Went to the AMA races at Barber (Birmingham, Alabama) this last weekend. What a sweet venue (except for a few things detailed later). Beautiful surroundings, good facilities. The museum is awesome. I went to the old Barber museum about 10 years ago in the old milk warehouse in Birmingham and it was pretty cool then but the new one is unbelievable. A little bit of a strange organization of bikes and a lot of unlabeled bikes but still way worth the time and money. A few problems Mr. Barber should fix though: Why no jumbotrons? It would be really nice to have a few big screens in the main spectator areas so that you could view the out of sight areas on the track. With all the money obviously spent on the facility this seemed like an oversight. Better corner work. I saw some of the worst corner work I have ever seen at a major race. In one race on Sunday a crash on the main straight was not noticed by the corner workers for two whole laps. The bike lay in the track with the spectators screaming at the corner workers and was almost hit by a rider one full lap after the crash. In a later crash a bike lay in the racing line for one full lap without a red flag and then debris lay in the racing line for another lap before the red flag was thrown. Better/more track workers are needed. Otherwise a great addition to the US racing scene. --Jim
Were the races any good? Judging by the times on the SBK results, the field was pretty spread out. And what's up with Eric B and his 999? 40s back from the leader and beaten by a home built Kawasaki?
The SB races were alright. Mat was not the undisputed leader despite his win on Saturday. It was interesting to see Josh Hayes on the Attack Kawasaki actualy leading the race early. Ben Bostrom led both races early on but then crashed out in race one and faded in race two. Sunday's race was more interesting than Saturday's and it was good to see Miguel take the win but I am sure Jake Zemke was very disappointed after leading so many laps. EBoz just could not compete. Too bad. The Supersport and Superstock races were the best in my opinion with the Hayden boys fighting it out in the top three in both races. I missed most of the FX race. --Jim
It works better if you show 5 places AMA Race 1 1. Mladin 2. Zemke 0.011 3. Duhamel 35.150 4. Bostrom 41.463 5. Hayes 60.285 Which is what I was referring to. :-0 uh-huh. The only good race I saw all weekend was MotoGP though I enjoyed watching the 125s. It was also quite entertaining watching McCoy get sideways deliberately and Toseland sideways by accident. When he stays up Laconi is in a different class. As is Pedrosa in 250. Pedrosa looked almost clinical in his ability to reel off fast laps with complete precision. But just like when Doohan, Harada, Kato, Melandri were doing this, it makes for boring racing. Also interesting that Gibernau didn't make a single mistake that I saw, while the three behind him all did. At that level that can account for the 1-2 seconds that are all it takes to win. I guess everyone saw that Bayliss, Capirossi, Biaggi, Rossi and others did 80-90 laps each on Monday and Bayliss ended up with fast time at 1m33.50. Meanwhile Gibernau and Edwards were at Magny Cours testing for Michelin. For different reasons, I think everyone needs track time. Just a shame that the people further down the grid are hurt (Hodgeson, Hopper, Shakey) or can't afford it.
Places like Sonoma rent them for the weekend when it's a big event, i.e. the NASCAR event. I didn't notice if they had them for the AMA event there this year, but you wouldn't want to buy them just to use a couple times a year.
I think I'd already said that the only decent race I saw was MotoGP and 125GP. It was actually an innocent question to which I wanted the answer and not much of a dig. I was just amazed that 3rd,4th and 5th could be 35, 40, 60 secs back in the first race. But then maybe I was remembering Snetterton Race 1 1 Yukio KAGAYAMA 2 John REYNOLDS 0.414 3 Michael RUTTER 1.018 4 Sean EMMETT 1.597 5 Scott SMART 2.396 Now that's what I call racing (#53). We've talked all round this for ever. It does seem that the only place where SBK isn't completely f*cked this year is BSB. And that's shaking down into a three way battle with everyone else falling away. Kiyonari hurt himself as did Plater. The Yamahas still aren't on the pace. And Emmett is playing head games with his 999 and his manager. Which leaves two old guys who should know better, a Japanese nutcase who shouldn't be riding and has to be helped off the bike, and Barry Sheene's nephew who's a cheeky chappy but not exactly world class. Despite all that Haga and Haslam didn't look any better than Emmett at Oulton Park so it's not as if it's not competitive. And Dean Thomas is fastest Ducati on an 998F02 not a 999.
him. Jake has definately been the "star" this year, IMHO, even though Mladin has been so successful. His race against Jake in round one is the hardest I've seen him pushed all year. His bike was sliding around like Aarons. The fear I have is if they keep tweaking the rules for the privateers (which basically means make racing cheaper), how are the classes going to be distinguished? The times of the top spots of all the classes now are right on top of each other. Nothing against privateers, but at the top end I think its important that both bike and rider are part of the equation, not just one or the other. This gives the techs, tuners and engineers the ability to practice their craft as well as for the riders. Thank goodness the lead riders have the HP to get past the back markers when they need to. There was one of the Honda tuners talking about how he liked the FX formula in hopes that it would allow more experimentation in things like composites and other advanced materials as they work to get the weight down, etc. As good as the showroom stuff is, as SStock is showing, I'm certainly more interested in "race bikes", because racing development "lifts all boats", and GP isn't necessarily the only venue that this kind of development should happen. Eric is having a terrible year because of two DNFs, IMHO. Those hurt him more than anything else. And Sears/Infineon was the first "single bike" crash he's been in in quite awhile, so that says something to me about how much work he's doing to get that bike right. I dunno how well Eric is going to like Pikes Peak. A track he likes on the Kawasaki may well be something he doesn't like on the Ducati. I dunno what's going on with Ben. Jake and Miguel are making him look pretty bad this year. It was interesting that Dunlop boosted Hayes with extra support so that he could beat Eric. I find it fascinating that SpeedTV feels that they need to run riders and their tires across the top of the screen the same way they do the bike they ride and their lap times. But it has been intereting so far, and I think it's just going to get better. If Mladin has one DNF (not that I'm wishing one upon him, mind), the championship gets very close, very quickly. He's smart enough to not rest on him laurels at all. He won't really rest until he's locked it in. Regards, Will Hartung ()
