On 1/22/2010 12:28 AM, Champ wrote:

> I'm sure Spies will be a title contender once he joins a factory team,
> which could be as soon as 2011.

The new, slower, long lasting engines could equalize things. I think
Rossi said that, or maybe Stoner.
--
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I really must lurk more. But instead:-

Mark N <(E-Mail Removed)> Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:04:26
>As for DMG, I am quite pleased to see how they're struggling today

These are being updated so you have to assume they're current, rather
than just a delay by the web team
http://www.amaproracing.com/rr/event...0011005&class=
SB
http://www.amaproracing.com/rr/event...0011005&class=
DS
Makes you wonder if there'll even be a Daytona let alone the rest of the
season.

>Like Champ, I don't agree that Pedrosa can't win

>put him on a 1000 with some limits on electronics and in particular a
>package weight minimum and you might as well send him back to the
>underclasses. Well, 125 anyway.

Rookie year, 990s, 2 wins, 2 seconds, 4 thirds, 5th in the championship.
Obviously he's too small for real men's bikes.

>Spies

Will his rookie year be better than Lorenzo's? Unlikely. But then
hopefully he won't have the 3 big high sides. How often or how soon will
he beat Edwards? My guess is that he'll be fairly quickly into the
second pack and there'll be at least one race where Rossi has his one
big screw up of the year and some other stuff happens that gets him on
the podium.

>The discussion on that point was really about who Dorna supported to
>with that last Kawasaki ride, and in any case to give up so absolutely
>on someone who is only 26

For quite a while now, you get your one chance in MotoGP and you can
never get back in. Hopkins got 7 years. Toseland got 2. 7 Years doesn't
seem so bad. He got the silver spoon route into 500s which is his one
lucky break. As far as I can tell he's never won anything. He needs
another lucky break but it doesn't seem like there are any, any more.
Right now he either has to win AMA or do a few wild cards on a prototype
that might not even race this year. If Colin Wright was still in BSB, he
might have got the second ride there and it probably would have been
good for him but there were plenty of other people who would have wanted
that ride.

>So back to what I was saying about MotoGP before the
Anti-Mark Ns
>went off on this Noyes tangent

Fixed it for you.

>almost no one with any serious production 600 racing experience.

I wonder how much that has to do with money. It seems like all the teams
are expecting the rider to be unpaid and to bring sponsorship. 250GP got
stupidly expensive for the top handful of teams. It seems that Moto2
will also be stupidly expensive. And nobody's got the money to pay for
it.

>It's also disappointing that Smith got left in 125.

Double edged sword. He gets to watch Moto2 shake out the bugs. But he
also *has* to win. I think he made the right choice.

>What makes this list different from 250 lists in the recent past are
>the guys who have demoted from MotoGP, something that has rarely
>happened in the last decade or more.

I'm guessing that the last person to go from MotoGP/500 to 250GP is
Capirossi. Or perhaps McWilliams. Anyone else?

--
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Rinses Out Easily

On Jan 22, 11:04*pm, Mark N <menusbaumNYETS...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> ... As I recall, you used to claim that you
> NEVER watched the AMA ...

If that was the case I would have not observed such pearls of
sportsmanship as Yates flying into the back of another rider (who
admittedly had taken him down) both legs first. So what you claim
about my claim is -as so often- clouded by your eagerness to see
enemies in each and every one of us who ever dares counter a single
one of your opinions. Enough about that, I got no time for the
diatribes in 2010. And you have way too much time on your hands to
waste if you keep engaging in this.

> ... More recently you probably hang on
> every critical word on the series (pre-DMG), and that has become your
> opinion by default.

Well, whatever. They're through, and whatever I think does little to
do the situation.

> Like Champ, I don't agree that Pedrosa can't win, at least on 800s with
> the current level of rider aids.

My point is Pedrosa will not win consistently unless he has a clear
bike advantage. A bike that is set up to perfection. And my criticism
of Pedrosa is that is he was a *great* rider he would have been able
to direct Honda's resources more effectively by now. He would be able
to set the bike up perfectly by now. But all he seems able to do is
ride the package handed to him as fast as he can. Is he talented?
*Every* guy in *every* top motorcycle series is. Especially so in
MotoGP.

> ... I think you underestimate the degree to
> which his failure falls on Honda and the way the tire situation played
> for him.

Bujt that is the difference between someone like Pedrosa and someone
like Rossi. Or Lawson or Rainey or many other before them - they would
tell the factory engineers "this is BS and we are doing this my way
now"... and would have the credibility to be listened to. Pedrosa
doesn't.

> Spies, I think you're somewhat correct, although I agree with Champ's
> opinion of his chances to win this year.

Yeah, we were betting against him last year too. I will not make that
mistake again. He will win at least one race. He is that good.

> The discussion on that point was really about who Dorna supported to
> with that last Kawasaki ride ...

And on that matter, I think Melandri is on his last legs now. It is
questionable whether he should still be there, and I doubt he will be
there in the near future. Such perceived unfairness tends to correct
itself pretty quickly after it becomes noticeable to us fans in
racing.

> ... give up so absolutely
> on someone who is only 26 and who has always exhibited real desire, who
> continues to want to race even if it is at a much lower level, and who
> hasn't had any crippling or questionable injury smacks of a
> predisposition to me...

Amen to the first, but Hopkins has had some pretty nasty injuries.
Broken femurs are no joke.

> But no one from the outside of the class even has the chance to race
> anything that actually can win races ...

And probably they don't *want* to. A rider that has true success
momentum behind him will not move to a ride that will turn him into a
backmarker. What top riders have the second tier Ducati teams in
MotoGP ever hired? And why?

> * - The top 4 riders in 250 points graduated to MotoGP, but from 5th
> down to part-timer Aoyama and his handful of points in 19th all the 250
> riders return, except for old man Locatelli.
> * - Joining them are Elias, de Angelis, Takahashi and Talmasci (who is
> also on the list of 250 guys) demoted from MotoGP, all guys who raced in
> 125 and/or 250 previously.
> * - From WSB most recently are Rolfo and Nieto, who basically washed out
> and who both raced in GP most of their careers, most notably in 250.
> * - From 125 come Simon, Iannone, Olive, Bradl, Gadea, Redding, Aegerter.
> * - There are no other riders with material WSB experience on the list.
> * - The only rider I can identify who raced in WSS last year was Yannick
> Guerra, who appears to have finished 36th.
> * - To my knowledge there are no riders who raced in the BSB series last
> year.
> * - The riders representing the western hemisphere are Noyes, who has
> done his racing in the Spanish championship, and Robertino Pietri from
> Venezuela, who used to race in the AMA but also has raced in various
> European series, including in Italy and Spain.
> * - The other rider from MotoGP is Canepa, who came from the WSB series
> and not the GP series prior to his arrival in MotoGP last year; he is of
> course Italian.

First - you are right. Second - it is *exactly* because of what you
say that I think it could be a very fun series. Whether they rode 250
or roman charriots in Ben Hur before I could not care less about, they
seem to be a good competitive mix. And mixing newbies with experiences
riders is a great thing. It looks like Dorna is doing it right. I
think you forget to mention a few other riders - I seem to recall
there is a Russian there as well and another exotic.

>... So will we see something similar
> and perhaps more long-lasting in Moto2, or are the political and
> commercial forces too entrenched now for anything to really change?

I for one think they are visibly trying really hard to get more
diversity in there. Really hard. All the academy and development work
they do to recruit internationally... come on.

Mark N <(E-Mail Removed)> Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:32:25
>One of my points here is that Noyes doesn't really bring
>diversity to Moto2 by just being an American, because he isn't a guy who
>raced on 600 SS/FX machines in the AMA against AMA riders on AMA tracks,

The only reason Noyes was brought up was that you said there were no
Americans in Moto2 and I pointed out that there was one. But now this
seems to have changed to "there are no refugees from the AMA".

Ignore AMA for a moment (please!), what is perhaps surprising is that
there are no ex-WSS people in the Moto2 entry list. But now go back to
last year's WSS. There are only really 4 people from WSS who might have
been thought worthy of a ride.
- Crutchlow. Apparently was very close to moving but apart from anything
else he was on a 2 year Yamaha contract.
- Laverty. Has had his time in 250GP. Not entirely his fault but he
didn't shine enough there. Has a real chance of winning WSS this year.
- Sofuoglu. Clearly fast on a 600. But also clearly unable to be fast on
a WSB. So how good is he really, and how much future does he have?
- Lascorz. Who?

So who else is there? You can't just wish for ex-AMA riders. They do
have to actually deserve it and/or bring serious sponsorship. At point
KR was a serious entrant but was unable to get the money.

>One of the big
>problems with MotoGP today is that everyone seems to ride those bikes
>the same way, so they can't pass, they don't battle, they just follow
>each other around.

Watch 125 and 250 and those same riders certainly didn't ride like that
in the smaller classes. So it's not hard to argue that the problem is
inherent in MotoGP machinery and nothing to do with where the riders
came from.

--
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Your Mileage May Vary

"Not Leonard Cohen" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:eb380a43-2ee5-4f45-bb79-(E-Mail Removed)...
> It is wonderful to hear that the Simoncelli-Bautista-Barbera words-and-
> contact war is moving up into MotoGP. Aoyama is a comparative
> pussycat, but he is fast. Cocky Lorenzo will not make room for these
> hot young upstarts, and Pedrosa will have more occasion to grouch.
> Rossi will remain a genius rider, but this pack of animals may just
> elbow the master into the gravel. Marvellous. Nice guy Nicky, time to
> retire. Good guy Stoner, put on your Doc Martins.
>
> Somebody once said, speaking of baseball, that "No game is much fun
> unless the players really hate each other."
> Bring it on, MotoGP for 2010! Yeehoooooo!

I am curious how the 675 triple will do this year in WSS after a decent year
last season.
I was quite surprised to see McCoy out and DiSalvo in, while I think DiSalvo
is a decent rider, McCoy is a lot more fun to watch.


--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
05 Squiddo

On Jan 24, 8:57*am, Mark N <menusbaumNYETS...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> What I said was, "there is no American presence" in Moto2, and I did
> know Noyes was one of the entered riders in the class when I said that.
> Most of our discussion on that to this point has been about whether or
> not Noyes constitutes and American presence, and my view remains that he
> doesn't. You continue to harp on the technicality of his citizenship...

In that case I will declare Mamola the first Spanish 500cc superstar,
since he clearly has now spent most of his life in Spain as a
journalist paid by Solomoto and Motociclismo, just like Noyes has. :-D
Dude, your arguments are always so blatantly self-serving when it
comes to this nationality stuff... :-D It's kinda entertaining by now.
Guys with US passports aren't American. But guys like Stoner and Smith
are certifiably Australian and British. Heavens, is Gasol American?

> Why is your standard "actually deserve it and/or bring serious
> sponsorship" and where do you draw the line between the two?

It's a support class. I will give the team managers the benefit of the
doubt for now. I will assume they want their team to be competitive,
and that sponsors still like to be somewhere upfront rather than
support lost causes. I am just saying that perhaps you are not the
only person that runs stats and probability analysis.

> Or the problem is putting tiny riders who are used to riding tiny
> motorcycles on big, heavy, powerful bikes, and then loading those
> machines up with electronic rider aids so that they don't kill
> themselves.

How big was Roberts? How big was Mamola? Just wondering... didn't
hinder them to be haf the size of the other riders on the grid at the
time... and didn't seem to cause them to lose control of machines that
were much nastier than anything that's been ridden in over 15 years.

> ... the larger problem may be the reasons the
> machines are what they are. Which of course is what I've been saying for
> years.

So your theory is that there is absolutely no advantage in advanced
electronics if the riders are just bigger? That is a ludicrous theory.
There is no stopping technology progress, and electronic aids happen
to make bikes much faster. Whether they make things more entertaining
is another matter altogether. ut let's note that in the past there was
no correlation between rider size and their ability to control bikes
(again, Roberts and Mamola were tiny, albeit not Pedrosa sized), tyat
in general big guys need not apply in motorcycle racing, and that
electronics would always have entered the equation no matter what
riders are on the bikes.

....pablo

On Jan 25, 1:56*am, Champ <n...@champ.org.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Jan 2010 19:43:09 -0800 (PST), pablo
>
> <pa...@simplyhombre.net> wrote:
> >> Spies, I think you're somewhat correct, although I agree with Champ's
> >> opinion of his chances to win this year.
> >Yeah, we were betting against him last year too. I will not make that
> >mistake again. He will win at least one race. He is that good.
>
> OK, I'll take that bet. *10 pounds, 10 dollars, 10 euros, whatever, to
> a charity of the winners choice. *Are you serious?
> --
> Champ
> neal at champ dot org dot uk

You got it. I am good for it. To be redeemed via Paypal? I know it's a
risky bet for me. I ought to get 2:1 odds at east, but I'll go for it
as is. :-)

Mark N <(E-Mail Removed)> Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:31:33
>I think you (and Julian, of course) are the ones who have this
>backwards - I was talking about a broadening of the base of GP by
>bringing into Moto2 new influences from production SS (and SB) racing,
>and of particular interest to me some American influence, and it's the
>two of you who are so fixated on nationality, specifically Noyes'.

Oi, stop it. Stop making stuff up.

"There are no Americans in Moto2"
"Well, there's Noyes"

Is the sum total of it. Everything else is in your warped head.

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Mark N <(E-Mail Removed)> Wed, 27 Jan 2010 07:00:34
>MN: there is no American presence

>But you and Pablo continue to harp on this as me saying there are no
>Americans at all in Moto2 and, apparently, implying that my point is
>invalid because there is one American rider. And you repeatedly claim I
>said there are no Americans in Moto2, which simply isn't what I said;

Oi. Dickhead. "There is no American presence". If that doesn't mean
"there are no Americans in Moto2" you're clearly not speaking English
but some strange Marknease.

Jeez' why do I bother.

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Julian Bond asks:

> Jeez' why do I bother.

Unknown.


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