I did a blog posting earlier this week comparing the WSBK and MotoGP times from Qatar. Well, as I forecast, the times got quicker still on the third day of the MotoGP test. (The Camel Honda squad with Barros and Bayliss are sticking around for a fourth day of testing but everyone else called it quits after yesterday afternoon…or evening in the case of Tamada).

So the faster laps times, combined with this awesome photo of Tamada, motivated me to do a quick followup posting…

First, on his third and final day of testing at Qatar, Tamada knocked another second off this best lap time to finish with a fast lap of 1:56.6. I was pretty impressed on Tuesday when I wrote that the MotoGP guys were nearly three seconds faster than the WSBK bikes during their first two days of testing. The fact that the top MotoGP riders could knock another full second off their lap times shows just how much testing they are really doing as opposed to just running fast laps. I suspect they’ll knock another second off their lap times when they return to Qatar for their actual race in October. By then, they may well pick up even more time since Honda usually releases upgraded components to all the teams around the middle of the season.

Second, I think that I underestimated Tamada when I wrote my MotoGP rider review back in November. At the time, it seemed like Honda wasn’t really going to support Tamada and I wasn’t completely sure he’d even make the grid. I fully expected, if he was racing, that he would be aboard a “bitza bike” made from whatever hand-me-downs he could get out the back door of the factory. Instead, it looks like Honda has stepped up with a full customer bike (second tier behind the two Repsol bikes and maybe Gibernau’s bike, depending on what you read into the press releases about the Repsol-Movistar agreement) and it looks like Michelin is giving him their top tier tires. As a result, Tamada has been consistently fast at all of the pre-season tests. He left two of the Sepang tests as fastest guy and has backed that up by blitzing the Qatar test as well.

Clearly this guy is motivated. Whether that is enough to beat Rossi is another question but based on his attitude before the Motegi race last year, he certainly has the confidence to think he can. Something that Biaggi and Gibernau, both still pretty mentally battered after the past few season, may not have. I think its thrilling to see Tamada going so well. The Japanese have long hoped for a champ in the premier class of the GPs and their previous contenders like Okada, Itoh, Abe, Ukawa, Katoh and Haga have never quite achieved that lofty height. Perhaps Tamada has the skill, determination and mental strength to be a contender…

[image from the MCN web site.]

In addition to kicking off the road race season a few weeks early, having the World Superbike teams racing in Qatar this past weekend accomplished something else…it gave us race fans an early glimpse as to the difference between the current production based Superbikes and the current MotoGP dedicated race bikes. The March WSBK race weekend ended on Sunday and then on Tuesday some of the MotoGP teams showed up for some pre-season testing.

A true apples to apples comparison will never be possible and, because of freakish weather last weekend, is even less meaningful. However, its rare for both series to visit the same track so we’ll have to work with what we have. The times that have been released so far do back up the fact that there is a big difference between a production based series on spec tires and a “clean sheet” series with trick, unobtanium tires. During qualifying for last weekends WSBK race, held on a semi-wet track, the fastest time in Superpole was laid down by Ducati mounted Regis Laconi with a 2:01.5. The fastest time laid down by any of the riders during pre-Superpole qualifying was a 2:01.2 by Troy Corser in the first qualifying session. These times were presumably set using a qualifying tire or, if those are not in use, by the softest available race tire. The fastest race time, set by Yamaha mounted Sebastien Gimbert, was a 2:01.8.

Now fast forward 48 hours and the MotoGP teams hit the now dry Losail Circuit for some laps. At the end of the first day, Nicky Hayden and his Honda RC211V have turned a best lap of 1:58.3. After another 24 hours, Ducati’s Loris Capirossi has chopped off nearly another second with a 1:57.6. It isn’t known for sure (or at least not by arm-chair journalists like me) whether these guys were running qualifying tires or not but I’d say its highly likely. Even more likely in the case of Capirossi’s time since a) Bridgestone is known to have excellent qualifiers, b) Capirossi’s fast times from Sepang were using the Qs and c) everyone has to test for qualifying runs and race distance. All this after just two days at the track so times from tomorrow will likely be even lower.

So, a little quick math here (ummm…two point oh…errrrr…carry the one…convert to seconds…ah ha!) shows that the MotoGP bikes are lapping over three and a half seconds faster than the WSBK bikes. That’s pretty significant. Even more significant is that the slowest of the full factory bikes at the MotoGP test is 9th fastest Troy Bayliss with a 1:58.6, only a second slower than Capirossi. Rewind back to that first (and dry) WSBK qualifying session. Ninth was Nori Haga who turned a 2:02.6 aboard his Yamaha R1, almost a one and a half seconds slower than Corser’s 2:01.2. Clearly the further down the field you go, the bigger the gap.

So what does this mental masturbation and meaningless numerology really mean? Well, for one, it shows that the extra 40hp available on the purpose built MotoGP bikes has some real measurable benefit. Second, it shows that having major tire manufacturers fighting for lap times makes a better tire than having a single spec tire. Third, it shows that having a pre-season test on a dry track is better than having a race weekend with mixed conditions. Finally, it shows that the depth off the field in MotoGP, at least through the top ten, is closer than in WSBK.

Other than reaffirming what we already knew, there hasn’t been any real shock. Still, I think its freakin’ cool that you can watch some fantastic riders on unbelievably powerful bikes race around a world class track and then just a couple of days later see every factory MotoGP rider *smash* the previous weekend’s race times like they were made by novice racers. It makes me giggle like a school kid. Damn those MotoGP bikes are *cool*.

[image from the Nicky Hayden web site.]

My buddy Jeff today was complaining that no one had put out a combined road race calendar for 2005 (with race dates for AMA, WSBK and MotoGP). Since I keep all those dates anyway, as well as the dates for the MRA, our local road race series, that seemed like a good topic for today’s blog entry. Without further ado, the current road race calendar for 2005:

February:

26 - WSBK @ Losail Int’l Raceway; Doha, Qatar

March:

12 - AMA @ Daytona Int’l Speedway; Daytona, FL, USA

April:

3 - WSBK @ Phillip Island; Phillip Island, Australia
10 - MotoGP @ Circuito Permanente de Jerez; Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
17 - MotoGP @ Estoril Circuit; Estoril, Portugal
22 - AMA @ Barber Motorsports Park; Birmingham, AL, USA
24 - WSBK @ Comunitat Valenciana; Cheste, Spain

May:

1 - MotoGP @ Shanghai Circuit; Shanghai, China
1 - AMA @ California Speedway; Fontana, CA, USA
1 - MRA @ Pueblo Motorsports Park; Pueblo, CO, USA
8 - WSBK @ Autodromo Nazionale Monza Circuit; Monza, Italy
15 - MotoGP @ Le Mans Circuit des 24 Heures; Le Mans, France
15 - AMA @ Infineon Raceway; Sonoma, CA, USA
15 - MRA @ Pikes Peak Int’l Raceway; Fountain, CO, USA
22 - AMA @ Pikes Peak Int’l Raceway; Fountain, CO, USA
29 - WSBK @ Silverstone Circuit; Silverstone, Northants, Great Britain

June:

5 - MotoGP @ Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello; Mugello, Italy
5 - AMA @ Road America; Elkhart Lake, WI, USA
5 - MRA @ Second Creek Raceway; Denver, CO, USA
12 - MotoGP @ Circuit de Catalunya; Barcelona, Spain
19 - MRA @ Continental Divide Raceway; Mead, CO, USA
25 - MotoGP @ TT Circuit Assen; Assen, Netherlands
26 - WSBK @ Autodromo di Santamonica; Misano, San Marino

July:

10 - MotoGP @ Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca; Monterey, CA, USA
10 - AMA @ Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca; Monterey, CA, USA
17 - WSBK @ Automotodrom Brno; Brno, Czech Republic
17 - MRA @ La Junta Motorsports Park; La Junta, CO, USA
24 - MotoGP @ Donington Park; Donington, Derby, Great Britain
24 - AMA @ Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course; Lexington, OH, USA
31 - MotoGP @ Sachsenring; Sachsenring, Germany

August:

7 - WSBK @ Brands Hatch; Fawkham, Kent, Great Britain
14 - MRA @ Pueblo Motorsports Park; Pueblo, CO, USA
28 - MotoGP @ Automotodrom Brno; Brno, Czech Republic
28 - AMA @ Virginia Int’l Raceway; Alton, VA, USA

September:

4 - WSBK @ TT Circuit Assen; Assen, Netherlands
4 - AMA @ Road Atlanta; Braselton, GA, USA
4 - MRA @ Pikes Peak Int’l Raceway; Fountain, CO, USA
5 - MRA @ Pikes Peak Int’l Raceway; Fountain, CO, USA
11 - WSBK @ Lausitzring; Lausitz, Germany
18 - MotoGP @ Twin Ring Motegi; Motegi, Japan
25 - MotoGP @ Sepang Int’l Circuit; Sepang, Malaysia
25 - MRA @ Pueblo Motorsports Park; Pueblo, CO, USA

October:

1 - MotoGP @ Losail Int’l Raceway; Doha, Qatar
2 - WSBK @ Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferreri Imola; Imola, Italy
2 - MRA @ Second Creek Raceway; Denver, CO, USA
9 - WSBK @ Never Magny Cours Circuit; Magny Cours, France
16 - MotoGP @ Phillip Island; Phillip Island, Australia
23 - MotoGP @ Istanbul Circuit; Istanbul, Turkey

November:

6 - MotoGP @ Comunitat Valenciana; Cheste, Spain

Nothing beats watching a race in person. I’ll definitely be at the AMA Pikes Peak race in May and the combined MotoGP/AMA weekend at Laguna Seca in July. I’ll also make about half of the MRA races. I’ll also watch all the MotoGP, WSBK and AMA races that are televised and will probably give my views on each here on the blog. Our support can you all the support it can get, whether that is by buying tickets to see races live or tuning to watch the race on TV, so make sure to mark these dates on your calendar and watch some racing this year!

[image from the Motorcycle-USA web site.]

“All for one and one for all…”
– The motto of the Three Muskateers

I did a blog entry last year about how Honda has trouble retaining riders. Well, I think that losing Valentino Rossi isn’t the only challenge Honda will be facing this coming MotoGP season. It appears that Yamaha has upped the odds by bringing on board Colin Edwards as Rossi’s teammate stealing the best development rider on Big Red’s payroll. Honda still has a talented line-up and are also getting involved with testing earlier than they did in 2004, so they’re ahead of the game compared to last year, but I still believe they are still going to have a struggle on their hand because of two of the RC211V riders.

A racer wants to beat all their competition but no one moreso than his teammate. In this particular case, it is the teammates of Max Biaggi and Nicky Hayden that I think may cause Honda some difficulty. First, their riding styles are completely different. Nicky rides with the traditional US ex-dirt tracker style which favors squaring off a corner and then sliding the rear of the bike on the way out. Biaggi, because of his four titles in 250GP, prefers to carry high corner speed and use a wider arc through a turn. With Honda’s commitment to build their bike around the Repsol riders, this may point the engineers in two different directions. Perhaps input from Movistar Telefonica rider Sete Gibernau (the not-quite-official official rider) will help break any development gridlock.

However, the bigger problem is that even this early in the season it is apparent that Max and Nicky aren’t likely to be best buddies. Barros was apparently very generous with tuning information while teamed with Hayden at Repsol and even Rossi was rumored to have helped out his rookie team-mate while he still riding for Honda. Despite Nicky and Max being seen together at the opening AMA Supercross race of the 2005 season in Anaheim California, comments made by Hayden during a Two Wheel Tuesday interview on SpeedTV and in a printed interview on Superbike Planet show there is no love lost between the two riders.

It is bad enough that Honda may have trouble building a bike around two distinctly different riders but this chaos will be compounded if the riders can’t get along. Honda needs to have their riders communicating and working together. The MotoGP series will be visiting two new tracks in 2005, Laguna Seca in the US and Shanghai Circuit in China. Biaggi and Hayden will both be riding constantly changing bikes with revised suspension configuration,enhanced electronics and probably lots of other modifications as new parts are developed. Two riders working together, as Rossi and Edwards at Yamaha already appear to be doing, can adjust their bikes more efficiently in pre-season testing and come up to speed faster when visiting new circuits than two riders who are in competition with each other. In contrast to Edwards and Rossi’s work at Sepang, the biggest news from the Repsol camp was when their two lead riders crashed into each other on pit lane. Not good.

If these two guys are looking to be the best among equals rather than seeing the bigger picture of Honda’s goals, then perhaps the biggest challenge for Erv Kanemoto won’t be sorted out the RC211V but will be sorting out the relationship between his two riders.

[image from Honda Racing of UK web site.]

One of the hot topics this time of year is testing. It is when the new bikes are rolled out after a winter of modifications and put under the harsh scrutiny of the stop watch. Like the melting of snow in the spring, the bike covers melt away to reveal new secret compound tires, fancy unobtanium brake systems, magic suspension modifications, monster engine upgrades and sleeker more aerodynamic bodywork. The crowds ohhh and ahhh. Some factories beat their chests in triumph while others sulk back to the workshop for some frantic last minute changes. Timing sheets show lap records that have been shattered, everyone predicts the most competitive season yet and the track owners start trying to figure out how to deal with bikes that go 10 mph faster than last year without dumping millions into track re-configuration projects. Ah, the joys of spring.

One thing that usually only gets mentioned in passing are that the riders aren’t usually put under that same level of scrutiny, despite their mental and physical conditioning being more essential to success than anything on the bike. The off season is usually a time when riders recover from the previous season: some guys relax, others go into obsessive training while others visit their favorite surgeons to fix the problems that accumulated over the previous season. There are always the guys that are left scrambling for rides during the off-season and teams trying to sort out what bikes, classes and mechanics they will have available for the next year. Anyone that comes to the first test session in anything other than 100% fitness, without 100% focus and without a team that is 100% prepared is already behind the eight ball.

In MotoGP this year, there have only been a few riders in that position because of health problems. The biggest name in this position is Max Biaggi. At the end of last season, he broke his leg in a Supermoto training accident. Being unable to walk wasn’t a big enough hindrance to prevent him from getting promoted to the much coveted lead Honda rider position but did threaten to sideline him for the first official test after the mandatory winter test ban. However, the miracle of modern medicine raised its head, along with a helping of space age technology, and he showed up at Sepang with only a heavy limp and a fancy carbon fiber boot. As it turns out, he was able to cut respectible times ending the test fifth fastest and less than two seconds of session leader Capirossi’s best. Out of potential disaster comes success.

The only other MotoGP rider still on the injured list is Capirossi’s teammate on the Ducati, Carlos Checa. Checa suffered a freak accident during a joint Ducati-Ferrari press event where he cut his left hand on the ice screws on a go-kart. Checa made the Sepang test, despite the injured hand, but then caught the flu and was unable to ride the majority of the test. Despite missing most of the first test, he showed up a day early for this week’s second official test at Sepang and punched in on the clock to start getting seat time. Tomorrows time sheets will show how well he has bounced back from his injury.

Both Kenny Roberts, Jr. and Nicky Hayden suffered from late season injuries last year but both claimed to be back at 100% by the first Sepang test. Otherwise, the MotoGP paddock has been uncharacteristically injury free during the off season and starts the new season generally healthy. But given the reputation for crashing with riders like Xaus and Melandri, there are still a a few more big hurtles to cross before a full grid of injury-free riders can really be announced for the first race at Jerez in April.

Closer to home, things are looking a bit more gruesome.

First of all, two of the star riders in the AMA paddock spent time late last year having hardware removed from their bodies. Jamie Hacking and Miguel Duhamel both took the off season to visit the famed Dr. Ting to have plates removed from previously broken bones. Honda’s star rider Duhamel, after a few sessions of this, has reversed his previous transformation into a cyborg and is back to being more bone than metal plates. Miguel trains with Lance Armstrong’s fitness coach so he should have all the tools necessary to recover quickly. For Jamie, it was the final step in repairing the damage that may well have cost him and Yamaha a championship last season. Both spent some time resting on the couch but otherwise shouldn’t be affected. Both showed up at Daytona fit and appeared to be race ready.

The same can nearly be said of Ducati rider Eric Bostrom now that he’s had the winter to continue the healing process with his shoulder which he injured in his crash at Road Atlanta. He claims to be close to 100% and has already been putting in strenuous training time aboard his bicycle and the rock climbing wall. Again, only the stop watch will show if he’s really ready to race but nothing raises a red flag at this point. Eric really needs thing to go well this season and can’t afford to start with with a bum shoulder.

Another question mark is whether Erion Honda’s Kurtis Robert is ready. He missed the first tire test at Daytona but did start riding today at Fontana. He spent half his 2004 MotoGP season with an injured wrist but says that he has completely healed. Since wrist injuries are among the slowest to heal, only having seat time on the bike will really answer the question of how the hand has recovered. That could be answered as soon as tomorrow since his first day at Fontana was spent adjusting the bike and learning the team.

More seriously on the injured list is Mat Mladin who is still recovering from the effects of his 80mph crash at Daytona during the first tire test. He was back aboard his Suzuki today at Fontana, turning the second fastest lap of the day, so obviously he isn’t too injured. The question is how well that chipped bone is doing and whether the race season will start before the bone has re-knit itself. If so, he’ll be fighting that leg injury all season long. Possible bad news for Mat but perhaps the only chance his competition has of getting the Superbike championship away from the Aussie.

The final person fresh from a hospital visit is Kawasaki’s Roger Lee Hayden. News broke today that he was in a serious bicycle accident last week while training which has turned the left side of his body into one big slab of roadrash. While skin heals pretty quickly, its basically impossible to move for a week without the painful experience of breaking scabs open and that rules out any physical training. It also rules out this week’s testing at Fontana. With Rog racing a new ZX-6RR this season, that lack of seat time could be tragic. We’ll see if he’ll be ready for Kawasaki’s next test at Laguna or if he’ll miss that test too.

Even among the riders listed as full fit, there are some lingering wounds that may yet play a part. Yamaha’s Damon Buckmaster spent most of last season with various bone injuries but returned for the last two races of the year. Likewise, Josh Hayes took a pretty big tumble at Road Atlanta that had him hurting for a few months. Those kinds of incidents may not affect the rider on the bike but just one nasty highside can re-break bones or re-tear tendons at the side of a previous injury. Something that takes a rider from healthy to bed-ridden in one quick twist of the throttle.

The prognosis on these two series? Well, MotoGP appears healthy and ready to bring on another season of excitement. The AMA, on the other hand, has some major players on the injured reserve list. With only a month until the opener at Daytona, the doctors may have as much to do with race results as the crew chiefs! Lets try to stay healthy out there!

[image from MotoGP web site.]

So the only real motorcycles news this week has been the various MotoGP and World Superbike teams announcing their official line-ups, news that has been known unofficially for months now. Ho-hum, its a slow news week.

There have been a couple of items in those announcements that I think deserve a quick “word up”.

First, the Xerox Ducati World Superbike team of James Toseland and Regis Laconi where announced today with a big webcast splash. Same team, same riders, yawn. But Ducati does deserve the credit for having cultivated a multi-year sponsorship agreement with a company that is neither involved in the motorcycle market nor part of the tobacco/alcohol money monster. With worldwide political pressure steadily restricting tobacco and alcohol advertising, those companies which have historically propped up the bulk of motorized competition, are scaling back their support. For Ducati to bring in Xerox as the title sponsor of their World Superbike effort (Xerox was already involved with Gary McCoy’s privateer team in 2004) is something worthy of a news splash. Better yet, Ducati is showing continued success at bringing in outside money since they have had Fila and Sony as their title sponsors in the past. Lets hope the other World Superbike teams can have such success. That outside money is the holy grail of both race teams and race series and an infusion of dough is something all series could use to help them grow.

Its not just in WSBK either. Gone are the days when big cigarette companies virtually funded Grand Prix racing. Ducati still has Marlboro money and the Yamaha teams still have their Fortuna/Gauloises backing but its rumored that Yamaha may run self-sponsored machines in 2006, partly at Rossi’s insistence since he *hates* tobacco sponsorship. Oddly enough, Rossi has no such problems with alcohol money, since his favorite sponsor is Italian beer company Nastro-Azzuro. Anyway, there is bright news in the MotoGP world as well, as Makoto Tamada will be sponsored by Minolta this coming season. Just as with WSBK, having a company not traditionally associated with motorcycles willing to fork out cash to a team means the sport’s growing in status. If other companies can successfully court big companies, they may yet weather the bad financial times that have been forecast when tobacco sponsorship dries up completely.

Bravo to Honda and Ducati for leading the way…

[image from Ducati web site.]

Looks like two folks may be coming back from the brink of MotoGP extinction…

Rumors posted this evening on superbikeplanet.com hint that Kenny Roberts’ Team KR may have gotten a last minute miracle fromDorna, KTM and Michelin and will be able to run a one rider team for the 2005 MotoGP season. That one rider? Ex-Aprilia rider Shane “Shakey” Byrne. This means that one of GP’s eldest statesmen and one of its newest stars are still gonna be with us for another season.

It seems that Dorna, the rights holder for MotoGP, wanted another British rider in the series for 2005 to help satisfy the folks that agreed to pay for the five year television rights for the series in Merry ‘Ole. KTM presumably wanted to see their engine actually run in race competition and can’t fund their own effort with the Team KR frame they traded for an engine. Michelin wanted….uh….I have no idea. I can’t imagine what Michelin is getting out of this deal, unless they are committed to only provide their second string tires.

Unfortunately, they have already missed the first test of the season at Sepang and may well miss the second if they don’t get their act together quickly. Like WCM, these small teams need twice the testing of the big companies to be competitive and are only going to get half. That doesn’t bode well for MotoGP ever expanding their appeal beyond the established and well funded factories.

Still, if this rumor is true, it will be great to have TeamKR and Shakey around for another summer if only because of King Kenny’s “straight shooting” style and to have another underdog out there trying to stick it to the man.

[image from Shane Byrne web site.]

Its been a late night at work tonight, so not much time is available to put together a blog entry.

However, the news that has surprised me the most today, and probably the most shocking over the past few months, is that Honda and Mick Doohan have apparently parted ways.

Doohan, the five time world champion, was generally regarded as the greatest motorcycle racer in the world until Rossi came along. Not only was he completely dominant in the last two seasons of racing the brutally powerful two-stroke NSR500, he did so against competition like Gardner, Lawson, Rainey, Schwantz and Biaggi. The era in which Doohan reigned supreme was perhaps the most hard fought championships in the history of Grand Prix motorcycling.

Honda hired Doohan as the General Manager of their HRC racing organization soon after he retired from racing due to his leg injury at Jerez in 1999. Doohan was first hired by Honda in 1989 to race Grand Prix. 5 world championships in 10 years makes for an impressive career! What makes this so remarkable to me are two different aspects: First, Doohan and Honda are synonymous. The guy raced for them for 10 years, as been a high profile employee for a total of 17 years and won all five of his world titles while racing for Big Red. He was General Manager over HRC for the championships of Criville (’99) and Rossi (’01, ‘02, ‘03). What company would dare loose that marketing goldmine? Second, the Japanese in general and Honda in particular have a strong corporate history of life-long dedication to their employees. For Honda to take someone that high up the corporate chain off the payroll is very significant.

While I doubt that Doohan’s leaving will big a huge blow to the team itself (I think his roles were more administrative, and perhaps even symbolic, more than technical) it still shows just how desperate Honda is to get things turned around for next season. Then again, Doohan has always spoken his mind and was clearly impressed by Rossi. He repeatedly complemented Rossi’s 2004 performances on TV while criticizing Honda riders like Biaggi and Gibernau. Maybe that is what ultimately garnered him a pink slip.

I hope this isn’t the end of Doohan’s involvement in the sport. I’m sure he has enough money to comfortably retire to the Gold Coast of Australia (perhaps even enough to *buy* the Gold Coast of Australia) and never been seen again but that would be a loss to the sport as a whole. Here is hoping he’ll be back to help some other teams, to commentate or just to visit the paddock.

[image from Mick Doohan web site.]

The 2005 MotoGP season officially opened this past weekend with a three day test at Malaysia’s Sepang International Circuit. Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, Ducati and Kawasaki came to Sepang to start their winter testing program and see whether the off-season has resulted in improvements to the bikes or a step backwards.

The first impressions offer a couple of surprises and some confirmations of what was predicted. First, as expected, Yamaha has come out strong. Both Rossi and Edwards have been near the top of the timing chart, whether testing suspension, tires, engine or suspension changes. With both Yamahas running so strong, the other teams better take notice because last season Rossi carried his pre-season speed into the first race and blitz’ed ‘em all.

The first of the surprises was Ducati’s return to the top of the timing charts. Capirossi has consistently been the fastest guy on track, showing that Ducati may have found the way out of their engine/chassis/tire quagmire of last season. However, with teammate Checa injured, its hard to tell yet if this is a drastic improvement in the bike or if its just Capirossi riding harder than anyone else.

The second big surprise was Biaggi’s competitiveness considering his lingering leg injury. Despite walking on crutches in the pits, Biaggi has turned in lap times in the top five and within half a second of Capirossi. This bodes well for Honda’s commitment to build their 2005 RC211V around Biaggi (no matter how much this decision has been questioned by everyone outside, uh, Biaggi’s living room) since it means Biaggi can start developing the bike now rather than having Gibernau handle development duties for this first test. This is undoubtedly bad for Gibernau and probably for all the other Honda riders since none of them seem to have the same riding style as Biaggi.

A third surprise was the fast lap times turned in on the first day by both Suzuki riders. While they are still down on speed compared to the other teams, at least they haven’t taken a step backwards after having tuning legend Erv Kanemoto leave to help Biaggi and Hayden at Repsol Honda. It seems that Suzuki’s development cycle is still moving to slow too keep up with the competition but they are still improving and the two riders can put in fast laps when taking advantage of the soft Bridgestone tires and the bike’s excellant handling.

The final surprise was to see Barros as the fastest Honda rider for both days. Barros does have the advantage of being on the same bike as last year, something only Gibernau can also look forward to, and that has probably allowed him to work on going faster rather than adapting to a new bike. Bayliss and Melandri have to figure out how to ride a Honda, Tamada has to learn the Michelin tires, Hayden and Biaggi have to test the new parts for the 2005 bike but I thought Gibernau would have been the one to come out swinging. We’ll see if Barros stays fastest at the end of day three, which is when everyone puts aside some of the component testing and goes after fast laps.

While not a surprise, it was sad to see that Kawasaki didn’t immediately make a mark with their test times. After Nakano’s spectacular rides in 2004, there was always the hope that the smallest of the Japanese manufacturers would make another quantum leap and jump up to the Honda/Yamaha level this season. Perhaps the next few test seasons will bring about that surprise.

Also not a surprise, but equally sad to see, is that Team KR Proton still don’t have funding or a rider in place and thus weren’t able to make this first test. These test sessions are probably more important for these little teams than for the big guys, so missing this test will pretty much crush any chance that the KTM powered Proton will have a snow ball’s chance in hell at being competitive.

And finally, not a surprise at all…both Melandri and Xaus have already crashed.

[image from Ducati web site.]

In the south, we have the saying “Et up with it” (short, presumably, for “eaten up with it” which is itself a long way of saying obsessed).

For the past few weeks, I’ve been reading the biographies of some of the greats of Grand Prix including Barry Sheene, Mick Doohan and Wayne Rainey.

While Sheene certainly was a playboy and a media hound, he was also so obsessed with motorcycle racing that he was willing to come back from two different horrible accidents to race and win. His accidents at Daytona in ‘75 and Silverstone in ‘82 were worse that most racers will ever experience, yet neither prevented him from getting back on the fastest bikes in the world and winning races at the highest levels of competition including the ‘76 and ‘77 Grand Prix world championships. Sheene probably carried more metal in his body than any other racer in history.

Wayne Rainey is perhaps the poster child for being ‘Et up with it. Primarily because of his complete dedication to the task of beating rival Kevin Schwantz but also for obliterating all the other competition in route to his three Grand Prix world championships before his tragic accident and resulting paralysis in ‘93. Any photo of Rainey from that time period shows the complete and intense focus with which he approached racing. The bike he rode in ‘93 should, by all rights, have run mid-pack because of its handling woes but Wayne through the force of his own will made the bike challenge for wins. It eventually cost him the ability to walk.

Finally, Mick Doohan’s gruesome accidents before becoming one of the most dominant riders in the sport provide the most contemporary example of being Et up with it. Mick lost part of a finger, badly broke his arm and broke his wrist in different accidents before “the accident” at Assen in ‘92 which nearly lost him his leg. Despite this physical punishment, Doohan’s drive to compete and win brought him back again and eventually launched his spectacular string of five straight world titles. The famous photo of the fragile looking Doohan in an Italian hospital with his legs sewn together shows the depths of his obsession better than any story possibly could.

There are other stories, thankfully less dramatic but that equally illustrate the dedication required to win at this level of racing. Freddie Spencer’s meteoric rise and rapid fall from GP glory. Schwantz’s battered wrists which, despite over a decade of healing, still cause him problems. Even Criville suffered serious health problems after his ‘99. It seems that most of the riders, perhaps Lawson and Roberts being the exceptions, left MotoGP after paying a physical toll much more severe than most racers would ever consider paying.

So what does this history stay of the current MotoGP stars? First, it would indicate just how focused Rossi has probably become after his switch to Yamaha. In interview after interview, Rossi says he has completely changed his approach to racing in order to get the Yamaha to the level where it can win races. Perhaps this history also explains why riders like Biaggi, Barros and Capirossi have always seemed to lack just that little bit extra necessary to run with Rossi. The risks they may have to take bring dire consequences and the recent history of the sport offers ample warning. Biaggi, Barros and Capirossi were all racing during the time when Rainey crashed at Misano, Doohan crashed at Assen and Doohan’s final crash at Jerez. Rossi was just getting started in that era…

I also wonder about the current crop of young riders, particularly Nicky Hayden. Does he have the focus and dedication to win at this level? Will he reject the temptations of Europe, where MotoGP riders are treated like superstars, and become ‘Et up with being a world champion? Given the stories of these other stars, should he? Maybe Rossi has forged a new path to stardom which won’t exact the price that the champions of the 70s, 80s and 90s had to pay.

[image from Mick Doohan web site