpour at the Suzuka Formula 1 race.

Safer racing means the track must be kept in the condition it is in when safety officials approve it. That means no misplaced C-rails, no heavy equipment in a gravel trap, and no goddamned ambulances next to the racing line!

I'm not a praying man, but in spite of myself, I pray for animals and injured racers. C'mon, Jules ...

'I'm going to help him, all right. I'm going to take him out Saturday night and forget him at the bar!' ...


Kevin Schwantz took this ill-handling bastard of a racebike and dragged it kicking and screaming across the finish line ahead of some of the most talented racers ever. Awesome.

The best part of being a journalist, the thing I value most as I mature, is that often I get to talk to the experts. No matter what the field, talking to the people in charge always is interesting and educational. 

Other people have opinions on the oil industry based on what they hear on TV, the ignorant "guys in suits screaming at each other" talk shows and the incoherent babblings found on the internet. For one of my freelance clients, I get to interview the head of the West Coast division of the nation's fourth-largest oil company twice a year. We talk production volume, well strategies, infrastructure investments, political regulatory developments. Subsequently, I have little time for or interest in "news" trotted out for its entertainment value for or its emotional appeal to people who have little, if any, real knowledge about the industry and plenty of uninformed emotional opinions. I like experts.

Few people are more expert at road racing a motorcycle than 1993 500cc World Champion Kevin Schwantz. And I got to spend nearly 45 minutes on a video conference call with him today. I will comment on the things that he said in upcoming days, but the transcript of the video conference is available at:


Everyone Understands Fastest ...

Marry me, please?

Yesterday was funny. BMW introduces a sportbike with clutchless downshifting; Suzuki announces that it is coming back to MotoGP; Ducati introduces a cool little Scrambler model.

And no one cared. 

The only thing anyone could talk about was a bike that is just this side of vaporware: The Kawasaki H2R.

Supercharged with 300 horses, who cares if it handles? The thing could have a solid rear suspension, spoke rims and drum brakes. It makes 300 goddamned horsepower and comes wrapped in carbon-fiber bodywork that is so sexy I considered taking off my pants when I watched the video the second time. The thing literally is breathtaking to see and you could hear people's voices get excited about it when you brought the subject up.

Motorcycles are supposed to be exciting. This one's got something to excite everyone - futuristic styling, crazy horsepower, technology coming out of its exhaust ports, the potential for stupid speed. 

Compared to it, the Suzuki MotoGP machine looks absolutely pedestrian. I kind of feel sorry for them. Talk about having their thunder stolen ...

I don't care if I ever ride one, ever see one. I'm happy to live in a world where a major motorcycle manufacturer really, honestly, went all-out to build the craziest, fastest thing on the planet. And the halo effect for Kawasaki - well beyond the PR bump from building a MotoGP bike to run around at the back of the grid.

Nice job. End of discussion.

CRT, R.I.P. ...

 
250cc two-strokes are no longer with us, either. But at least they were a good idea while they were here ...

With the news that Paul Bird Motorsport is leaving the MotoGP paddock and that Forward Racing will continue its "leasing of YZR-M1 engines and chassis parts to race in MotoGP" for 2015, the final vestiges of the Claiming Rules Teams era are being washed from the pits.

Good riddance.

CRT machines were an ill-conceived idea, poorly defined and horribly executed. But that wasn't the really bad part. It was the utter stench of the bulls**t surrounding them that made it so hard to bear.

Fact: No one built an honest independent machine that worked. The only CRT that anyone cared about was the Aprilia ART, and it was just a factory racer that Dorna allowed Aprilia to call a CRT because it wasn't that competitive. I think it was the stench of that decision that really demonstrated how much the whole CRT designation was just crap that Dorna made up. Once again: The ART was a factory MotoGP racebike just as much as a Honda RC213 is.

No one wanted to buy a factory MotoGP engine and build their own chassis. WAY too much work and no way to be competitive. And trying to build a competitive MotoGP machine out of a street engine - equally pointless.

I understand the need to put bikes on the grid. Dorna simply could have mandated that any factory that wanted to race MotoGP build XXX number of bikes and provide them to teams. They didn't need to be full-factory bikes. Production racers a step back from the factory machines have been around for decades, and there was no need to re-invent the wheel here. And while people call the Honda proddie racer "slow," the fact is that the machine is kicking the living snot out of the CRT machines that still infest the bottom of the grid.

If the factories didn't want to do that, Dorna simply could have allowed Superbikes onto the grid. Let's face it, an Aprilia RSV4 Factory in race trim (which is affordable, given that there are several satellite ones in World Superbike) is a hell of a lot better than the Paul Bird Motorsport-framed Aprilia monstrosity or the Kawasaki-engined piles that were trotted out.

Next year, Formula 1 may go to three-car teams to fill the grids. Excellent. I'd much, much rather see a third McLaren on the track than a Marussia, which, I think, offers performance similar to my 2002 Chevrolet Astro van.

We can only hope that the lesson has been learned by Dorna.


The Best Moment From Aragon ...


You knew it was coming. I mean, the man has the word "Maniac" sewn onto his leathers. It was no surprise that Andrea Iannone flicked himself off his Ducati with a massive crash one minute and 53.663 seconds after the lights went out.

Now, we have to remember that there are three classes in MotoGP: Factory, Open, and Ducati rules. The Italian bikes get special compensation because - well, just because. I swear they're going to simply start giving the Ducati racers a 15-second head start on ths field, but that's a rant for another day.

One of the concessions Ducati gets is a soft rear tire. It works great in qualifying; not so good in the races. And at Aragon, which eats rear tires, Iannone knew that his tire lifespan was limited.

This did not stop "Crazy Joe" from pushing that POS Ducati into the front position and running with the leaders. He knew that it couldn't last, but he was gonna push until the wheels fell off.

After his crash, the cameras showed a shot of Iannone in his garage. Now, this is a guy who just wadded up a very, very expensive motorcycle. A crew member came over and gave him that "bro" handshake - the one that you give to someone to let them know you were very, very pleased. Then the crew member gave him a solid pat on the thigh.

Iannone had just given his crew a bunch of work to do. But as friend and former AMA Crew Chief Ed Sorbo pointed out, your crew is usually a lot cooler with you as a racer if you've crashed while fighting for the lead. And Iannone had taken a crap bike and put it in front of a Repsol Honda.

During the handshake, Iannone shot his crew member a look. It was the look of someone who knew he'd done his job and was proud of his performance. If that look said anything, it was asking the question, 'Who's the bad m**********r' up in this garage? Who's the man? Who's the m***********g MAN???'

Hey Joe. You were. 

Totally bad-ass, and well done.

MotoGP: Fun With Numbers ...


Everyone knows that Honda makes the fastest bike in MotoGP, and with Aragon featuring one of the longest straights on the calendar, the race should be a walk in the park for the Repsol riders.

And Valentino Rossi agrees, saying, “In the race [there is] no way to fight with the factory Honda because Marc and Pedrosa are too strong with the pace."

But a look at the numbers from qualifying is quite interesting, especially when it comes to top speed at a track where that should play such a huge role.

As you might expect, the Ducatis were the fastest. But after the Ducs came the Hondas of Stefan Bradl and Pedrosa, the Ducati of Hector Barbera (maybe lighting the riders on fire motivates them, I dunno) and then the Yamaha of Rossi. Marquez, who destroyed the lap record, did so on a machine that posted the seventh-fastest top speed and the sixth-fastest average top speed.

It's not the draft, not one crazy lap. MotoGP posts the five fastest trap speeds for each rider and then an average of those five. In ultimate speed, in average top speed, Rossi's bike is faster than Marquez.

So much for crediting Marquez' and Pedrosa's amazing lap times to pure top end.

Racing is a game where everything is more complicated than it seems. That's what makes it so endlessly fascinating.

Electronics, From The Trenches ...


Over at Crash.net, there's an excellent interview with Davide Gentile, the data dude for Voltcom Cresent Suzuki's Eugene Laverty in Superbike World Championship competition. There's the usual personality profile BS at the beginning, but he breaks down traction control and engine braking functions on road racing machines in a simple, easy-to-understand manner. It's a good primer and cuts through a lot of the crap slung about the 'net on the topic. The best part is that when he's asked what the most important function of electronics on a racebike is, he is quick to reach for one word - safety. Electronics make for safer racebikes, And that means more racing for more racers, whose careers are less likely to be brutally cut short. Great interview - especially the part about using being forced to use cheaper ECUs which, turns out, are still crazy-powerful.

Link here:


One More Step On The Road Toward Safer Racing ...


It's a little thing, but little things matter. On the agenda for the upcoming FIM Road Racing Commission are two items addressing soft barriers at racetracks. It kind of sounds surreal, like making a rule banning the use of lacquered handkerchief as helmet material. But here they are: 

- To refuse straw bales as protective devices for new circuits

- To delete straw bales from the type C protective devices as from 2016 or 2017

Yep. Currently, straw bales wrapped in a fire-resistant bag remain homologated as soft barriers for GP racing circuits (hysterically, the FIM regulations point out that they prefer the bags to be grey, please). The FIM is finalizing new standards for road racing circuits, and FIM MotoGP Safety Officer Franco Uncini is asking for the ban on hay bales.

It would be easy to poke fun at the FIM for taking so long to address this issue. Perhaps it was only the image of Valentino Rossi spearing into hay bales last season that sparked the concern (I know when I saw the accident, I couldn't believe that I was still seeing hay bales on a MotoGP circuit).

But it's progress, and it's progress that wasn't prompted by the death, dismemberment or injury of a racer. That, in itself, is progress.

R.I.P., Jon Couch ...


Jon Couch was someone U.S. roadracing needed. I don't know all the details of his business dealings or his personal life, so I can't comment on those. But I do know that when I interviewed him in 2012, he was using his personal fortune to support some damned fine racers that never got a chance to make the big time. He was putting together a team that reflected well on the middle of the AMA grid and actually employed people for the purpose of roadracing motocycles. His team and its professionalism made CCS and WERA events look big-time. Jon had a passion for bikes, for motorcycle racing, and he had jumped into the game in a major way. Even here in the west, at the WERA events, the officials had shirts with TOBC (The Old Boat Company) patches on them, an indication of the financial support that Jon provided to the race organization.

Jon was someone who loved this sport, and voted for it with his dollars and his effort. When his plane slammed into the ground, killing him and his mother, U.S. roadracing lost someone who not only wanted to make the sport better, but had the means and drive to make it happen.

Dammit.

New Electronics For MotoGP ...


You've seen me write time and time again that the only way to successfully restrict MotoGP electronic rider aids is to push their development into something that could be used on the street. Like it or not, traction control, engine braking, ABS, electronic suspension - all of that makes streetbikes safer, faster and better. And every manufacturer is working along those lines on their high-end streetbikes. As I wrote below, in great detail, a GP class that excludes electronics is a class that manufacturers are not interested in.

Fortunately, it appears that the "spec" electronics of 2016 are going to follow that idea of pushing development toward road-going usefulness.

In this interview on motomatters.com:


Dorna's chief tech guy outlines his view of the future.

Pining for the good 'ol electronic-free days is a waste, and it is a relief to hear Cecchinelli's grasp of reality. Pushing electronics in a direction that makes better performance for road-going machines is an excellent way to attract manufacturer attention. 

Look at what allowing a wide variety of hybrid powerplants has done for the WEC sports car championship; next year, there will be five manufacturers competing (Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Porsche & Audi). THAT is a healthy series.


With road machines moving toward electronically controlled active suspensions and increasingly better ABS systems, it is quite reassuring to hear Cecchinelli talk about driving racebike electronics in that direction in the future, and to hear him recognize that developing traction control and electronic engine braking on racebikes pays dividends on streetbikes.

Meritocracy ...


It's only Silly Season in MotoGP if you don't understand the goal. 

There are some head-scratching signing decisions being made in the paddock. Is Jack Miller really ready for MotoGP after two years on a bike half the weight and with less than a quarter of the horsepower? Why did Honda earmark a factory-spec bike for Scott Redding? And why didn't Aspar take a tape measure over to Loris Baz before signing a preliminary agreement with him to ride, only to realize later that Baz was - shocker - very tall?

So what do all of these things have to do with each other?

Money. Sanctioning fees and television contracts for Dorna, to be precise. 

The organization makes its money from promoters who will give them cash to bring the GP show to a track, and from selling TV rights to said event.

TV ratings in Australia took a nosedive after Casey Stoner left the sport. Cue the promotion of Miller, an Australian, to help boost the value of the TV contract there.

TV ratings in Great Britain took a serious hit after Dorna went to a pay-per-view contract there. Dorna's solution? Let's put Redding on a bike and help his new team. (Although it has not yet been revealed, expect Marc VDS to not have to pay all of the fees and moneys a new team normally would have to pay, or to get more support from Dorna than a new team usually gets. In the world of big business, rules are for suckers.)

Baz? Reports are that Dorna wanted a fast French rider in the mix quickly, as it will be a while before Fabio Quartararo is old enough to have a shot at a MotoGP machine.

All of these three riders are undeniably quick. But they're not head and shoulders above other riders. You could make an argument that any one of several other riders were equally ready for a shot at these seats.

The merit for all three is the potential profit to Dorna that they represent.

Once you understand that the goal (Dorna's revenues are up, but its debt load has skyrocketed) is to make Bridgepoint Capital's and Dorna's shareholders money in the short-term, you realize that it is a meritocracy - but not one based on riding talent and racing skill.

Decisions, Decisions ...


Managing a race from the Race Director's point of view can be tough - you've got to make calls that are right, and you have to do them under immense time pressures. But it's not impossible, and modern technology makes it harder and harder to understand when an obvious call is blown.

This weekend, race officials blew two calls, and there was no excuse for either.

In the Moto2 race, Jonas Folger was issued a command to drop a place for exceeding the track limits. Problem was that the penalty was called so long after the violation that Folger was miles ahead of anyone he could drop a place to. Lap after lap, he sat up on the front straight, looking behind him, waiting for someone to catch up so he could get on with his race. This took so long that Race Direction compounded their bad call by then issuing Folger a ride-through penalty.

With Dorna's vaunted television technology, there's no reason an on-track incident can't be reviewed by Race Direction before the end of the lap in question anymore. Folger was robbed.

But DMG officials on this side of the pond screwed things up even worse with their penalty against Josh Hayes in Superbike Race One at New Jersey. It took them more than three hours - THREE HOURS - after the race ended to decide to issue a penalty for a move that was captured on video as it happened. Then they issued the penalty and decreed that it could not be appealed. Utterly inept, utterly childish.

All I will say is this: DMG, don't let the doorknob hit you in the ass on the way out. The doorknob will get in the way of the ass-kicking you should line up to receive from every motorcycle race fan on the planet.

Thoughts From The Racing World This Weekend ...

It was a billion degrees at Willow, but on lap 19 of the endurance race, I ran the fastest lap in competition that I've run all year, so it wasn't so bad. I also learned that botching the start means you don't win your six-lap sprint the next day.

- Always a fairy tale when the hometown hero wins. What was most satisfying to me was watching Rossi blow past Marquez on the throttle. All the whining about the reduction in fuel capacity in MotoGP, all the insulting comments about how Yamaha was dumb to agree to the plan but did so because they groveled at Honda's feet, all of that went out the window at Misano. Turns out the rule change did exactly what the factories wanted it to do: Force their engineers to dig deeper, learn some new things, and make the bike work in the face of a new challenge. From what we saw, on any given day, the Yamaha is the equal of the Honda now.

 - The seismic shift in Moto3 continues. At a track where I would have put money on a KTM, the Hondas were nearly 3.5 seconds ahead at the line.

 - MotoAmerica needs to up its game - immediately. We are very, very late in the process of getting ready for next year. It should have had a rulebook and class structure ready to go the moment the announcement was made. These things aren't rocket science. I will give them this, though - at least they understand the need for the 1000cc Superstock class. Track promoters need a better show on the ground for an on-site audience. More racing helps with that.

Josh Hayes: He's Earned It ...


I had the privilege of speaking to three-time AMA Superbike champion Josh Hayes a couple of years back at Laguna Seca. He'd had a long day Friday and we met for a long chat on Saturday morning. 

He was disappointed in his performance the day before. His team was trying a bunch of things, and by the end of the day, his riding was tense and tentative, he said.

Think about Hayes' job for a bit. He's on a Yamaha R1, built to the limit of the rulebook; it's a beast. It's a highly sophisticated beast, but still, a beast. His job is to push it to the limit, then when he is comfortable and fast, have people change things to see if there's more there.

That means on this weekend, Hayes was firing that beast of an R1 through the triple-digit, downhill, spooky Rainey Corner, knowing that the setup he'd relied on was no longer underneath him and hopeful - hopeful - that his team's changes had made the bike better. If the changes made it worse, it was Hayes' job to gather the out-of-shape machine together, get it back to pit lane, and start the process again.

If you really think about what a pro racer does, you cannot help but sometimes be in awe.

Hayes looks set to wrap title #4 this weekend. 

If he does, he's earned it.

Second Thoughts, MotoAmerica ...


- At least, U.S. roadracing should come out of this with a decent TV package. Not a great one, but at least there will be a presence. And whether we're watching it on that TV network or not, at this point, it's the bright shining line for a lot of corporate sponsors. I think it will change in the future, and that the Internet will be the modern equivalent of cable TV in the 1990s, but at this point, the money people want to see a TV package. Dorna's biggest product is TV. It can package AMA Pro Road Racing and World Superbike together and sell it to networks, or leverage the demand for MotoGP racing TV rights into a deal for its new AMA product. If nothing else, AMA racing should be available on the same channel that WSBK can be found on, and that means fans won't have to buy two cable packages to watch it. Dorna does TV well; with any luck, it will be a life preserver that keeps motorcycle road racing in the U.S. afloat until the ship stabilizes.

- Lots of chatter about new classes and rules. I believe that switching to Moto2 or Moto3 classes would be disastrous. There aren't more than a half-dozen Moto2 machines in the entire U.S. There are not going to be 25 or 30 people who are suddenly going to jump off the sidelines and go buy one to go racing next year. And why would, say, Yamaha or Suzuki suddenly want to race someone else's chassis? And lastly, why in the world do you drive out the people who have race-ready 600s? Bad move. Same with Moto3. Those machines you see on the TV screen in MotoGP at the BACK of the pack are $50,000 bikes. And the people I race with who have purchased the Moriwaki MD250H are, to a great extent, parking them and going back to the old two-stroke 125s. I think it was Warren Willing who said, nearly 15 years ago about replacing the 500s with MotoGP bikes, "if you think racing two-strokes is expensive, wait until you try racing four-strokes." The Moriwaki was supposed to be a spec bike. Once you try to build it, the costs escalate dramatically and reliability plummets. The maintenance schedule described by one racing father to me gave me a headache just to listen to. MotoAmerica should stick with the existing classes for at least the first season (except for throwing the Harleys into a lake) and add a 1000cc Superstock class and an Open Twins class. KTM and Ducati and Buell all going head-to-head in a support race? I'll buy a ticket for that.

First Thoughts, MotoAmerica ...


- DMG didn't have much of a choice. As mentioned here previously, its business model of charging tracks to bring the AMA Pro Road Racing show to town was bankrupt. It was sell and get out of the business, or have no business next year anyway.

- There are deeply fundamental problems that a change in ownership will not magically change. The fan base is badly dispersed; manufacturers have found other ways to promote their bikes (BMW still sells every S1000RR it can bring into the U.S. and hasn't ever entered a factory machine in AMA Superbike, and Ducati is selling stacks of Panigales without a race team); the television audience was pathetic a decade ago; and worst of all, sportbike sales in the U.S. have tanked so badly that I seriously wonder why anyone runs a 600 class. 

- DMG was busy shooting itself in the foot, but it is foolish to blame all of the problems on DMG. Anyone notice that the two teams leading WSBK are self-sponsored factory efforts, and the Yamaha MotoGP factory effort's biggest sponsor is the television network that has paid for the rights to televise the show?

- Looking back, when the DMG deal was announced, the biggest attraction was that the money problems had been solved - that U.S. roadracing was not going to have to live paycheck-to-paycheck, so to speak. DMG was owned by billionaires; surely they'd invest their money into the sport, right? What we learned the hard way - and what may be the most valuable lesson of all - is that no one gives you anything. DMG was a group of business owners who knew how to make their properties make money. Motorcycle road racing was not going to make them any money. DMG treated the sport exactly as it would have treated any other investment with a similar potential for return. 

The take-away: To survive, racing must live within its means, know what function it performs, and do that and only that.

It is hard to see how Dorna/MotoAmerica can make a profit where DMG could not. Perhaps in the long-term, amortized as part of a global marketing strategy, does it make sense. I think I'd feel better if Dorna were not hemorrhaging cash. But I do not expect to see MotoGP-level events next year. I do not expect massive grids or factory involvement beyond what we already have. I see modest, solid events that are sustainable being the first priority - and thanks to John Ulrich's Superbike Shootout for demonstrating that such events are feasible.

I am keeping my expectations reasonable.

First Thoughts From Silverstone ...

Happy Birthday To Me! Thanks, Caliphotography!

- How do you not just get the biggest kick out of Marquez? He seems to enjoy the hard work of riding a MotoGP bike - and it is a brutal job, make no mistake - as much as any motorcycle enthusiast remembers enjoying their first ride. Even the contrived publicity stunts - the Millennium Bridge video - seem spontaneous and fun. Bikes are supposed to be fun, and he reminds me of that when I forget sometime.

- Back to business: Gresini is looking like it is losing a major backer, Go & Fun. May have something to do with the increase in pay-per-view TV deals that Dorna is brokering. More money in Dorna's pocket, far less viewers. Hard to attract sponsors that way.

- On the World Supersport front, Kenan Sofuoglu's team is essentially broke, so he switched to another team. His original team - MAHI Racing Team India - was backed by some of India's highest-profile, wealthiest motorsport enthusiasts. But here's how billionaires stay billionaires: They don't lose money in business deals. And motorcycle racing is basically a money-losing proposition, unless you make and sell bikes and bike-related products. Look at the sponsors who have been around the longest ...

- Celebrated another birthday at the track (see above). Not aging gracefully. Happy as hell about that.

- This from Ed Sorbo: I have all the monkeys I need. I am short on time and typewriters.

Final Thoughts From Brno ...


As we head into the Silverstone race weekend, a few last thoughts about the Brno round:

- It is kind of cool to watch all three races and see the differing lines riders in different classes use coming out of Turn One. The big MotoGP bikes are squaring off the exit, the Moto3 machines are way out wide in a big sweeping arc, and the Moto2 machines are smack in the middle. It was also interesting to watch Moto3 superstar Maverick Vinales using his lines from last year in the Moto2 class he races in this year. Stood out like a sore thumb - and didn't work. It is clear that it takes hard work to move from class to class, and success is not guaranteed as you step up.

- Promoters at tiny dirt short tracks pull publicity stunts like inverting the qualifying order and making the fast guys fight their way through the slow guys. MotoGP has managed to do the same by giving the Ducatis special short-lived advantages. So you get "racing" like you saw between Marquez and Iannone. Silly and dangerous.

More On Why Moto2 Lacks Buzz ...

http://www.motogp.com/en/photos/season/2014/CZE/Sunday/Moto2/#Hafizh-Syahrin-Petronas-Raceline-Malaysia-CZE-WUP-575717

Spent a little more time thinking about why the Moto2 chase this year has been of little or no interest to me. Here are a few thoughts:

- It's not new anymore. This is the fifth year of machines that have essentially been unchanged since their introduction. In a six-year period, MotoGP machines went from 990cc to 800cc to 1000cc. Since the beginning, Moto2 bikes have had the same engines, the same tires, the same rules, and pretty much the same entrants.

- As mentioned before, there's little variety. This year in MotoGP, there are two types of Hondas, three specs of Yamahas, a Ducati, an Aprilia-powered machine and a Kawasaki-powered machine. In Moto2, there are three types of frames, with Kalex and Suter ruling the class. Spec engine, spec tires, spec electronics. If you look at the details, it's even more standardized; Ohlins suspension, Brembo brakes and Akrapovic exhausts are pretty much standard issue.

- A lack of factory competitors means there's none of the brand vs. brand competition that you see in MotoGP, WSBK, Formula One, NASCAR, etc. There is no reason for Suzuki, Kawasaki or Ducati fans to watch.

- Since 2012, there has been a dramatic drop in the amount of Marc Marquez in Moto2. Marquez was a buzz all his own; everyone who ever laid an eye on this kid knew he was going to MotoGP, and was going there with a big team. Marquez didn't stink up the show, he was the show. You tuned in to Moto2 to watch him slaughter the field. 

Marquez is gone. And the title race this year has boiled down to two guys on the same team; one who went to MotoGP and failed to make any impression, the other a guy who has no chance of going to a factory team next year because all the factory rides are taken. No factory was willing to give them a chance - why should we the fans be interested? 

And the riders moving up from Moto3 have failed to make a dramatic impression in Moto2. The riders destined for factory MotoGP rides don't just win in the lower divisions; they dominate the lower divisions, rocketing through the fields, clearly better than their competition. You know you're watching something special when you see them race. Guys like Vinales, Cortese, Salom, etc. - all good, none great.

So to sum it up: No amazing superstars, nothing technically interesting, no brand competition. It's a pretty one-dimensional competition. It's kind of like watching a National-level Superbike race from a country whose racing you've never seen before - while the action on-track might be interesting, you're not versed in the back story. And if the action on-track goes slack for just a second ...

Thoughts From MotoGP Brno (Updated) ...

 Dan Sharp on his Honda CBR600RR at Buttonwillow Raceway Park in Moto West GP competition.

- Credit where credit is due: Dani Pedrosa did exactly what he is being paid to do by HRC. On a day when wunderkid Marc Marquez faltered, Pedrosa put his Honda atop the box. On his day, Dani is as quick as anyone in the world, and you don't win 26 MotoGP races by accident. 

- By the way, it appears as though some people are finally recognizing that on the gas, there is little, if any, difference between the Honda and Yamaha. The average top speed for Pedrosa's top five speeds was 310.3 kph - 192.811 mph. The average for Rossi's top five measured speeds was 308.2 kph - 191.506 mph. So the Yamaha is about 1.3 miles an hour slower than the Honda at the very top end. Try driving your car at 1.3 mph and see how fast that is. Even with all the bleating about the power of the Ducati, Rossi's bike was just 0.1 kph - 0.06 mph - slower than Iannone's GP14. The success of the Honda is not just in the engine department - if motor was all that mattered, everyone would be clamoring for a Ducati!

- The Moto3 race produced another first-time GP winner, this one Alexis Masbou in his 118th GP.  And for those who are counting, that's four wins in five races from the Honda - a bike that was nowhere last season. At the end of 2013, the top six riders were on KTM-powered machines. So far this year, Honda has four machines in the top six. It's a rich, multi-faceted competition with riders against riders, teams against teams and factories against factories. Awesome.

-  Over at motomatters.com, the race report includes the following phrase: "It is cruel, and inexplicable, but Moto2 simply lacks any buzz this year." Cruel, perhaps, but not inexplicable. Moto2 is identibike racing, as discussed in a previous post. It lacks the manufacturer vs. manufacturer, brand vs. brand, battle that can be found in MotoGP and in Moto3. And with the bikes being identical, there is little, if any, chance of any Moto2 team coming up with something that will suddenly make them competitive. Even in the middle of Marquez's streak, you never knew on Friday if Yamaha would find a new electronics setting or show up with a new gearbox or new frame that would make the Honda obsolete, or if Ducati would come up with a new electronics package. You know that sort of thing won't happen in Moto2 - because, by the rules, it can't. So the fastest bike from last weekend is almost guaranteed to be the fastest bike this weekend. It's a one-dimensional contest that lacks any depth. That's why it's a snooze.

Cruel, yes, but easily explained.

Racing Like You Mean It ....

Doran Boctor on his Honda CBR1000RR in Moto West Grand Prix competition at Buttonwillow.

The Ducati MotoGP team announced at Brno this weekend that it would introduce its 2015 MotoGP machine at the Sepang test in February, a couple of months before the season starts. Ducati Corse general manager Gigi Dall'Igna says that he wants to do the job of exorcising the demons from the troubled machine correctly the first time.

This announcement has met with widespread criticism - and there's a reason. The poor Ducati faithful have been hearing promises of improvement for half a decade now, and only the tire-related charity of Dorna, desperate for a better TV show, has helped the bike look a little better for a few laps in qualifying and at the beginning of a race. The Ducatista and MotoGP fans have held out hope for the Bologna machines for a long time, with the patience of the followers of Zarquon (bonus points for getting that reference). They'd really like to see the new machine, and yesterday!

There is precedent for Dall'Igna's process. Ron Dennis's McLaren frequently was the last team to unveil its F1 contender each season. Dennis said he wanted to extend the thinking process as long as possible, and build up to the last minute, incorporating all of the thinking he could come up with. During this period, McLaren was always at the sharp end of the field.

But the difference is this: Ducati will miss the end-of-season tests while building the new bike. McLaren did not miss an opportunity to test. Ducati, in a phrase, is missing deadline. No matter what the computer and the engineers say, testing on the track is the only way to find out if it works or not.

Honda, in contrast, tested its 2015 machine on a GP track with its factory riders in July 2014.

Which factory is taking MotoGP seriously?

Thoughts From The Brickyard ....

Just a random shot of a Moto3 bike on the track. These things are so cool ...

- Totally cool to see Efren Vasquez win his first GP race. At 27, these guys are closer to the end of their careers than to the beginning. He took the Moto3 lights at Indy to start his 116th GP, and didn't have a win in his pocket yet. Thirty-nine minutes and 12.977 seconds later, he was a GP winner. Vasquez may be the old man in the field of kids (look at the profile pics at motogp.com; he looks like he could be old enough to be the father of some of the other riders) but he rides with his heart on his sleeve and a desperate need to win. He's a racer, and when a real racer takes home the big trophy, all is right in the universe.

- Rumors are that Jack Miller is going to go straight to MotoGP from Moto3, in part because Dorna wants an Australian rider in the big class to help with negotiating TV contracts. Great. Let's hope that Miller's career isn't damaged by moving him up to the big bike too soon, merely for the sake of viewership in Australia.

- The MotoGP race was exactly the staged spectacle that Dorna was looking for by giving the Ducatis their own rulebook. By giving the Ducs high-performance but short-lived tires, the red bikes slash to the front, then cause chaos as they slide backward through the pack. Hey, that's what circuses are for, to entertain the masses.

- Speaking of Ducatis - what do you suppose went through Valentino Rossi's mind when Dovisioso pushed his Ducati past the Yamaha? I'd bet that it was one word - one that cannot be used in a family newspaper. Hysterical.
Good Racing Comes From Good Circuits ....


Just watched the BSB events from Thruxton, a former RAF airfield converted into a racing facility after World War II. Crazy-fast, the 2.4-mile circuit generates average lap speeds in the 115 mph range. It's got a couple of chicanes, no real straights and long, long triple-digit-speed sweepers. It's nuts.

And it makes for great racing.

One of the big differences in modern machinery seems to be the ability to accelerate out of a corner. If every corner isn't a low-speed hairpin, then the differences are minimized. Momentum becomes more important than acceleration, and on spec tires, the theoretical maximum side grip is the same for everyone.

Add into that real slipstreaming - the lead bikes poke a bigger hole in the air the faster they are going.

Add one really tight chicane just before start-finish in which it's pretty impossible to defend your spot - the following bike usually can slip up beside the leading bike before the braking zone starts.

Add a wide racing surface.

Sum total = recipe for a great race. 

I'd put that last chicane two corners from the finish, not just one, so the person who does that last-lap dive-bomb up the inside has a chance to get re-passed. But that's nitpicking.

The biggest problem here is that the runoff is horrible. The place really needs piles and piles of Airfence.

But the lesson is this: Racebikes and racers need room to run. Give them space to really rip, and you usually get a great race.

KTM and MotoGP ....


KTM's recent announcement in an interview at speedweek.de that it would enter MotoGP in 2017 has raised a few eyebrows, but not as much interest as a new manufacturer and new machine on the grid might be expected to generate.

My suspicions for the resounding lack of interest: The plan, as laid out, seems destined to create a grid-filler at best, and KTM's last foray into MotoGP didn't accomplish anything.

KTM plans to use a tubular steel frame, which hasn't been used in MotoGP or World Superbike for a couple of years now. Variations in chassis stiffness have been blamed; an aluminum twin-spar frame gives more consistency from machine to machine.

KTM will not enter a works machine, but will sell bikes to customers. That means individual teams will be tasked with trying to make the "spec" software work and compete with the factory squads that will, in essence, design the software and have engineers working back at the factory on getting the best from the electronics package.

No doubt KTM can build a motor that will be competitive, horsepower-wise. But that's no real challenge. Getting it to the ground is the challenge. At Qatar, two Ducatis headed the top speed charts in qualifying; they finished fifth and 10th. The winner had the fifth-fastest bike; the second-placed rider the ninth-fastest bike.

And KTM intends to use WP suspension instead of the paddock-standard Ohlins stuff. Ask the Gresini squad how much fun (get it?) they've had using Showa suspension and Nissin brakes.

I personally have little interest in machines on a MotoGP grid just to add to the "rich variety" of GP equipment. I want to see teams, factories and riders thrashing away, desperate to get to the front. I don't see KTM doing this.

But KTM's intentions make sense of a sort. The factory wants to replace its aging RC8. Superbike street sales are tanking. So KTM wants to build a customer track-only bike for somewhere between Euros 150,000 and 200,000. That's about $201,000 to $268,000 in U.S. dollars. KTM wants to build a few hundred of these machines - tops - and sell them to crazy-rich motorcycle fanatics who just want one to ride on the track. Since every Superbike series has a minimum production number, the only place to race this machine and build a name for it is in MotoGP.

What the hell - give it a shot. Didn't hurt Ducati to sell a street-legal replica of a MotoGP Desmosedici. Maybe lightning will strike twice.

Karma and the Ineffable Plan ....


It appears that Stefan Bradl will be losing his Honda LCR ride in MotoGP, perhaps the most desirable ride in the paddock outside of the two Repsol Hondas and the two Movistar Yamahas. Bradl has one pole and one podium in 43 races - not enough to justify keeping his seat on a factory-spec bike that, on paper, should never finish lower than fifth.

But you could argue that Bradl's probable demotion from the team in 2015 is just the unseen hand of racing addressing an imbalance that never should have occurred in the first place.

Flash back to 2011. Marc Marquez is tearing it up in Moto2 as a rookie. It takes Marquez a few races to learn the ropes of a bigger four-stroke machine (vs. the 125cc GP machine he had ridden to the title in 2010). Once he does, he goes on a tear, winning six of seven races mid-season and closing right in on Bradl in the championship chase. But the points are pretty irrelevant; what matters is speed, and Marquez clearly has this in abundance over Bradl.

It all goes horribly wrong at Phillip Island, when Marquez crashes into Ratthapark Wilairot and damages his eye. It gets even worse at Sepang, where the organizers fail to show a wet track flag and Marquez crashes, further damaging his eye and ending his season (and very nearly his career).

This hands the Moto2 title to Bradl. 

Consequences? Bradl now is a World Champion and gets the coveted LCR Honda ride for 2012 - something he likely never would have gotten had he not won the championship and the prestige that goes with it. Marquez spends another year in Moto2 and cleans up some of the aggression of his riding. When Marquez moves to MotoGP, he is remarkably crash-free in the races, and that consistency is part of the reason he wins the title in his rookie year.

Meanwhile, Bradl is raking in more money than his talent is really worth, but he is in over his head. He tries hard, but eventually his relative - and I mean relative - lack of talent takes its toll. He likely will end up on the satellite Forward NCM Yamaha, a good bike, where he will rack up solid mid-pack finishes for a team that is looking for solid mid-pack finishes.

No lesson, nothing really to be learned here. Just karma, and the racing universe restoring the equilibrium thrown off on that horrid day at Phillip Island in 2011. Sometimes the wheel of karma moves slowly, even in the high-speed world of racing.

WSBK'S EVO Future ....


 The World Superbike series will go to a new spec next year, with this year's so-called "EVO" rules largely governing the entire field next season. Those rules created a class this year for a lower-spec bike than the full Superbikes. According to Dorna, the goal is to make diverse machines perform comparably and "the regulations are also aimed at both reducing annual costs and making the Championship more accessible to new teams. “

I was thinking about this because of a comment an AMA Pro Road Racing competitor made to me after the Superbike World Championship round at Laguna earlier this year. He admired the WSBK Hondas and Kawasakis, but added - without prompting - that the EVO-spec Kawasaki of David Salom was a remarkably nice piece of kit, too.

Of course it is. 

It's a full factory machine. 

Kawasaki isn't interested in building cheap racebikes - it is interested in building winning racebikes. Just like it did with every other rulebook, Kawasaki opened up the 2015 EVO rulebook and asked, what can we do to the bike within these rules that will give us the greatest advantage we can get over our competitors?

EVO, Superbike, Superstock, Production - doesn't matter what the rulebook says on the cover. Every entrant will spend as much as they think wins or championships are worth to them. As mentioned below, this is the only major International series in which Kawasaki competes at the factory level. And that means that all of the engineering and intellectual might of Kawasaki Heavy Industries is going to be focused on making the fastest EVO-spec machine on the planet for WSBK in 2015.

What will result, undoubtedly, is one nice piece of kit.

Moto2 And Identibike Racing ....


When Moto2 burst onto the scene, some complained that the spec engine, spec tire, spec electronics class wasn't really GP racing. But those voices were drowned out in the excitement of the first few races - or was it relief that the class seemed to be working? Anyway, for the first couple of seasons, the class provided crazy racing, a big field and a dose of excitement on Sunday afternoons.

But fast-forward to 2013, and some started to realize that Moto2 was losing some of its excitement. The battle at the front between Pol Espargaro and Scott Redding was intense, true. But statistics showed that the number of riders who had led at least one lap had dropped by one-third (from 15 to 10) in just two seasons. And this year, not only has one team won six of the eight dry races, its riders - Esteve Rabat and Mika Kallio - have led more laps than the rest of the field combined. Simply put, Marc VDS Racing is wiping the floor with the competition.

Why is this happening in a class where everyone is supposed to be on a "level playing field" when it comes to engines, tires, and electronics?

Take a look at the Red Bull Rookies Cup class, and you see the same thing happening. One rider - Jorge Martin Almoguera - has finished first or second in six of the seven races. On a machine that is identical to every other bike in the field.

What you are seeing is the following phenomenon: The fewer variations between machines, the fewer variations in the finishing order. The fewer differences there are in the rider/machine package, the more likely it is that the remaining differences are the ones that will determine the outcome of a race. If Rider A is riding better than Rider B, and their machines are equal, Rider A will win every race.

Allow variations in the machines, and now you have added a new variable into the equation. See World Superbike. With a wide variety of machines, on any given Sunday, one machine will be best suited to the characteristics of a particular track. The next weekend, a different machine will best suit an entirely different track. Five winners this year in WSBK - interestingly, more winners than in the Red Bull Rookies Cup, and the same number of winners as Moto2.

Throw different tires into the mix, and you get even greater variations. Ask Makoto Tamada - two wins in MotoGP in 2004, thanks in part to him being the only Honda RC211V rider on Bridgestones. Was Tamada the best MotoGP rider in 2004? No way - there was this guy named Rossi. But twice that year, the combination of a lesser rider, unusual conditions and unusual tires turned out to be the winning recipe.

Allow racebike builders and teams to gamble on things, and they have a possibility of upsetting the order. Force them to all use the same things - engines, tires, electronics - and at the checkered flag, the song will remain the same.

Suzuka 8-Hours: What Honda (Or Suzuki) Could Do In WSBK ...


For the second year in a row, a Honda CBR1000RR has taken the victory at the Suzuka 8 Hours endurance race. What is impressive is the raw speed of the MuSASHi RT HARC-PRO machine; it qualified fifth, with a 2:07.827 lap around the 3.61-mile circuit. That is less than three seconds slower than one Valentino Rossi, at the height of his superpowers, could hustle a Honda RC211V around the circuit the last time MotoGP raced there in 2003 (2:04.970). And this was the slower Honda; the F.C.C. TSR Honda was a full half-second quicker than the MuSASHi machine.

Neither team featured the front-line MotoGP riders that were forced a decade ago to race at the home race for the Japanese factories the prestigious Suzuka endurance race used to attract. Those lap times were set by a collection of World Superbike and National-level Superbike riders, supported by a cast of racers from lower-status World Championships.
What is impressive, to me, is that these machines are not only production-based instead of pure GP racebikes, but the distance they were set to put in. The 2003 MotoGP race at Suzuka (a sad memory, for it was in this race that Daijiro Kato crashed and died) took a little less than 45 minutes to run. There were no engine limits during this period, so a team could run a new engine whenever it wanted.
A Suzuka 8 Hours bike has to run at a pace that mid-pack MotoGP bikes ran in 2003, and do so for eight hours - or, to put it another way, more than 10 MotoGP races back-to-back without stopping.
Modern endurance machines are flat amazing racebikes. It seems like such a shame that these machines basically are seen once a year, then go back to the factory.

Point is, it is clear that if Honda (or even Suzuki, which took pole for the 8 Hours with a lap in the 2:06 range) can build a competitive World Superbike machine. Those factories simply choose not to sink their resources into that series. Every manufacturer chooses the battlefield upon which the cost is lowest and the benefits highest. And WSBK ain't it for those two manufacturers. 

UPDATE: This just in from Ed Sorbo over at Lindemann Engineering:

MG: I think your point about how fast the 8 Hours bikes are is much more 
correct than you know. Suzuka added a chicane after the hair pin to 
slow down the approach to Spoon.  This was done after the last GP and 
I think they use it for the 8 Hours.
 

More Spec Tire Musings ...


WSBK just concluded a two-day test at Portimao. Pirelli brought development compounds designed to work better in hot conditions. All riders got to try the new compound. That included riders on inline-4, V-4 and V-twin machines. 

Pirelli's job is to make race tires that work equally well for all machines. It does not want its tires to determine the outcome of races. I have suggested here before that a spec tire's specification be fixed at the beginning of the season and stay that way throughout the season. 

If you are going to introduce new stuff midway through, though, this is the way to do it. Let everyone try it, let everyone push it hard, and make sure that everyone gets along with it.

Making Space For Racing ...


There's a professor over at the University of Southern California who tracks television sports as part of his studies on gender, sport and society. One of the most interesting things from his latest full essay was the observation that in the U.S., baseball, football and basketball not only receive about 72 percent of all television coverage, but that they get massive amounts of coverage during their off-seasons.

The reason is simple: Sports coverage is a promotional machine that drives audiences to watch the games. That promotion needs to take place year-round or viewers find something else to watch.

The effect is that the media landscape is not just dominated by ball-and-stick games, but the off-season coverage locks out opportunities for other sports (which are viewed as competitors) to gather audiences.

Look at MLS; years of investing in trying to improve TV ratings have made major league soccer in the U.S. about as popular on TV as the WNBA. Actually, that's not true; women's basketball kicks soccer's butt in TV ratings.

The next time someone tells you that motorcycle racing's salvation lies in better TV ratings, remind them that the TV landscape is pretty full already, and that any gains will be made by trying to shove other, incredibly well-funded, well-entrenched interests out of the way.

Saved By The Rain ...



The irony of it all. AMA Pro Road Racing riders made it clear this weekend that they would not race in the rain at Mid-Ohio. The place has iffy runoff and the pavement is slick as anything in the wet. So Saturday was pretty much a complete wash. And that meant that organizers moved all the racing to Sunday.

That meant, if you showed up for Sunday's activities, you got:

- One Harley-Davidson race.

- Two SuperSport races.

- Two Daytona Sportbike races.

- And two Superbike races.

Pretty decent value for the entry fee. Maybe AMA Pro Road Racing could learn a lesson or two here.

Risk, Safety And What Words Really Mean ...


Over at my friend Ed Sorbo's blog on the Lindemann Engineering website, he's got an interesting post on what words mean, and the word "safety" as it is tossed around in the world of motorcycle road racing. Scroll down a bit and read it here at:


And check out his entry on racing an electric bike. I got to witness that launch. It was hysterical. I'm pretty sure I could hear Ed laughing as he came out of Turn One with a 50-yard lead ...

More, More, More ...


The entire World Superbike weekend at Laguna consisted of five races, if you include the Harley race. There are that many races on Saturday afternoon at a British Superbike event. On a Saturday afternoon. When I was at Brands there were no less than seven races on Sunday.

At Laguna, the first race went off at 11 a.m. The last was flagged off well after 4:30. That's a lot of sitting around and doing nothing if you're a fan.

Black, white, straight, gay, tall, short, whatever, there's one thing in common that everyone who shows up at the race weekend shares: A passion for racing. To revive this event, the organizers need to give us more racing. WSBK ran twice; a doubleheader for three AMA classes and a Harley race (if we must) would give the fans nine races over two days. 

That's a reason to show up, dammit.

Pedrosa, Redux ...


HRC has re-signed Dani Pedrosa to another two-year contract to ride a factory bike in MotoGP. Makes perfect sense to me. Apparently, not to everyone. So let's go over a few responsibilities that are not part of the operational brief for a MotoGP team:

- Hiring riders that are non-Spanish.
- Hiring riders that meet some definition of "normal" size.
- Hiring British riders.
- Hiring up-and-coming riders to "give them a chance."
- Hiring riders who might "shake things up" in the finishing order.
- Punishing a loyal employee for a rookie mistake nearly a decade ago that didn't wind up mattering anyway (that's for the Hayden "fans" who insist on carrying a grudge).
- Hiring riders with "character" or "personality."

Here are the responsibilities that are part of the operational brief for a MotoGP team:

- No. 1: Winning the championship.
- No. 2: See No. 1.

Pedrosa is perfectly positioned to help HRC win the title. He's not fast enough to regularly beat his teammate, some guy named Marc. (Having two riders taking points away from each other is bad, and can easily cost a team a title.) He is fast enough to beat nearly everyone else. So he can take points away from the other squads, be in a position to challenge for the title if Marc falters, but not intrude upon Marc's assault on the record books.

In addition, Dani fits into the Honda family well. He's quiet and drama-free. His big off-track controversy during his entire career has involved cheating on a test. He doesn't complain about the bike. Doesn't complain about the team. Doesn't complain about his injuries - and he gets hurt a lot. He is one brave little SOB.

And oh yeah, he's bloody fast. 

Dani won the 125cc GP World Championship once, the 250cc GP World Championship twice, has finished second or third in the MotoGP World Championship six times, has 25 MotoGP wins and 27 poles.

Renewing this contract was just a formality.

Competition vs. Entertainment ...


Watching the World Superbike Race Two from Portimao last weekend, you knew it was coming, but it was still painful to watch Sylvain Guintoli take out his teammate Marco Melandri as the Aprilias closed down relentlessly on Jonathan Rea's Honda.

Sylvain had little choice - he had to try for the win. Championship leader Tom Sykes was in "Don't Crash" mode on a soaking wet track, and Guintoli saw an opportunity to put a big dent into Sykes' championship lead. Sylvain had to go into "win, spin or stick a hole in the fence" mode, and it bit him.

Sykes has built a comfortable lead in the championship points by making World Superbike races boring to watch. He qualifies well, gets into the lead early, and extends his gap a couple of tenths at a time. Soon enough, no one can catch him. And by having that points gap, Sykes can push a little closer to the edge, knowing that a small mistake won't cost him the lead in the championship. His opponents have to push a lot harder and run the risk of much bigger mistakes (cue Guintoli vs. Melandri clip on YouTube).

Pushing on when you can, never letting the competition get close, might make for boring TV. But your job as a professional racer is to win races and titles. Sykes might lose the "Most Entertaining Rider" competition this year. But I suspect that the first-place trophies and the championship trophy and the financial bonuses will make that loss a little easier to bear.

 Rossi's Ride And The Bottom Line



There is no way to view Yamaha's decision to re-sign Valentino Rossi to a new two-year contract as justified in terms of the rider's performance. Yes, he is second in the championship title chase. But since re-joining Yamaha for the 2013 season, he has beaten Marc Marquez on the track exactly twice - and one of those was Marquez' very first MotoGP race, and Marc nearly beat him there - in 26 attempts.

The fact is that Rossi's performance has plateaued, and - as age catches us all - will curve downward. Marquez is still in just his second year of MotoGP, and is likely to get better. But even if they stay where they are now, Marc is flat faster than Rossi. Keeping Vale on the Yamaha for two more years means, most likely, two more years of Yamaha finishing behind Marc.

No one knows this more than Yamaha. They're not blind. So why sign Rossi for two more years?

Money.

Monster and Movistar sponsor the team because Rossi rides there. Other sponsors undoubtedly have been pitched with the following phrase: The cameras follow Rossi, win or lose, so you will get exposure. And Rossi's marketing power for Yamaha motorcycles has a not-insignificant dollar value as well.

So, the question is, really, could Yamaha afford NOT to re-sign Rossi? There is a very real possibility that, no matter what they're paying him, and no matter how small his chances of winning a race, let alone a title, are, Yamaha's bean counters did the math and realized that their business relationship with Rossi was a winning combination - at least on the ledger sheets.

The Politics Of Production Bikes


NGM Forward had a banner day at Assen, with Aleix Espargaro on pole in MotoGP and battling for a podium spot. Not bad for a pile of leftover parts from the Yamaha MotoGP scrap heap (that, of course, is an exaggeration, the bike is an ex-factory chassis with a leased factory motor, running with somewhat less sophisticated electronics and more fuel than the factory bikes.)

The NGM Yamaha is the company's response to Dorna's begging for more bikes for the mid-pack, to help fill the grids. While Yamaha is selling/leasing ex-factory bits at a significant loss, Honda went a different route, building a complete proddie racer and selling it for - well, less of a loss.

Honda has taken a beating among the Internet experts, who criticize its production MotoGP racebike as being too slow. They forget, of course, that it's a cheap racebike designed to fill the grid, and as such has hit its performance target exactly.

What is that target? Let's ask questions about happiness!

- Is Repsol, by far one of the largest and most consistent sponsors of Honda's MotoGP efforts, happy with the fact that both of the factory bikes that it sponsors were on the podium at Assen? Yep! And when sponsor is happy, checks keep flowing.

- Are Movistar and Monster and Eneos, the big sponsors of Yamaha's factory bikes, happy with the fact that one of Yamaha's production bikes helped drive BOTH of the factory bikes off the podium? If you were Movistar or Monster or Eneos, what would you be thinking now?

Rule No. 1: Keep the sponsors happy. Hard to win a GP title without them.

Moto3, The Spirit Of The Rules, And Don't Mess With Sleeping Bears ... 

When the 125cc GP class went away, Dorna's idea was to eliminate the crazy arms race in the smallest GP class. Instead, it wanted a place where for a (relatively) small amount of money, riders and teams could learn the ropes of GP racing. So the engines were price-capped at a relatively low amount. And it would have worked; for most factories, a 250cc four-stroke GP title isn't worth much in terms of marketing and R&D, so they were happy to stay away.

KTM was not most factories. 

Unwilling to take on the big factories in MotoGP, it decided that it would be the big fish in the Moto3 class. So it built factory racebikes and would sell the "inexpensive" engines only as part of a chassis that cost well into the six figures. Other crazy charges - six-figure "service contracts" - ensured that KTM was running factory bikes in a class designed for privateers. And it worked; KTM won more than 30 races on the trot. They made everyone else look bad.

Cue the Sleeping Bear.

Honda got tired of looking bad. Upset by what it felt was KTM's violation of the spirit of the class, and getting nowhere by complaining to Dorna, Honda decided, if that's the way you want to play it, let's throw, punk. Honda's new Moto3 bike is even more expensive and tricker than KTM's machine. And it's faster, bloody faster. Honda has won two races in a row, and suddenly the machines that were top-10 on a good day last year are at the head of the pack.

What I'm getting to is this: When Jack Miller crashed his KTM out of the lead early in the Assen Moto3 race, he wasn't trying to get away from the rider behind him. He was trying to outrun a bear, Honda Racing Corporation, that has been woken from its slumber and is very, very pissed.

Safety, The Little Things ...


So I was talking to a professional road racer earlier today, and we were swapping war stories. I mentioned (as noted below) that I woke up after racing at Buttonwillow with bruises on my chest from hugging the tank of the bike as I raced over the torn-up track surface. He mentioned that his sternum has a calcium deposit from the zipper of his leathers being shoved - hard - into his body, over and over, year after year, while tucking in behind the screen of a racebike, chest hard against the tank.

The cool thing about this discussion was that, as he was saying it, he unconsciously touched his chest with his hand to illustrate his point. And then he got a confused look on his face. And then he said something that was really cool, the result of the latest years of his career including the use of good chest armor.

"It's gone," he said. "It's not there anymore."

It'll be a nice day when racers get to retire when they want to, not when they're forced to by the injuries that accumulate over the years. And any step along that path is welcome.

Illusion and Reality ...

From the official Yamaha MotoGP website.
 Jorge Lorenzo is in the middle of contract negotiations with Yamaha. In a brief report on Lorenzo's comments about those negotiations, Superbikeplanet.com offered the following observation: 

"For Yamaha, the fairing panels of the '14 M1 are now filled with sponsorship logos from major companies..."

Looking at those companies tells you something about the economic function of MotoGP - and the ability of even a team like Yamaha to attract sponsorship. Four of the logos you see on the side of the bike are Yamaha and Yamaha-owned companies.

The title sponsor - Movistar - also happens to be the media company that sells MotoGP on pay-per-view, and has paid a pile of cash for the right to broadcast the races. Movistar is merely protecting its investment, and you wonder how much of that money actually goes to Yamaha.

Monster and JX Nippon Oil (Eneos) indeed are likely paying good money to be on the side of the bike. But Monster came with Valentino; seen in that context, Rossi is paying for his ride. And the Monster logos (and presumably the money paid by Monster) got smaller when Movistar took over some of its real estate on the fairing.

Semakin di Depan is the slogan for Yamaha Indonesia Motor Manufacturing (YIMM), the company that manufactures and distributes Yamaha motorcycles in Indonesia. Yamalube is another Yamaha company. 

As far as the smaller logos (which bring in less money), Eurasian Bank is the tenth largest lender in Kazakhstan. SuisseGas is an Italian utility company. TW Steel sells watches. The rest all make motorcycle parts.

Yes, there are a lot of logos on the bike. But do they really bring in enough money to make a difference to a major corporation like Yamaha, or are they there to avoid the uncomfortable look of unsold fairing space?

 Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

 
In an interview over at Motomatters, Mika Kallio talks about his season in Moto2 so far. What I found interesting and memory-provoking was the following quote: 

"... you need to go step by step and try to repeat the same good feeling with the bike ..."

GP riders face an interesting and unique challenge in motorcycle road racing. Not only must they adapt to changing conditions and varying tracks, but the bike itself is constantly, if you will, under construction. Carlos Checa once complained, when he was a Yamaha factory 500cc GP rider, that he never got to ride the same motorcycle two weekends in a row. Updates arrive every week (unless you are the Ducati team, then you're hosed). The machine itself is constantly changing.

Riders live by the feel of the bike coming through their hands, their feet and their butts. What the machine is doing tells them how fast they can go, how close to the edge they are. Change the machine, and you change the feel; it's like changing the language in which the machine speaks to the rider.

This is why, to make a spec tire rule fair and functional, you have to introduce whatever compounds you are going to use at the first test of a season and stick with that tire through the last race of the season. It's deeply wrong to switch languages on manufacturers, teams and riders in the heat of the battle.



Focus:


Years ago, stuck on an airplane and desperate for a diversion, I resorted to the magazine in the seat pocket in front of me - you know, where they keep the barf bag. The magazine ran an interview with motivational speaker Tony Robbins. In the Q&A, the writer asked Robbins, if he could give most people one word of advice, what would that word be? "Focus," Robbins replied.

I thought about that this weekend, watching the Kawasakis and Aprilias whoop ass on the field in World Superbike. It occurs to me that neither factory is particularly distracted at the moment by any significant project other than World Superbike. This is the battle they choose to contest, and have focused their attentions here.

Honda is tearing it up in MotoGP and building its Moto3 GP bike into a winner. Suzuki is working on a prototype MotoGP bike; Ducati still struggles with its Desmosedici GPwhatever, the latest disaster. Perhaps those factories could run successful programs in MotoGP and WSBK concurrently in the past, but each of them is struggling badly in WSBK today. 

It appears now that success lies in picking a series and focusing on it. There's a lesson here.

Leasing in MotoGP:


Ducati appears to be leaning toward continuing their practice of leasing, rather than selling, MotoGP bikes for next season (that is, if anyone wants one). Critics have complained endlessly about this practice, saying the teams should be allowed to purchase machines and develop them on their own.

It's funny how that group of critics rarely contains the people who actually race MotoGP machinery.

The fact is that no non-factory entity has the resources to develop a prototype bike at a pace that parallels factory development. And the chances of a smaller team such as Drive Aspar or Tech III making some sort of technical breakthrough that Honda or Yamaha, which are spending tens of millions on R&D, have somehow missed are somewhere between non-existent and impossible.

Certainly there are innovators - see the bike with the non-traditional front end running around toward the back of the field in Moto2. But innovation for its own sake doesn't win races.

The other truth of racing at this level is that with each passing race, a machine is more and more outdated, and it has been that way for decades. It sounds terrible to "have to give the machine back" at the end of the season. But a team that purchased a bike is now stuck with an expensive machine that is falling toward the bottom of the time sheets, and no matter what the team does to that machine, it will continue to do so.

Some critics also complain that the teams could sell the old machines and recoup some of their investments. To whom? The entire market for a MotoGP machine is sitting in the paddock with them, watching the bike get crashed and go slower!

I'd bet that, compared to that, most race teams are kind of glad to see the old machine go back to the factory at the end of the year.

Common Sense and WSBK:


The newly-announced WSBK rules for 2015 - engine mods and "cost-capped" but otherwise open electronics - are exactly what the manufacturers wanted. They allow the manufacturers to play with the stuff that they're working on for the road bikes, and allow them to build racebikes that can compete with each other, even though they are starting from widely-varied streetbikes.

There's no nonsense about trying to create rules that allow the grid-fillers to run at the front. I suppose you could say that the "cost-cap" on electronic systems, and the regulation that all factory software must be made available to other teams three times a year, are attempts to "level the playing field."

But only the ignorant would think those regs would have any effect as far as evening-up the field. 

The hardware is relatively cheap; after all, it's just a little shockproof, waterproof computer and some sensors. The price for that stuff has plummeted in recent years.

And as far as the software goes - all the factories will do is create a massive software platform that can do absolutely everything, including and not limited to launching the space shuttle. Hey, the ones and zeros don't weigh a thing! 

As we saw in MotoGP earlier this year, the smaller teams will look at those capabilities and go WTF do we do with this? What does this actually do? This function goes from 1 to 100. Where do I set it?

Those of us who actually race know how hard it is just to get the proper setting in a fork in which you can only change springs, preload, compression and rebound damping. Imagine a private team trying to sort out a million possible settings in the factory software - and then trying to get the forks set up properly!

Those regs are there because they sound good and look good. But they won't limit the capabilities of the factory teams or the manufacturers at all.

Observations From Catalunya:

Photo, obviously, from http://www.motogp.com/en/photos/season#Marc-Marquez-Dani-Pedrosa-Repsol-Honda-Team-CAT-RACE-572466
- Valentino Rossi will win another race, but he will not do so by beating the other riders. He'll do so by being near the front when problems or crashes take out other riders.

- Clearly, it's contract time for Pedrosa.

- Anyone who keeps bleating about how much faster the Honda is than the Yamaha needs to watch a race with their eyes open. For the first half of that event, the Yamaha would gap the Hondas at every corner exit.

- It's also clear that factory involvement with full-boogie electronics and fuel restrictions needs to end and all the rules need to be changed because the racing sucks. That, for the uninitiated, is sarcasm.

- KTM may be in trouble in Moto3. The factory may be about to learn about why not to poke at a sleeping bear.

Roadracing Electronics And Setup:

The flatslide carbs on this bike demanded constant attention (but I loved this bike anyway). Photo by Caliphotography.
One of the downsides of my interest in vintage bikes is that they frequently have carburetors. My engine tuner hates carburetors. They take a long time to work on as opposed to simply plugging in a laptop and making a new map for the Power Commander.

I recently worked with a rider who was dialing in a new Panigale for track duty. This bike didn't even need the laptop. On the bike's dashboard he could dial in engine braking and traction control settings. What used to be a pain in the butt, involving removing, adjusting and re-installing the slipper clutch, was something that now could be accomplished by pushing a few buttons.

Some fans bitch endlessly about electronics. But they can actually make it cheaper and quicker to get a bike up to speed.

Why The MSMA Should Buy MotoGP, Conclusion:


Not only should the motorcycle industry purchase MotoGP, it's not just a wish - it's a distinct possibility. Companies like Bridgepoint don't hang onto their holdings forever. When something that offers a greater return on investment comes along, they dump existing holdings and buy the new stuff. There's a reason that neither Dorna nor Bridgepoint have the word "motor" anywhere in their names; motorsport, to them, is just another revenue generator, and if topless tiddlywinks offered a greater return on investment tomorrow, Carmelo would be managing a wet t-shirt contest by the weekend.

The simple fact is that the owners of GP racing aren't vested in the sport. The manufacturers are. The only way to truly protect the future of the sport is to make sure it is owned and governed by those to whom motorcycling actually matters. Honda and Yamaha have shown the ability in the past to step up and fill the grids when necessary. They and others can - and will - do it in the future, if for no other reason than to protect their own interests.

I've offered some ideas on what the future of the sport could look like. Here's another suggestion: the MSMA should buy the Endurance World Championship, lock, stock and barrel, immediately.

And here are some suggestions for a secondary big-bore GP category (let's call it Moto 1). Without the need to sell the class as pure TV entertainment, you could get creative with the rules. For example:

- No pneumatic valves. Mild steel valve springs only. Creates a de facto rev limit. Eliminates a huge cost for a technology that's never going to hit the streets. Desmo valve bikes get an intake restrictor.

- Dual-clutch technology? Yes. BMW is about to introduce a bike for the street that allows clutchless upshifts and downshifts. Anti-technology rules packages actually drive manufacturers and participants away.

- Steel brake rotors, or spec brakes.

- ECUs with a limited number of inputs. Do whatever you want with the software, it's just gotta run on a box like the one that comes stock with an R1 or CBR.

- Spec tire, but one not designed for GP competition. Any off-the-rack club racing slick from any of the big manufacturers. Purchased by the GP Commission and distributed by them. Same spec all season long, from the first post-season test to the last race of the following year.

- My favorite idea: A spec chassis. The GP commission contracts with Suter, Kalex, Harris, or someone to produce a spec twin-spar chassis. The only variations are engine mounting points that can fit various motors. Geometry, stiffness, swingarm, all the same. That way, anyone who wants to develop engine and engine management technology (electronic rider aids) can focus on - the engine and software. They don't have to develop a chassis. That should cut a chunk of the development costs out, and make the class accessible to anyone with a decent motor.

You can come up with ideas on your own. You get the idea. You're not trying to create a spectacle that you can sell on TV; you're trying to create a class structure that manufacturers want to participate in.

The decisions, in this world, follow the simple idea that those who are contributing to the sport should be rewarded and encouraged, and those who take from GP racing driven out.

 Why The MSMA Should Buy MotoGP, Part 6:

 Two key points - and you'll have to pull on your big boy pants and admit that, no matter how much you don't like them, they are true:

- The manufacturers already win everything, and almost always have in every form of international-level racing.

- If a manufacturer isn't winning, it bails on any given form of competition.

It is pointless to try to balance performance between factory and non-factory competitors at the GP level. So the goal of a healthy series should be to create a series of games that is attractive to multiple manufacturers.

You do this two ways:

- One, you let the manufacturers pick their own rules. If you give them ownership of the series, as a group, they will eventually come up with a set of rules that at least two or three of them will agree is acceptable to their corporate boards. That will be the premier class. That is, in effect, what happens anyway.

- Two, you create multiple games. For the factories that don't want to play the unlimited prototype game, have a secondary class. It can run with the prototype race, if you want bigger grids. Every single other series of racing has done this at some point or another, even Formula One. BSB did this with their EVO class. WSBK does it with an EVO class now.

The rules for the secondary class have to be more restrictive - the bikes have to be different than the full prototype machines. The failure of the CRT era of MotoGP was that there was no difference in the different classes of machine. They were all the same design, it's just that the CRT bikes all were crappier than full-bore factory bikes, with some a little less crappy than others, and a dumb set of rules attempted to “close the gap” between CRTs and factory machines.

The class might not even have to run at all of the races - perhaps just the European rounds. Obviously, it is scored separately. You also score privateer teams separately and let them have their own championship.

The idea here is to allow a smaller manufacturer to chase a GP championship - or at least wins - for cheaper. And the more championships you offer, the more winners there are. The key to making this work is for the big factories to agree that they won't play here, since they already are playing in the premier class. If they want to play here, they don't get to run in the premier class. If all of them agree to play in the secondary class, guess what? That will become, de facto, the premier class, and then you go back and make an even more restrictive secondary class.

More later ...
 WSBK: Honda Crashes Back To Earth, But It's A Good Thing:


You knew it had to end. Honda is getting its butt handed to it again in WSBK. After a decidedly mediocre showing at Donington, the PATA Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RRs are the last two non-Evo bikes in Superpole at Sepang, more than a second and a half off the pace. Jonathan Rea wanted to celebrate after doing the double at Imola, the last of his three wins in a row, and it was probably because he knew what was coming.

This is not a crisis. This is a healthy sign for World Superbike. Because the machines are based on the design of production bikes, they are widely different. Inline-fours, V-fours, big Twins. Because the engines vary, and because the bike designs vary, there will be variations based on the circuit which is hosting any given race. Aragon will go to the bikes that post big top-speed numbers, as will Monza. Imola will go to a good-handling bike that offers accessible power, not just raw grunt.

With MotoGP giving designers a clean sheet to start from, the engines will look remarkably similar, the frames will look remarkably similar, the suspension is similar, the brakes are similar. The biggest difference you see in MotoGP is a V-4 on Honda and Ducati vs. the inline-four of Yamaha (and the upcoming Suzuki). So you see the advantage at every track going not to the best design, or even the best rider, but to the team/factory that has massaged the basic design to the finest point.

There are still Honda tracks and Yamaha tracks at the MotoGP level. But the variety certainly isn't the same that you see in WSBK. 

This is why.

 Why the MSMA Should Buy MotoGP, Part 5:


The Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers’ Association is the trade group for the people who make GP motorcycles. Typically, it includes the four big Japanese manufacturers and Ducati. The big four Japanese companies sell about $2.5 billion worth of motorcycles every year.

Dorna, from its owner Bridgepoint Capital's annual report, is described as "an international sports management business that holds the exclusive global rights to organise the FIM Road Racing World Championship (“MotoGP”) until 2036 and the FIM World Superbike Championship (“SBK”) until 2026. The company generates its revenues from race circuit fees, TV broadcast contracts, sponsorship and advertising as well as corporate hospitality and services." Dorna's annual revenues are about $324 million.

(By the way, based on its other holdings, Bridgepoint doesn't give a rat's behind about motorcycle road racing beyond the revenue it generates. The next three companies that it holds, after Dorna, include 'Dr. Gerard, one of the largest producers of branded and private label biscuits in Poland,' and an "active lifestyle" clothing brand called 'Fat Face.' No, I'm not making that up.)

But Dorna needs much, much more than $324 million in revenues to service its debt load and attract investors. In April, the company announced plans to borrow another $314 million to pay dividends to the institutional investors who actually own the company. When this is done, the company will hold $975 million of debt.

It's easy to see why Dorna makes the decisions it does - it is a loan shark, squeezing GP racing for loan payments.

The racebike manufacturers could easily run GP racing on their own. Without the need to view GP racing as a profit generator, they could run the race series as a break-even proposition. They could use it as a promotional tool, much as MSV Group (the company that owns most of the racetracks where the British Superbike series races) views the British Superbike series (which MSV Group operates). All they would need to do is set up a commission within which each manufacturer has representation to create rule packages, and hire a production company to organize the races. The key difference in this Dorna-free existence is that the production company is paid for by the manufacturer commission. It is not an independent marketing company that, in essence, is working on commission.

And yes, it really would be that simple. Running a racing series is a pain in the butt, but it's not rocket science. Trying to make a huge profit on running a racing organization - big enough to keep pension funds and massive capital funds interested in investing - is another story entirely.

The sheep will bleat that manufacturers will simply run racing to benefit themselves. Well, yes. Yes they will. This is not a bad thing.

 Why the MSMA Should Buy MotoGP, Part 4:
Take away Dorna’s need to sell TV and leech profit from GP racing, and what do you get? Here are some possibilities:
 - Tires made for individual bikes. Without looking at the tire contract as a profit center, individual manufacturers – hell, individual teams – could work with the chosen tire manufacturer to make a tire that worked for their machine. Such an arrangement wouldn’t make the series owner any money. But why should they be making money on the tire deal in the first place? I've written elsewhere how to make a spec tire contract work and increase the competitiveness of the racing and the variety of machinery.
- New tracks. Tracks could be chosen for safety reasons, or for marketing reasons, not merely their ability and willingness to pay the highest possible sanctioning fee. 
 - A more stable rules package. Without the need to “make the show better,” the rules won’t constantly be changed. It’s silly to try to make a rules package that will allow Forward or Marc VDS to compete with factory Honda, Yamaha and Ducati machines. It never, never, never works. It's a fantasy. 
- Safer racing. No more "the show must go on" decisions by race officials. 
 - More TV! Without the need to sell the video images as a product in and of themselves, TV coverage of the races and the sport could become what it should be - a promotional product for the sport, the manufacturers and the sponsors. Use the MotoGP website to show the races, and allow teams and sponsors to upload race footage. How many "feet of film," to be archaic, from a MotoGP race never get shown? Nicky Hayden has a camera front and back on his bike the whole race - upload that for free! Stream it for free! Guarantee that every bike on the grid will be allowed to upload XXX minutes of race footage every weekend to the official MotoGP site. See if sponsors - especially industry sponsors - might be a little more receptive to pitches. 
 One final thought: Think about what would happen if the races were run commercial-free. Sponsors wouldn't be able to buy TV commercials. They'd have to put their names on the sides of bikes. That would generate revenue for the teams, instead of the broadcaster - which has bought the TV rights from, guess who ...

Racing vs. Rasslin:


Last weekend's MotoGP contest was a race. And it demonstrated that racing is a team sport - the team made the call on the gearing on Marc Marquez' bike that allowed him to draft the Yamaha on the start-finish straight. It was shades of 1969, when Ken Tyrrell advised Jackie Stewart to run a taller gear on his Matra MS80 at Monza. It would save a shift coming out of the Parabolica before the finish line. Stewart won the race by inches; the team's knowledge and experience gave him the edge he needed. Racing, as I have said, is a team sport.

Last weekend's Moto3 race was a lottery. It was pure chance that decided the finishing order. Riders would come out of the last corner in 10th, cross the line in the lead, and be sixth going into the first turn. For me, not nearly as much fun to watch as the MotoGP race. Racing is about speed, skill and strategy. This was about as exciting as watching bowling balls roll downhill; there was about the same amount of skill involved. I'm NOT saying the riders are unskilled; I'm saying that riding skill, machine design, and team prep had far less to do with the outcome than random chance did.

CART had a problem, years back; their cars were too fast for the high-banked ovals, especially the two-milers at Fontana and Michigan. So they created the Hanford Device, an aerodynamic attachment that slowed the cars. It also created a huge hole in the air, so a driver half a lap back could draft their way to the front. The cars passed each other multiple times a lap. And after a half-hour, it was a snooze. None of the passes actually meant anything.

I'll take the world's two best riders, on the world's two best roadracing machines, going at it hammers and tongs any day over a mindless multi-bike draft-fest.

Why the MSMA Should Buy MotoGP, Part 3:


So why is "boring" racing so bad for business? Actually, it's not, and historically hasn't been. It's only bad for a couple of the entities involved in the production of professional GP racing - the tracks and the entity that holds the TV broadcast rights. Let's skip the tracks for a moment, because "boring" racing really isn't a big problem at that level, and deal with the TV rights holder - Dorna.

Make no mistake, television and video broadcasting of racing is very, very big business. There is money to be made here. This is where the problem lies.

Television is a very good way of promoting almost everything. No manufacturer, race team, or sponsor is going to object to big television ratings. On the other hand, generating television viewing numbers isn't the goal of a manufacturer, rider or race team. Winning is the goal. Winning moves motorcycles and performance products. If you're losing, big TV audiences probably make things worse - does Erik Buell really want a lot of people looking at his team's WSBK performance right now?

Television becomes a corrosive, corrupting influence when it becomes a means of selling - more television. And that is the position Dorna is in. Dorna doesn't sell motorcycles or performance products or snacks or anything that you see on the side of the bikes. Dorna sells the rights to broadcast the races. Dorna, in other words, sells television.

Hence the insanity you see in GP racing now. As teams, riders and manufacturers seek to win races, Dorna keeps changing rules to try to make racing closer. The two sides are working in opposite directions. For the factories, teams and riders, winning is all that matters. Dorna doesn't care about winning - it cares about the show, because that is how it makes its money. 

This is the reason race officials are OK with riders running into each other and off the track, and why they forced MotoGP machines to race on tires that were not capable of lasting anywhere close to race distance.

The show must go on, if all you have to sell is the show.

This factor is at the root of most things that are wrong with GP racing today. The purchase of GP racing by Dorna has introduced into GP racing an entity with unlimited authority and only one goal - to suck as much money out of racing as possible.

Next: How eliminating Dorna from GP racing and putting it back into the hands of the motorcycling industry would change the sport.

Why the MSMA Should Buy MotoGP, Part 2:

Photo by Caliphotography

Andy Edwards walked up to me on Sunday morning of the last Moto West Grand Prix weekend and said, "I watched the first two laps of your race yesterday, and I thought, well, Michael's got this one won, and I left."

So I stunk up the show in the FX Endurance Lightweight race. I did 20 laps and didn't see another of my competitors after the first turn unless I was lapping them.

So what? I don't care if it was boring for spectators. I'm not out there to put on a show. I'm racing to perform to my absolute limit and to represent my sponsors, and if that's boring to watch, oh well.

Professional racing is not a show, not as far as those paying the bills are concerned. Marc Marquez pulling away from the field, race after race? Perfect, as far as Honda, HRC and Repsol are concerned. 

And why not? Honda spends tens of millions of dollars to participate in GP racing. Honda is there to demonstrate that their machines are superior to all others. Why in the hell would the company want any other machine to be close to them on the track?

A close race is fun to watch. But from a participant's point of view, that means someone else is close to your performance level. Winning moves motorcycles. Winning moves performance products. The bigger the margin, the more convincing the argument that this machine, these performance products, are the best.

"Boring" races are exactly what every participant is working toward, every day of the year. Crushing your opponent is what moves product, and why companies spend the money they do to go GP racing. 

I always found the complaint about "boring" racing, with a runaway victor, to be somewhat naive. I wonder, what do you think those riders and crews are paid to do? What do you think the people paying them want them to do?

Find me a rider's contract that encourages close racing, where the rider gets a bonus for winning but by NOT more than X number of seconds. 

You'll find a unicorn first.

The "Last Lap" Myth ...

Close racing does not have to be dangerous riding.

Here's why excusing contact and dangerous riding in the name of "letting them race for the win" on the last lap is such a bad idea:

- Death and injury doesn't care if it happens on the first lap of practice or the last lap of the weekend. Dangerous riding is dangerous riding.

- How far down the field do you allow riders to bash into each other? Is the rider in 16th, who's been told that if they don't get into the points the sponsor will pull out, held to a different standard than the rider going for second? And if you hold all riders to the same standard, you will almost guarantee that somewhere in a 30-rider field, someone will deliberately run into someone else or run them off the track.

- Lastly, something I learned when writing race organization rulebooks: If you allow it, and it is an advantage, you require it. Once riders figure out that the Race Director is turning a blind eye to dangerous riding on the last lap, then they will all do it - and expect to have it done to them. In effect, you not only allow it, you encourage it.

Of course, none of this matters to the commercially-driven Dorna and its cronies, who (literally, at times) make their money off the blood of others. Nor does it matter to the armchair heros who don't have the cojones to actually race themselves. 

But encouraging dangerous riding isn't necessary to make for exciting racing. Watch Loris Baz and Tom Sykes go at each other in the last few laps of the Superbike World Series race at Donington Park. Clean, respectful, and absolutely hold-your-breath thrilling. That is professional road racing at its best - and neither bike needed so much as a new paint job afterward.

Factories, Technology And Full Grids

 
To all the technophobes who believe that MotoGP bikes need to be simpler to save the series, I suggest checking out the latest announcement from the world of four-wheel endurance racing. With Nissan joining the LMP1 category, that now makes four major manufacturers with full factory efforts in a type of racing that sucks on TV and many fans would consider "boring."

There is something to be learned here ...


Honda Takes Over The World ...

Common wisdom at the beginning of the 2014 season was that Honda would be battling neck-and-neck with Yamaha in MotoGP (with Ducati a wild card depending on how many concessions they could wring from Dorna) and a second-tier team in World Superbike.

Common wisdom was wrong. 

Five straight wins in MotoGP, three straight in WSBK, two on the bounce in World Supersport, and only a desperate and dangerous move in Moto3 on the last lap of the last race kept Honda from atop the box there.

Going into this weekend's World Superbike event at Donington Park, the scorecard reads:

MotoGP wins: Honda 5, everyone else nothing.
World Superbike wins: Honda 3, Kawasaki 2, Aprilia 2, Suzuki 1.
World Supersport wins: Honda 2, MV 1, Kawasaki 1.

Honda riders lead the points table in MotoGP, World Superbike and World Supersport.

It's like they came to kick ass and chew bubble gum - and deliberately forgot the bubble gum.

Why the MSMA Should Buy MotoGP, Part 1:

Crazy winds made every lap of the FX Endurance Lightweight race at Willow this weekend a measure of my faith in the tires and traction. The lap times were a bit off, but I still felt I earned that win. Photo by Caliphotography.

MotoGP Race Director Mike Webb has decided that there will be no penalties issued in the wake of the Moto3 slugfest at Le Mans, saying that on the last lap, racers should be allowed to race for the win, and moves that would otherwise be punished would receive no penalty. That, apparently, applies to ramming another racer and running another racer off the track.

Yesterday, I spoke to a friend, Roger Heemsbergen, president of the Arroyo Seco Raceway and the Arroyo Seco Motorcycle Association. Roger had a big crash on the track a couple of weeks ago, and he called me from the hospital. Two broken femurs, four to six broken ribs, a broken shoulder, a concussion, and while he'll walk again, the doctors aren't sure how straight he'll be walking; one of his feet is pretty messed up.

Racing motorcycles is dangerous. But MotoGP has a marketing problem, namely Marc Marquez, whose amazing skills are making those who cannot appreciate the sport call it "boring." And Moto2 has a similar problem; one team has figured out how to make the favored bike work best, and there is little drama at the front on the track.

The solution, according to Webb and some of the racing websites, is to make racing more exciting by making it more dangerous. Some have actually stated that the way to grow the audience for GP racing is to market the danger of the sport.

I cannot accept that. Unlike so many of those on the 'net who feel that rubbin' is racin', I still put on leathers and a helmet and take a green flag. And I've written too many racer obits to find any merit in the idea that adding to the risk of racing is a good way to up the entertainment value.

I would propose another approach. It would involve a change in the ownership of MotoGP. In the coming days, I'll outline the details.

R.I.P., Simon Andrews

Racer Simon Andrews was killed in action at the 2014 North West 200.
"Hey, the Isle of Man TT is a spectacle. I don't want my friends racing there," I wrote here on 4/25 in an entry called "The Spectacle Myth."

This is why. Maybe I'm getting old and soft, but open road racing has absolutely zero appeal to me any more.

RIP, Simon. You did good. 

The Rossi Revival: Material Or Mirage?  


Given the dearth of different ways to say that Marc Marquez is the best motorcycle road racer on the planet at this point in history, much attention has been placed on the "resurgence" of one Valentino Rossi.

In five races this year, The Doctor has finished second three times. How times have changed, in that this is considered "successful" for the man who used to rule MotoGP - although, it must be said, not with the iron fist that Marquez is displaying.

However, it's hard to see that much has changed in Rossi's performance from last year. In 2013 at Le Mans, for example, Rossi qualified 0.822 seconds behind pole-sitter Marquez. This last weekend, he was actually further behind, time-wise, qualifying 0.831 seconds back.

So why was Rossi fifth instead of eighth on the grid? The big change was the absence of Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa. Lorenzo is in a slump; Pedrosa is overcoming surgery; neither liked the revised tire Bridgestone brought to France.

Rossi's podiums illustrate more about the lack of performance from Lorenzo and Pedrosa than they do about any improvement in the Rossi camp.

Hey, racing's relative, and a podium is a podium. But it's hard to talk about Rossi's return to form after watching Marquez get pushed off the track, fall back to tenth, and simply slice his way past nine of the best riders in the world - including Rossi - as if they were on Ninja 250s.

Let's put it this way: We'll know Rossi's back when he's not being chased by Alvaro Bautista anymore.

The Laws Of GP Racing, Part 1:




A few immutable principles govern GP racing. When someone offers an opinion that violates one of these principles, respond in the immortal words of William S. Burroughs:  

 

“I am not paid to listen to this drivel — you are a terminal fool!”


- Racing is a business. That which makes money is what will be done.

- Over any period of time, the teams with the biggest budgets will do the best job of figuring out how to make the fastest bike within any given rule set.

- If you put everyone on equal bikes, the teams with the biggest budgets will hire the best riders and most talented engineers - and they will continue to win everything.

- An entertaining race is exactly what race teams want to avoid.

- Experience buys you knowledge. On race weekend, that means you don't go down blind alleys. You get faster earlier.

- Professional racers do not race for the love of the sport. Ask one if he or she would race in MotoGP for free or in WSBK for a six-figure salary.

Spec Tires: Peering Into The Future ...
It is clear that Bridgestone will no longer be supplying MotoGP tires after 2015, and it appears that Michelin will seek the opportunity to be MotoGP's official tire supplier. But don't expect to see the MotoGP riders experience the sort of change that you'd experience if you went from 'stones to Michelin on your street ride or even National-level racebike.

MotoGP's demands are unique, and the tires that work there for the world's best riders on the world's fastest machines are equally unique. I suspect that you're not going to see a lot of change in tire compound or performance; they're still sticking them on MotoGP machines!

Some suspect that the new tire supplier will shake up the order of MotoGP. Not a chance. Although MotoGP representatives say they'll demand more choices, on any given day, one tire will be the best. And the factories will be the ones who have the resources to build entirely new machines around that tire. You could totally see the factory Honda or Yamaha squads showing up for races with multiple bikes, some optimized for one tire, some optimized for the other.

There's also talk of intermediate tires - but really, who cares? No one races on intermediates. If the track is wet, a wet tire will last race distance. If there's a chance of a drying track, the riders will start on slicks, tiptoe around for a few laps, then when the dry line appears, they will rocket past the riders on intermediates. Only the complete no-hopers will ever grid up on intermediates, and they'll be hoping for a miracle.

The spec tire had an interesting impact on last weekend's World Superbike races, though. On a relatively slow, twisty track, the bikes with greater straight-line speed ate their tires; the slower bikes had no issues with tire life and moved to the front. When the bikes are dramatically different, and you can't build new frames, the spec tire emphasizes the individual characteristics of each machine, and that creates variation from track to track. But WSBK isn't prototype racing; when it comes to GP machines, manufacturers can - and will - build new frames to match the tires. It's the thermonuclear war of motorcycle road racing, and no one wants to lose.

Still can't figure out Ducati. Will keep thinking about it.

Looking With Your Eyes Open ...

When I was a child, my father used to send me to get things and I would come back and say I couldn't find them. Dad, ever the pragmatist, would yell, "Boy, were you looking with your eyes open?" 

Funny guy.

Anyway, if you believe the bleatings you read on the 'net, you’re led to believe that a modern roadracing motorcycle is a two-wheel Cray supercomputer that must be ridden with the wheels in line, and that computers have eliminated all wheelspin, wheelies, etc. The rider, they bleat, is merely a passenger.

I frequently wonder if the authors of such rants have ever actually watched a modern motorcycle roadracing event with their eyes open.

View the World Superbike races at Imola from the past weekend, and watch the fast riders spinning the rear tire so hard that they leave black stripes on the pavement. Better than that, watch them as they come over the crest of the left-hander called Piratella, pouring on the power, front and rear drifting as the track falls away. Every nerve of a mortal’s body is yelling at the right hand to rotate forward and slow down. But if the tires are hooked up through there, you’re not going fast enough.

It’s a gorgeous sight, breathtaking to watch, a reminder of how skilled and brave these racers are. It’s also proof that no matter what kind of equipment is in use, it’s always quickest to ride a little bit above the limit of traction as much as you can, and no computer ever will change that.

Real Sportsmanship ...



British Superbike Series, Oulton Park event, 2014: Ryuichi Kiyonari's BMW S1000RR springs an oil leak in the second Superbike race, but Kiyo doesn't notice anything amiss and keeps going at full chat. 

Jon Kirkham manages to get by Kiyonari after a few laps and gestures frantically for Kiyonari to get his bike off the track. Without a second's hesitation, Kiyo throws his hand into the air and eases his machine off the asphalt, his day done.

Kiyo did not know that anything was wrong with his machine. He took the word of a fellow competitor that something was wrong and pulled out of the race, one where he had, based on his pace in the first race, more than a reasonable chance to get to the podium.



Think about that once more: A National-level competitor in a professional motorsport pulled out of the race solely upon the word of a fellow competitor.

Racing can have serious consequences. While the Internet tough guys celebrate those riders who seem to have zero regard for their safety or that of others, there is honor among the majority of racers who actually risk life and limb for the rewards that road racing motorcycles offer. On the track, we desperately want to beat the other rider, while at the same time we're looking out for the other rider's life and health.



What other sport allows its athletes mid-competition to stop the event? Yet that is common practice in motorcycle road racing - when the rain gets too bad, or there is oil on the track, the racers themselves will throw their hands up and bring proceedings to a halt.

What was on display at Oulton was something that many pay lip service to, but rarely practice - real sportsmanship.
 
WSBK's Paul Denning: Trying To Control Costs With A Rulebook A ********** Waste Of Time ...



With all the bleating about controlling costs by limiting modifications and technology in international-level roadracing bikes, it's nice to see one of the people who actually has to run a race team in WSBK explain why it's all a load of manure. In this interview at Motomatters.com:

  
Voltcom Crescent Suzuki's Paul Denning says clearly that technical restrictions won't save his team a dime and could make the racing worse. Sample quote:


I've sat in meetings, and the representatives of all the big manufacturers there, and there's been discussion about should it be €8,000 for the electronics or €15,000... What the ****? We're all paying our riders huge amounts of money, paying the staff cumulatively the same amount as a small to medium company would be, who gives a ****? It's just not making sense.

Great interview. Highly recommended.



Now We Know Who Has To Clean The Bike ...


A few months back, Ryan Matter won the Moto West Grand Prix Formula One race at Willow Springs International Raceway. Standing atop the podium, the youngster looked completely overwhelmed; veteran Jeff Stern kept suggesting that Matter reminded him of Ricky Bobby, the stock car driver from Talladega Nights, who didn't know what to do with his hands during his first television interview.

Matter still seemed a bit befuddled when they handed him the bottle of champagne and the spraying started. Some smart-mouth instigator (OK, it was me) yelled at him to spray the umbrella girls. This turned out to be a non-starter, as the high-heeled ones turned out to be Ninjas when it came to wielding their umbrellas as shields. Not a drop came near them.

Matter then turned toward the crowd, gathered around the top three finishing machines, and pointed the bottle as if to spray. At that moment, the voice of J.J., Ryan's dad, cut through the din, loudly and clearly. Father Matter yelled:

"NOT THE BIKE!"

"NOT THE BIKE!"

Awesome.



Aussie Dave: Persistence and Perseverence

Guys like Aussie Dave might be dismissed as grid-fillers, but without them, there's no race for the front-runners. And when one of those grid-fillers starts moving up the field ...
"Aussie Dave" Anthony (25) leads Aaron Ascher (312) in WERA West action at Auto Club Speedway.
It's hard not to root for a guy like "Aussie Dave" Anthony. When the pro factory rides are all taken up, and the satellite rides go away, it's easy for riders this talented to walk away from the sport and find something else to do.

Anthony didn't. He put together his own team, scraped and scrounged up sponsors, and has made it work even through a rough economy. He's been on the AMA Pro Road Racing circuit for nearly a decade, racing whatever class he can make work, and is a fixture at regional race events as well. He's put together a good solid Suzuki GSX-R1000 and used it to show what he can do. That drew some support, and that means a good, solid race program as well.

So to see Aussie Dave running in the top five against some of the best Superbike racers in the world in the Superbike Shootout series - awesome. Sometimes it's not the level of talent, but the level of effort and dedication, that makes an athlete someone to applaud.

MotoGP And Marc: Train Hard, Fight Easy


Putting in laps, each as fast as you can go, even under less-than-ideal conditions, is a recipe for racing success.

It's not just that he's won four MotoGP races on the trot, but it's the things he does on the bike. Read the post-race interview with Marc Marquez after his win at Jerez and he talks about struggling with the bike and being forced to come up with a solution to the problem he was having. What he was doing left everyone - including his fellow racers - just shaking their heads.

His opponents had their solutions to their problems: They slowed down. 

Marquez found a way to ride around his issues without slowing.

This might be one of the things that makes him so good.

Look back at 2012, when Marquez won the Moto2 title. 

Take away Marquez, and the Kalex chassis rules the roost, with eight poles and four wins against two wins for the Speed Up chassis and one each for Suter and FTR.

Add in Marc and the relatively uncompetitive Suter adds nine wins to its total.

Already a prodigious talent, Marquez spent the season riding around the bike's shortcomings, figuring out ways to get it to the front when it shouldn't have been there. It's damned hard training. But it has made fighting the best in the MotoGP paddock look easy.


WSBK: Competitive Field, Exclusive Rules

Even a very well-built and well-prepared semi-pro Superbike can't compete against the bikes built by the factories competing in World Superbike. But should it?


In a fascinating interview on Crash.net, World Superbike Technical Director Scott Smart says the series has succeeded by creating a rule set that means that almost any manufacturer can build a race-winning bike - as long as it is willing to put in the resources and the effort. Smart says:

"The technical rules here have made a brilliant balance for equality but by doing it to the highest level so it excluded the guys from the midfield to the back. We need to make it an inclusive class, not an exclusive class."

Sigh. Smart was doing so well in the first sentence ...

Where the WSBK rulebook has succeeded is in allowing a large measure of freedom for all manufacturers - big V-twins, inline-fours, V-fours - to modify their bikes to their ultimate performance level. Published reports indicate that Pirelli also works with individual manufacturers to develop different tires for different types of machines. With each manufacturer allowed to build the best bike they can and refine it to its ultimate potential, you get competitive racing at the front of the pack. This is good.

On the other hand, no manufacturer will invest in a series where they run the risk of being beaten by the very, very stock Pedercini Kawasaki ZX-10s. And that's not a terrible state of affairs. A race takes place specifically to "exclude the guys from the midfield to the back." That's called - drumroll please - racing!

A series with a handful of manufacturers, each of which fields a competitive machine, is extremely healthy. A series where the organizers are trying to rig the rules so the losers can run with the winners - show me one that's healthy.


Erik: Take A Step Back ...



If you watched the first race of the 2014 World Superbike season from Australia, toward the end of the race, the director switches to an on-board forward-facing camera mounted on one of the leaders' motorcycles. As the bike crests the hill on the Gardner Straight at Phillip Island, you can see the leader whip past a bike that appears to be limping along with a mechanical problem. It was disheartening to realize that there was nothing wrong with the slower machine. It was an EBR 1190RX, fully healthy, at full speed. It was just that a healthy EBR is 20 miles an hour or so slower than a front-running World Superbike.

This is not the kind of publicity Erik Buell's company needs. Nor is the double-explosion that ended the first race at Assen this weekend and caused both bikes to be withdrawn. The lap times the works EBRs were turning at Aragon would have put them on Row Six of the Supersport class - the 600cc middleweights.

It's time to take a step back. Getting hammered on the world stage can't be doing Erik any good. EBR needs to succeed on the national stage. Before taking on Assen or Aragon, it would be smart to win at Road America or Road Atlanta. Right now, all EBR is doing is making Ducati look like geniuses simply because they can get a 1200cc twin to live for a full race distance.

 Superbike Shootout: Why It Works ...



When three-time AMA Pro Road Racing Superbike Champion Josh Hayes took to the podium after finishing third in the first Superbike Shootout race, he looked out over a sea of fans - a couple hundred, at least - and simply said, "It is so cool to see so many fans here ..."
The podium ceremony was packed. The paddock areas were packed. The grids were full. The first round of the GEICO Motorcycle Superbike Shootout Presented by Yamaha series was a raging success.
Why?
- First and foremost, the hard work of the Ulrich clan, the first family of American motorcycle road racing. They pulled this off.
- The understanding that tracks aren't as interested in paying for race series anymore. Series used to be able to command high sanctioning fees to come to the tracks, and the promoter would sell tickets. But tracks are finding it more lucrative to simply rent the facilities to track days, club races, movie producers, etc.
This means that the race series will find it more and more difficult to get someone to pay for the infrastructure needed to run a race event - timing and scoring, registration, etc. It's a lot of work. Fortunately, computerization has made some of these tasks simpler, and many of them already are being done at the club racing level. So dropping the Pro races into a club race event that's already taking place is a lot more affordable.
- The biggest thing, though, validates something I've said for years, yet no one seems to listen: Fans come to the track to watch racing. Give them lots and lots of it, and they will come!
There were not just the pros, but 13 other races that day at Fontana. Every one of those racers had friends show up. That packed the grids and the garages. And fans watched every race. Club racer types like me mingled with Hayes and Superbike winner Martin Cardenas, and we all watched all the other races. There was a sense of community, driven by the fact that we all were in close proximity. I felt like I was part of the event, and I got my fill of racing, of hanging with the big boys, and of watching my favorite sport on the planet.
A high-profile headline act, and lots and lots of undercard action. That formula works. It worked when I started going to AMA Nationals, back in the early 1990s. There was racing going on from Saturday at noon until late Sunday. Compare that to the World Superbike round at Laguna in 2013, when there were only five races all weekend long. Compare that to AMA Nationals, where they have sliced away so many support classes that you don't feel like you've gotten value for your money as a spectator.
Give us race fans a reason to come to the track, and we will come.
We just proved it.


The "Spectacle" Myth



Down the street from my house there is a "gentleman's club." I can go in there for a small cover charge. For $20, I can get a tall redhead (let's call her 'Gidget') who is, on a scale of attractiveness from 1 to 10, about a 42, to take off all her clothes and dance in a manner after which I need to go to confession and the free clinic. If I'm feeling flush, for another $20, I can get Gidget's twin sister to join us. If I get thirsty, I can get another woman who is at least as attractive to fetch me the alcoholic beverage of my choice. If I get bored, I can ask Gidget to move her hair and watch a mind-boggling array of sports on a dozen or more high-definition television sets.

Now let's say, during this baccanalian exercise, I turn to the guy at the next table and say, "Hey! Thanks to spec electronics being introduced in MotoGP competition, the motorcycles slide the rear tire and wheelie somewhat more! Want to blow this joint and head to Laguna Seca and spend hundreds of dollars to sit in the dirt all day long while watching motorcycles go past once every 90 seconds or so?"

I think the gentleman's response would be two words. The latter would be "you." If he was feeling conversational, he might add, "and the horse you rode in on."

The point is, on the scale of spectacle available to the modern television viewer, motorcycle road racing never will compete with most of the choices available. To make road racing into something that would meet the definition of "spectacle" would turn the sport into something that would be unrecognizable or a bloodbath. Hey, the Isle of Man TT is a spectacle. I don't want my friends racing there.

Arguing that increasing the spectacle of motorcycle road racing will bring in new viewers is simply an argument of faith that ignores the rest of the world. Any argument that a business model for international-level road racing can be founded purely on the money earned by selling the spectacle as a vehicle for gathering audiences is equally oblivious to reality.

Media academian Sut Jhally makes the following point (I will paraphrase): "If you're Pepsi, you're not just competing against Coke for attention. You're competing against every other commercial out there."

And when I can (hypothetically) spend the afternoon in the air-conditioned palace down the street, nestled in Gidget's tender embrace, it's clear that there are reasons other than spectacle that I (really) prefer to spend my time at the racetrack.

What Makes Sense At The National Level Doesn't Work In MotoGP, Part 2:

 
For racing production 600cc bikes, a spec tire works just fine most of the time. In prototype racing, it's a different story.

When you move up to the international level, the costs go up astronomically. If you look at the amount of money Ben Spies spent per year on airline tickets alone for himself and his close associates (detailed in the public records connected with his legal dispute with his manager), you'd realize that the personal airline travel costs alone for an international competitor dwarfs the budget for a National-level team racing anything but Superbike.

To pay for this, you need bigger sponsors. You need sponsors who market and distribute products worldwide. You need sponsors who want to reach audiences worldwide. These tend to be very large companies. They also are companies that are looking specifically for motorcycle riders and racing fans. Most people do more than watch racing. They watch other things on TV. If it's a general-consumption product, like, say, beer, there's usually a cheaper way to reach racing fans than by sponsoring a race team.

So you've got two types of companies for whom sponsoring international race teams make sense. You've got big companies looking for a worldwide motorcyclist audience, and you've got motorcycle manufacturers. Lose the latter, and the former lose interest, because suddenly they're being asked to pick up the tab for the departed manufacturers. No international series has survived without some level of manufacturer support.

As detailed before, that means the race series will have to give the manufacturers what they want in exchange for their participation. The manufacturers will agree to certain things that align with their interests - fuel limits in MotoGP, for example. They will not agree to regulations that bind their hands.

So it's clear that spec regulations make the most sense at the bottom, the support classes for National series. Spec tires work well here; everyone's basically racing the same bike, and the performance level doesn't require specially-built tires. A general-purpose racing tire will work fine for any bike in the field. Besides, even if you wanted to, you can't change the frame to make the bike work better with a spec tire.

As you go up the scale, the costs rise to the point where a smaller sponsor or backer can't afford to help support the series, and you need bigger companies and motorcycle manufacturers to make it happen. To get them on board, they will demand the ability to develop their products to show them off - or they don't show up. Besides, in a prototype series, you can make the frame any way you want, and change the frame whenever you want. That means a spec tire actually drives the costs up, as teams change and alter entire motorcycles to get better performance from the tire!

Next, the strip joint down the street demonstrates why "increasing the spectacle" of motorcycle road racing won't create bigger audiences ...


What Makes Sense At The National Level Doesn't Work In MotoGP, Part 1:

Why can't we just race Ninja 300s and 250s and call it MotoGP?
One of the first road races I ever saw on television was a 600cc race at Daytona. Miguel Duhamel and Steve Crevier, I think, were part of a pack of bikes, riders swapping spots every time down the back straight and through the tri-oval, crazy drafting maneuvers from start to finish.

It was amazing, but lots of 600cc races are like that. On any given day at a National event, the middleweights put on a show that frequently is the best of the day. You can go to almost any club race and watch the 600s slug it out; it's a show that rarely disappoints.

So why is it so hard to replicate that contest in International competition, especially in the top classes? You will read a lot of suggestions on the Interwebs about how all we need to do is replace MotoGP regulations with 600cc Superstock regulations, and the racing will be better. Or we need to go to stock frames, or stock electronics, or stock swingarms, spec tires, etc.

Each of these has merits at the National or club level. But those same ideas would be counterproductive in International competition. Why? Two reasons, mostly - factory involvement and the size of the audience that is being courted.

Take a look at the potential revenues a National-level Supersport team can generate. Understand that the team's function is to attract an audience, thus providing exposure for the team's sponsors. (Winning is a very good way to do this.) Therefore, the potential revenue that such a team can raise is limited to the amount that it is worth for a sponsor to reach the audience of that National-level series. You can only get from a sponsor the value of that exposure.

So it makes sense to try to limit the costs of competing in this class. You do that by requiring stock frames, stock electronics, stock wheels, stock engines, spec tires, etc. With those requirements, most factories tend to stay away. This is the key part: With the cost of the bike relatively low, no international travel, no contact patch-up development, relatively small organizations can sponsor such teams for relatively little money and have a shot at getting podium-level exposure.

And it's not only OK, but it's kind of cool to do it on the cheap. You can have your rider sleep in the trailer! You can sell take-off tires! Paint jobs done in the shop? Absolutely. You're representing a small business whose owner has busted knuckles from pulling cylinder heads. Ragged around the edges, hard-working grunt, that's a good image for that business.

If you are a race engine builder, you can sponsor a 600cc team and market your services. It only takes a few new clients to cover a chunk of the costs of racing. That's why you see, in the lower-ranked classes, dealerships and tuning shops - regional businesses - sponsoring teams. The cost is worth it to reach the audience - the people racing and the race fans who have their own sportbikes.

With each step up the ladder, the costs of participating escalate, because the stakes are higher. At the National Superbike level, you've got some level of factory involvement in most front-running teams, direct or indirect. It's worth it to Kawasaki, for example, to slip factory-developed swingarms to the front-running BSB teams. They're not just trying to sell a handful of engine rebuilds; they're trying to move hundreds of motorcycles. Winning is a good way to do that. Losing can hurt you in the showroom. So they're willing to invest more.

The Superbike races tend to get more publicity, because the factories are involved, sponsoring events, putting on impressive displays in the paddocks, buying commercials on the TV broadcasts, and therefore they draw bigger audiences. These are public relations and marketing activities that are beyond the abilities of those small engine building shops.

Reaching such a larger audience is of some interest to a company like Rapid Solicitors, a law firm that specializes in motorcycle accidents in the U.K. So they're willing to pay more to sponsor a team, but they're investing that money in a team that can turn that money into a competitive advantage. Tire companies are interested in reaching such an audience; now they're willing to pay good money for the privilege of having the spec tire contract - especially if the series organizer then forces the teams to purchase the tires themselves!

Driven by the attention generated by factory involvement, the higher-profile series become more attractive to other sponsors. But to get the factories to play, you've got to at least listen to their needs - and they want to develop a proper racebike, to get every advantage they can (remember that winning is a good way to get attention). They're not interested in racing street-stock machines, and they're not all that interested in supporting a private team that might or might not do a good job of representing their brand. There's simply too much on the line.

Street-stock racing involves a lot of risk to a factory if it isn't allowed to use its money and expertise to get to the front of the pack. And big companies are risk-averse. So the factories don't come to play. And a series where the front-runners are sleeping in tents in the back of pickup trucks simply isn't going to attract corporate sponsorship.

More to come ...

Spec Tires Aren't Going Away. Here's How To Make Them Better ...

The front tire from a MotoGP bike after the Austin round in a photo at motorcyclenews.com. I'm no tire engineer, but that can't be right.


The tire debacle at the Austin round of MotoGP is just the latest chapter in a string of, let's be polite, utter and disastrous failures on behalf of Bridgestone to create tires that will last for the full length of a MotoGP race. For Australia last year, Bridgestone couldn't even create a tire that would last a third of the length of the MotoGP race. (The fact that race organizers sent riders out for 10-lap sprints on tires that would fall apart after 11 laps still causes my stomach to churn; in a perfect world, Dorna and its henchmen would have faced criminal charges for the complete disregard for rider safety displayed down under.)

The uninformed on the Internet will bleat that the cause of the problem is the spec tire rule adopted by MotoGP after realizing that – drumroll please – some tires were actually better than others.

This is a major problem if your most popular rider happens to be on tires that are not as good as another brand of tires. Dorna is not interested in races that demonstrate a rider's superior skill, a manufacturer's superior engineering or a tire company's ability to produce a better tire. Dorna is interested in one thing – maximizing profits.

Dorna sells a show (see "Carmelo Is A Pimp," below). That means it cannot afford to have its most popular entertainers mired mid-pack on substandard rubber. The spec tire rule is supposed to eliminate that possibility. It also sure doesn't hurt that tire companies are willing to pay perfectly good money for the right to be the only supplier of rubber to Grand Prix racing motorcycles. Rule Number One in MotoGP management: make as much money as you possibly can. Rule Number Two in MotoGP management: see Rule Number One.

So complaining that the sporting spectacle is diminished by the lack of competing tire manufacturers completely misses the point. And there is also no guarantee that allowing multiple manufacturers of tires back into MotoGP will increase the competitiveness of the races. Back in the day, Dunlop made tires for MotoGP. You could frequently find the Dunlop-shod riders on the TV screen toward the end of the race as the leaders came whistling past to lap them.

Spec tires are here to stay. They simply make business sense. In the best of circumstances, they also can add to the safety of the racing. Longevity of a tire exists in an inversely proportional relationship to its ultimate performance. To make a tire that's faster than another company's tire, manufacturers sacrifice longevity. Forcing everyone to use the same tire means that a tire company can dial back ultimate performance and - theoretically - make a tire that will last to the finish. (There is no rational explanation for the recent failures of Bridgestone's tires on MotoGP machines. Clearly something went horribly wrong, and it does not reflect well upon Bridgestone.)

Riders complaining about tires also are here to stay. Complaining about tires is a time-honored tradition of the motorcycle road racer as one of the best explanations as to why they did not finish first. I mean, it couldn't be that they just weren't as fast as the winner, could it?

So how do you make the spec tire rule work in MotoGP?

Simple.

Number one: Force Bridgestone to test any new compound and construction with a front-line MotoGP rider and team on a track that the series actually visits and races on. Bridgestone – or any other company that wants the exclusive spec tire contract for MotoGP – must commit to a more thorough testing program prior to introducing any new tire compound or construction.

Number two (and here's the part they're really not going to like): Force Bridgestone – or whatever company that gets the spec tire contract – to agree to make a variety of tires, including tires that mirror the performance characteristics associated with other brands of tires.

If every tire that Bridgestone brings to a MotoGP race performs like a Bridgestone, then everybody building a chassis and every suspension component manufacturer must mold their decisions around a Bridgestone tire's characteristics. This dramatically limits the range of engineering solutions that can be tried successfully, and forces all of the manufacturers of engines and suspension components and brakes toward a common solution.

Right now, most GP bikes are far more similar than they are different. Technologically speaking, there is a lack of diversity. There are no new interesting ideas on the grid. This lack of innovation is driven by a spec tire – there's only one real solution to unlocking the performance of a particular tire.

Bridgestone must commit to building a variety of types of tires. Not just different compounds, but different constructions. Bridgestone must also commit to bringing that wide variety of tires to the track every race, even if no one wants to use that tire, and must commit to doing so for the entire season. It must commit to that range of tires no later than the middle of the prior season, and must commit to not changing that range of tires throughout the following season. Too often races and championships have turned on the introduction of a new spec tire mid-season that favored one team and disadvantaged another.

These requirements will take some of the profit out of being the spec tire supplier for MotoGP. Dorna might have to cut the amount of money it gets from selling off the rights to be the exclusive spec tire supplier for MotoGP.

Oh well.

What Dorna will get in return is greater competition, more interesting Grand Prix racing machines, and a wider variety of riders battling for the lead. Different riders can select different tires that best suit their styles, rather than trying to adapt to a single tire solution. Different manufacturers can approach problems from different ways. Ducati and Bridgestone, both underdogs in the MotoGP wars of the mid-2000s, joined forces, with Bridgestone creating a tire aimed at making the trellis-framed Ducati work. It succeeded amazingly well, with the (relatively) tiny Italian firm able to beat the Japanese giants.

Realistically speaking, it is the only solution that makes business sense to MotoGP's organizers and owners, racing motorcycle manufacturers and tire companies. It's not the perfect solution, but wide-open tire competition has failed in the past to produce competitive races and has put riders lives at risk. Building a MotoGP tire does not have to entail putting the superheroes of this sport at a greater level of risk than they already face every time they suit up and grid up.
 
A Ducati Renaissance? Attendere Un Istante, Da Vinci ...




So this past weekend, Ducati put a bike on a MotoGP podium for the first time since 2012 and came within a couple of corners (and a ramming maneuver that would have made Captain Nemo envious) of putting a bike on a World Superbike podium for the first time since last July.
 
Is this the beginning of the end of the Dark Ages for Bologna? There is evidence of improvement in WSBK, not so much in MotoGP.

First the bright spot. It's easy to dismiss the improved results in the WSBK contest at Aragon by pointing out that two of the bikes that beat the Panigale like a gong last year are gone with BMW's withdrawal from Superbike competition. But the fact is that the Panigale had cut the gap in outright top speed to the four-cylinder bikes by a third, on a track that has one of the longest straights on the calendar. 

The irrepressible Davide Giugliano was third for much of Race One, and was only 7.9 seconds behind the leader as the last lap started. That's significantly better than the year before, when the gap to the leader was 24 seconds after 20 laps and 19 seconds to the Aprilia RSV4, the highest-finishing machine last year that's on this year's grid as well (Chaz Davies won both races at Aragon last year on the BMW). The gap to the front was much larger in Race Two, more than 18 seconds. It remains to be seen if Race One or Race Two is more representative of the bike's performance this year. But at least there are signs of improvement.

Gigi Dall'Igna, the architect of Aprilia's success, has taken over at Ducati MotoGP. But the improvement there, so far, is an illusion, podium spot or not. Desperate to put on a better show, MotoGP's owners have given Ducati more fuel per race, more engines per season, qualifying tires and they get to start five seconds before the lights go out for everyone else (OK, the last part is made up, but if MotoGP decided to try that, it wouldn't surprise me). 

Even with all of those advantages, Andrea Dovisioso was still 20.9 seconds back at the flag at the Austin race. 

And you can't just measure that, because a rider with a comfortable lead will back off on the last lap. You need to look at the maximum gap. And at one point during this year's race at Austin, Repsol Honda's Marc Marquez, the winner, was 22.6 seconds ahead of Dovisioso - a bigger gap than Marquez had over Dovi last year at the same race.

The Ducatista might want to hold off on the champagne for a bit longer ...

The Myth of Cost-Cutting In MotoGP, Part 2:


 Arguments about cost-cutting in motorsports tend to revolve around discussions of the machines. Problem is, the cost of the bike or car is only a fraction of the costs of participating in a series like MotoGP.

There's travel, and even if the series organizer picks up the freight costs, the airline ticket costs for the team can run into hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars per year.

You've still got the cost of building and developing a bike, and if it's $3 million per unit instead of $5 million, that's still $3 million.

And you've got one last hurdle - the items with costs that cannot be regulated. You could try a rider salary cap, but what's to prevent a factory from shuffling money through the sponsors to a rider? What about crew chiefs? At one point, Jerry Burgess, crew chief extraordinaire, had his rider on the podium 50 percent of the time. Do you limit the amount that he can be paid?

Honda spends about $80 million per year on its MotoGP program, by published estimates. If you made every bike absolutely identical and $50,000 each, and Honda still wanted to win the MotoGP title, they could still spend $80 million per year. They'd just hire up all the good crew chiefs and the good riders. They'd spend piles on computer simulation and have a factory test rider running around the track 24 hours a day. If you're BMW, with $20 million to spend, you've still got little chance of winning, because all the things that make the difference between first and first loser are in the hands of the teams with bigger budgets.

That's why cost-cutting rules from a series organizer are destined to fail, and will never attract new entrants on their own. The only cost-cutting measures that have ever worked in motorsport are the ones that the participants at the very top agree to. If you don't believe me, try to come up with an example of a motorsport series that has forced its competitors to significantly reduce the amount of money they spend, and has prospered as a result.

Last thought: Look back through the golden eras of motorsport, the title battles and races that stick in your head a decade later. All it's ever taken to create those amazing contests are two manufacturers, each with an amazing pilot on board. Did the Qatar MotoGP race in 2014 stink because there were only two bikes at the front? Or were you, like me and the houseful of friends who were over, screaming at the TV set for the last few laps?

MotoGP does not need to be "saved" by cutting costs. Sit back and watch Honda and Yamaha slug it out. It's no different than watching Schwantz and Rainey battle like madmen in the early 1990s, or the Porsche vs. Ferrari battles at Le Mans in the 1970s, or ... pick your favorite duel.

All you need are two to tango.

The Myth of Cost-Cutting In MotoGP, Part 1:




Formula One car racing is dropping the idea of a cost cap.

The idea was to get all of the top teams to agree to an upper limit on their annual spending, thus making it more affordable for other teams and manufacturers to build competitive cars.

Turns out that when it was put to a vote, none - NONE - of the six top teams wanted a cost cap!

Here's a little truth that you can tuck into the dark recesses of your mind and use as a tool while perusing the Interweb thing:

Factories don't care how much it costs to go MotoGP racing.

What the directors of the big companies that build GP bikes care about is return on investment. If going GP racing helps them sell bikes, they will go GP racing, regardless of the cost. If it doesn't, they won't, regardless of how cheap GP racing is.

This post will focus on the two mainstays of GP racing, Honda and Yamaha.

Honda and Yamaha have raced GPs for decades now, through economic good times and bad. Every year, they decide that their investment in GP racing helps them sell bikes. Some of it is through marketing; some of it is through the R&D that racing requires; some of it is for internal motivation; some of it is because forcing engineers to build winning GP bikes makes them better engineers at whatever else they do.

To them, the cost of racing GPs is irrelevant.

If you try to lower the cost of racing via the rulebook - banning certain technologies, materials, etc. - you're not going to make GP racing more interesting to those two companies. They're already comfortable spending the money necessary to race at that level.

And if you ban too much in the way of technology, materials, etc., you get what engineers call an "unintended consequence" - in this case, Yamaha, Honda (and let's throw Suzuki in here) will actually be less interested in building GP bikes.

If you use the rulebook to make the bikes so simple and cheap that anyone can build a race-winning bike, then GP racing becomes less valuable to the big companies that build GP bikes.

Think of it this way:

There is no reason whatsoever that Yamaha, KTM, Suzuki, Honda, et. al. could not be racing in the World Superbike EVO class. Relatively cheap bikes, right? So why aren't they racing there? There are easily a half-dozen manufacturers who make bikes eligible for World Supersport. Race-winning bikes are probably around $100,000. And yet, very little factory involvement in racing in World Supersport.

Why not?

Wrong question.

The correct question to ask is, why would they?

And the answer that the factories have come up with is, there's no reason to.

Trying to cut costs in MotoGP with the rulebook is an exercise in futility that can have the unintended consequences of forcing longtime participants to leave. Next post will talk about why "cutting costs" won't attract new entrants.

Spec Electronics And The Death Of MotoGP

Even a stock, street-legal BMW S1000RR comes with ABS, unlike a modern MotoGP machine. If MotoGP's owners have their way, you'll soon see more powerful, more sophisticated machines at your local club event than you'll see at the GP level.

When Dorna, the promoters of MotoGP racing, announced the establishment years ago of the CRT category for MotoGP, a cold shiver went down my spine. The danger here seemed obvious to me: Dorna could simply keep changing the rules for the competing classes (prototype vs. CRT) until the team, factory or rider in favor at the moment, for whatever commercial or economic reason, was winning. This led, for the past couple of seasons, to the ludicrous trackside spectacle of a garage full of Aprilia mechanics and engineers working on a bike that was built and developed in the Aprilia factory racing under the label of "Claiming Rule Team" and therefore not subject to the regulations applied to the factory prototypes of Honda, Yamaha and Ducati.
While my fears were not realized at the time, mostly due to Aprilia's inability to commit fully to the series (they were kind of busy whooping butt in World Superbike), they have been now. Dorna has found its dance partner, Ducati, which has agreed to use Dorna-spec electronics instead of its own. 

Dorna officials say they hope to use their alliance with the Italian company to force other manufacturers to eliminate or severely curtail rider aids on MotoGP machines. And they have found a cheering section among the naive who fill the Internet with their unsupported opinions about the (mostly imagined) "good old days" and believe these "Open"-class machines will make MotoGP racing more popular, more entertaining, more attractive to more manufacturers or make racing "better" in some unspecified way.
I believe, based on an examination of the facts of International-level Grand Prix motorcycle racing, that it will have the exact opposite effect.


More likely, it will mean the end of motorcycle Grand Prix racing.
In February, Ducati announced that it would race in what is known as the "Open" category. To give the struggling factory a hand (Ducati's race record over the past few seasons in international competition has been embarrassing), Dorna has allowed Ducati additional fuel, softer tires, unlimited testing and unlimited engine configuration development (critical to solving the handling problems that vexed even Valentino Rossi).
Among the factories racing in MotoGP, only Ducati has these advantages. The only "disadvantage" Ducati has to race under is that it has somewhat more restricted electronics - and that disadvantage is disappearing by the day, as Magneti Marelli, working with and in the employ of Dorna, is developing increasingly-sophisticated electronics that will be under the control of Dorna. Sure, Honda and Yamaha could race under the "Open" rules. But there are good reasons (listed below) that they will never do so.
Even letting Ducati race under "Open" rules wouldn't be so bad if there was actually such a thing as "spec" software. But there isn't. Turns out that Dorna is pouring money into the development of a Magneti Marelli system that is coming closer and closer to emulating the electronics of the Ducati factory bike - at an even higher cost than just letting factories that are perfectly capable of building their own electronics systems less expensively do so. So the "Open" software is based on Ducati's factory-developed software, with upgrades throughout 2014 based on Ducati's requests. Honda and Yamaha, which wanted to race in the "Factory" class with their own software, declined to participate in developing the "Open" software, for obvious reasons - their software powers race-winning bikes. No winning manufacturer willingly gives away its hard-earned race-winning technology to its competitor!
What led to this tangled web of insanity?

Dorna's idea apparently is to create spec software that's so good that Honda and Yamaha will drop their objections to using it. Then, once everyone is using the same program, Dorna plans to start making everyone use fewer and fewer electronic rider aids. 

So what is the threat to GP racing's future? At the GP level, no factory will see any upside to racing under those rules - and plenty of potential downsides.
Like it or not, electronic rider aids are here to stay for any series in which factories compete. Racing bikes without electronics are a non-starter to the boards of directors of the companies that are working overtime to develop such systems for their streetbikes. Wishing for electronics-free MotoGP bikes is like pining for the return of carbureted front-engined roadsters to the Indy 500.
Beyond that, stripping down, eliminating or otherwise handicapping the ECU and software will have a knock-on impact that few seem to have considered, or when it is brought to their attention, simply ignore it.
Here's what will happen if you go to literbikes without electronics. Think it through:
The switch from 800cc GP bikes to 1000cc bikes did nothing in terms of reducing lap times. Nothing. The additional power was on top of an engine that already made more power than any tire on a motorcycle could handle. Ben Spies told me at Laguna straight-out that anything above 220 horses simply didn't matter - and that was with a full factory Ducati-spec ECU and electronics package. Even the slowest MotoGP bikes are well over 220 horses now. World Superbikes are over that mark. Hell, you can get any number of engine builders in the U.S. to put together a streetbike for you that will be that powerful - and the thing will run and be manageable on your morning commute.
This is a critical point that seems to be simply glossed over in the fawning over the "Open" spec MotoGP machines:


Engine development has outstripped the ability of a rider on a bike without electronic rider aids to use anywhere near all of the available horsepower.


Start turning down the ECU and/or using dumber software, and no factory will be chasing more horsepower or making better engines. You will impose a de facto horsepower limit as surely as any dyno-limited class regulation ever has. MotoGP machines already have 50 horses more than they can use without electronic rider aids.


The impact? Engine development at the factory level will come to a halt. There's nothing to be gained by further research in the engine category. There's no reason to pursue better breathing, less friction, more efficient combustion chambers, whatever. All that will do is give you more of what you already have too much of - horsepower. 

I have in my cell phone the numbers of three guys who can build you a motor that would match a factory GP engine's performance in the no-electronics scenario.


Why would Honda or Yamaha bother with such a series if they aren't allowed to build a GP motor that performs better than the one I can have built from a streetbike engine for less than the price of a Hyundai four-door sedan?
Almost everyone on the MotoGP grid already uses the same Ohlins suspension, the same Brembo brakes, the same tires. Now throw into this equation a "spec" ECU that's identical to the one in every other machine on the grid (or worse, one that's been optimized for a competitor's bike!) and a motor that is identical in performance to every other bike on the grid.
Why would any manufacturer build such a bike and go racing on it?
How do you respond, as the head of Suzuki's racing department, when the board of directors says, "Why should we spend tens of millions of dollars to go racing with a bike that we've assembled from someone else's parts that's identical in power and electronics to everyone else's bike? How would this give us a chance to demonstrate that a Suzuki is better than another machine?"
There is no response.
There is no benefit to the manufacturer, no reason to go GP racing at all. Honda, Yamaha and Suzuki would all hit the door. Maybe they'd go Superbike racing if they were allowed to actually build there own machines there. Hell, right now, each of those manufacturers - and Kawasaki, Aprilia and Ducati - makes a production-based Superbike that is more sophisticated than a current "Open" MotoGP bike. If you're stuck racing bikes that are less sophisticated than entry-level two-wheelers, you may as well go Superbike racing instead. You could save a few bucks and race something that at least looks like your streetbike.
Factories go racing not to entertain, not to put on a TV show to enrich a sports promotion company, but to prove that their motorcycle is better than any other motorcycle. This is especially true for GP racing. Take away a factory's ability to try to produce a motorcycle that is better than anything else, and there are very few reasons to compete at the GP level and lots of reasons not to.


Marketing? Please. Yamaha spends, by published estimates, $50 million or so on its MotoGP program every year. If Yamaha spent its MotoGP budget on advertising, I'm pretty sure it could buy more than a few TV spots. Marketing is only one reason factories go racing - and you can only market a bike that can beat its competition. In five decades of watching motorsports, I've yet to see an ad on Monday morning by a manufacturer proclaiming that its bike, car, rider or driver lost on Sunday.
Re-read (or read for the first time) the March 20, 1954 letter written by Soichiro Honda to his employees announcing his company's plans to race on the international level. Every time I read it, the dedication, vision, and commitment to an ideal - to make the best machine possible - is enough to bring a tear to my eye. Can you even fathom this man agreeing to the idea of someone else's software and hardware controlling one of his engines?
There is no reason for a factory to go GP racing under any circumstance other than to demonstrate that it can build the best motorcycle in the world. Dorna's "Open" class will take that reason for racing away from the factories. It is a clear and immediate threat to GP racing.
In striking contrast is the juxtaposition of the announcement of the latest racing vehicle from Porsche. The company's 919, unveiled during the past few days, is its latest bid for Le Mans glory, and features a turbocharged engine, not one but two energy recovery systems, is built from lightweight advanced materials and delivers power to the ground via all four wheels.


It is an immensely sophisticated vehicle, one that represents the cutting edge of the state of the art of sports racing car design. In addition, it looks totally bad-ass, and Porsche is proud to present it to the world as its demonstration of what the company can do.


That's why factories go racing.
I suspect Soichiro would examine the Porsche - and approve.


p.s. MotoGP has, just days before the start of the season, now proposed a new Factory 2 specification, designed to take away some of the advantages Ducati enjoys under the Open spec. In the coming days, this blog will examine more carefully why the Open class, electronics restrictions and the emphasis on making motorcycle road racing more of a "show" threaten the existence of the sport.

Part 2: The Open Class And The Myth Of Racebikes Without Electronic Rider Aids

 
A track day rider tucked in and hauling at Auto Club Speedway.


In 1996, I went to Daytona to watch the Daytona 200. Needless to say, since this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, it poured. I went home having watched only a few of the support races and practice. What I remember most from the time at the track was watching Miguel Duhamel flinging his Honda RC45 out of the West Horseshoe, full lock, blue smoke pouring off his spinning rear tire. It was awesome. It was also the end of a practice session as he was headed into the pits. When Duhamel had his head down and was trying to put in a fast lap, there was none of that tire-spinning nonsense.

The Internet is filled with the bleatings of those who think that by eliminating electronic rider aids, Grand Prix racing somehow will miraculously become better because the rider has more control over the bike. This belief runs counter to the entire history of motorsport. Banning electronic rider aids threatens to unleash a expensive GP arms race that would make the current bikes look like Blue Light Specials at Kmart.

Two ideas in this post:

- Traction control isn't just a device; it's a philosophy that engineers pursue by any means at hand.

- Engine development has evolved to the point where seeking traction is more important than making more horsepower.

First point: The main function of a racing vehicle is to keep the tires happy. That means, generally, keeping the driven wheels hooked up and driving. Excessive wheelspin from the driving wheel means the bike is going sideways, not forward. So the idea of an electronic TC system is to allow the rider to keep the rear wheel hooked up and driving to the greatest extent possible. That is all a TC system, electronic, mechanical or organic (the rider) does; cuts torque to the back wheel to try to keep it hooked up.

If you take away an electronic TC system, engineers will look for other ways to emulate the effect. Leaving that task in the rider's hands is simply too risky. There are lots of ways to do this. Starting back in the days of the 500cc two-stroke GP bikes, engineers went to "Big-Bang" firing orders to make it easier for riders to get - guess what? - traction. Better tires, better chassis, better forks, better shocks - all of these developments exist to create better traction. Ban the electronic pursuit of traction, and engineers will seek it in other ways. Formula One cars banned TC years ago, and the cars now are a tangled hodgepodge of various differential and other settings changed on the fly by the driver. The systems are complicated and stupid expensive, but when the simple, cost-effective manner of doing something is outlawed, you pursue the goal in another matter. Just because someone bans electronic TC doesn't mean racebike engineers are just going to give up on getting that rear tire to hook up.

Second point: Getting that rear tire to hook up doesn't involve more horsepower. It doesn't involve more torque. It involves building an engine that delivers power that a rider can use - and that will mean gutless engines or engines with torque-reducing trickery.

There have been spectacular demonstrations of that idea, things like the old Methanol Monsters that used to make the ground quake in F-USA racing in the 1990s. Those things were powerful, with speed and torque to burn - and they regularly got beaten by much smaller bikes with far less horsepower.

Nowadays, you want to build a bike with showroom-stock 600-like power and torque in the midrange, and then you have to build a smooth torque curve all the way up to redline. Any excess torque in there, and you're just spinning the tire, going sideways while other racers are going past you, and this will happen even in a straight line.

Some of you might remember one Valentino Rossi coming back from his broken leg and testing out a Yamaha YZF-R1 factory Superbike. Rossi's input - take some torque out of the midrange - led to a faster machine. There's only so much a rider, any rider, can do with too much horsepower. Go to your local club event, and you'll see riders on 600s giving literbike riders fits, even at "horsepower" tracks. If it's a tight track, the 600s might be quicker than the literbikes.

At the 2014 preseason test at Phillip Island, the Moto2 bikes with 125 horsepower were only three seconds a lap slower than two-time World Champion Jorge Lorenzo aboard a full-blooded Yamaha factory MotoGP bike with more than twice the horsepower. The Moto2 bikes had no traction control, the Yamaha had God's own TC system. It would have been fun to see the difference in lap times if the MotoGP riders had their electronic rider aids turned off.

Take away electronic traction control and other rider aids, and one of two things happens. The engineers get to work and try to claw back the traction they've been denied. You can do that to an extent with ignition and fuel mapping - it's why BSB machines spend so much time on the dyno. The tuners are computing where in the rpm range and in what gear a rider will be exiting a given corner, and will tune the maps to give the rider only the power he needs in that gear at that particular corner exit. It's not rocket science. But it is time-consuming and expensive. You can easily think of mechanical ways to accomplish everything that an electronic TC machine does now - especially if you're a factory and have unlimited funds to go after it.

Or, from a factory point of view, all you're doing is taking the big-horsepower engine you've spent all that time and money developing and then turning around and de-tuning it. Eliminate electronic rider aids, and you essentially require all engines to make the same amount of horsepower. Any more power or torque literally goes up in (rear tire) smoke. Tuning becomes an exercise in removing power, not adding it.

So ... why does a factory, or anyone else, bother building the super-powerful engine in the first place?

Answer: It doesn't.

Part 3: Carmelo Is A Pimp - The 2014 MotoGP New World Order


Caption: All of us track day riders and club racers dream of riding a factory bike one day.


So this season in MotoGP, when all the dust has settled, there will be three classes, two official and one sort of semi-official. Factory bikes get five engines per season and 20 liters of fuel per race. Open bikes get 12 engines and 24 liters and a softer rear tire. Everyone uses Magneti Marelli hardware, but only the Factory bikes can run the factory's own software.

Ducati, because it has sucked so badly, is racing in the Factory class under Open rules. If Ducati starts to win, they lose some of the advantages of the Open class - first some of the additional fuel, then the softer tire.

Forward is racing last year's Yamaha YZF-M1 in the Open class with the "spec" software that Yamaha engineers have been tweaking on since the middle of last summer.

Why does Ducati get rewarded for building such a piece of garbage bike over the past several seasons? It's because Carmelo Ezpeleta, CEO of Dorna Sports, needs to put on a show. All of Dorna's money comes from the sale of television rights and sanctioning fees (the money you pay Dorna to bring the show to your track). Dorna is a publicly-traded company. That means Dorna is up to its eyeballs in debt, and must generate as much money as possible from the sale of said television rights.

So Carmelo does what pimps have done since time began. He takes the efforts of others and sells them to line his (and his investors) pockets. If that means jiggling the rules so that the Ducati or the Forward suddenly is competitive, so be it.

Welcome to the new NASCAR version of MotoGP. Expect to see "competition yellow" flags any time now.

More of the technical stuff later. It's interesting what you find out when you ask people about how a bike with 200 bhp responds - and they've got the data to show you. Is there a horsepower the limit for a bike without electronic rider aids? What I'm getting is that - it depends. But one international expert in the field of electronics says that, at some tracks, a bike with a mere 200 horsepower is at full throttle - virtually never.

Part 4: Will They Build It If You Try To Make Them?


A knucklehead like me on a decade-old Suzuki SV650 does not need traction control. A bike with an additional 200 horsepower might.


So a little research into power and traction reveals the following:

- At about 200 horsepower, a good rider can still put the power to the ground on a motor that has been carefully “torque-mapped.” And they can use that power all the way down the straight.

- Beyond about 200 horses, some sort of torque reduction plan is essential, or the bike just spins the rear tire.

- A modern MotoGP bike will make about 260 horses or more.

What is clear is that you can’t have MotoGP engines without some form of electronic programming. You’ll note that in BSB, the best engines are still in the 220 range, and the top teams' engineers carefully computer-map the circuits they will race on and develop gear-specific ignition curves to make sure that the rider only gets a portion of the power available when they open the throttle in a given gear at a given speed. The throttle is there pretty much just for fine-tuning what the engineers have wrought.

Now, put yourself in the place of Honda, Yamaha or Suzuki, and imagine all computer rider aids (including advanced torque mapping) have been eliminated. You can build a 260-horse engine by throwing all of your available technology at it and allow the rider to control it by pushing the boundaries of motorcycle engineering.  Why do you spend tens of millions of dollars to race 200-horse engines that you can build in your sleep?

Thankfully, it appears that Dorna and the MSMA (Motorcycle Sports Manufacturers’ Association) have reached an agreement that will allow the manufacturers to continue developing their electronic strategies – which allows them to also pursue faster, more powerful, more fuel-efficient engines. They’ll call it “spec” software to appease the simpletons. But it’ll likely be as advanced as anything that’s out there today. The only difference is that the base code will be written and shared by the manufacturers, instead of each writing their own code, and it will be “regulated” by Dorna.

Some still believe that Dorna will, out of philosophy and a belief that eliminating rider aids will somehow make a better show, insist on eliminating things like traction control, launch aids, etc. You tell me, what is more likely:

A) The MSMA representatives approach the table at a meeting with Dorna. The MSMA says, “Here’s the base code we’ve all agreed to use.” The Dorna rep says, “OK. I’ve got the Magneti Marelli guys here. Let’s all go through this line-by-line to analyze all possible interactions with every facet of motorcycle and engine control. This could take a while. I hope you brought cots and food.”

Or:

B) The MSMA representatives approach the table at a meeting with Dorna. The MSMA says, “Here’s the base code we’ve all agreed to use.” The Dorna rep whips out a big rubber stamp that says “Approved” and says, “Done! Who’s up for whiskey and hand jobs?” The MSMA folks say, “Jesus! It’s only 10:30 a.m.!” The Dorna guy goes, “OK, we’ll skip the whiskey.”

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