The WSB round at imola today was quite dramatic. Coming to italy, James Toseland of Ducati was leading the championship. After race 1, where Chris Vermeulen (Honda) and Regis Laconi (Ducati) finished well ahead of everybody else, Chris was leading the championship by 1 pt over Toseland, who held 1 pt over Laconi. After race 2, yet another rider came out on top of the championship standings: Laconi now leads 4 pts over Toseland. The most dramatic moment was in the warm up for race 2, where Chris Vermeulen, then championship leader high-sided. A friendly Italian rider took the Injured Chris to the line-up at the start, where he would start from the pits. Now, what striked me was that the race-director did not wait a single second for Chris to get on his spare bike: The race started while Chris was still climbing the pit wall. Chris was injured, and had at least half a minute disadvantage. Yet he managed to cut through the pack to clinch some pts for his 6th place. The riding was hard, the riding was spectacular. There is a left-hander in Imola, downhill, which most riders would take with a very high speed two-wheel-slide. James and Regis would be sliding this left-hander with four smoking wheels! The sight of this is just magnificent. Earlier, Haga was participating in this action at the front of the field, but crashed from a leading position in race 2! I deeply regret Chris' screw up in warm-up. Now, if he wins both races in Magni Cours, he will need Haga for covering his back, or else he needs mistakes from James and Regis. He is now down 13 pts. What a race-day! We saw 3 championship leaders today. What will the Mickey-Mouse track at Magni Cours bring us? Easy wins due to the home-advantage for Regis? Maybe Chris can win those races to claim the championship by the smallest of margins? I can't wait to find out. Bram
