Moto Gp 2010

[jetpilot]

I think my favourite riders were Frankie Chile, classic when he went storming out his motor home in his dressing gown to have words, only an Italian would do that and that mad Kawasaki rider whos name escapes me at the moment!

And some quality British riders,
Walker
Whitham

I like characters as much as the next guy, but also recognise talent and marvel at the sheer ability of some of these guys even if they are corporate faces void of character or a personality we can gel too.

Moto Gp will survive without Rossi, another guy will take his place, just like he did Doohan.

[Dan Norton]

I think my favourite riders were Frankie Chile, classic when he went storming out his motor home in his dressing gown to have words, only an Italian would do that and that mad Kawasaki rider whos name escapes me at the moment!

And some quality British riders,
Walker
Whitham

I like characters as much as the next guy, but also recognise talent and marvel at the sheer ability of some of these guys even if they are corporate faces void of character or a personality we can gel too.

Moto Gp will survive without Rossi, another guy will take his place, just like he did Doohan.

Do you mean Scott Russell for Kawasaki?
He was a nutcase aswell.

Then the one that tops them all for sure lunacy and weirdness was John Kocinski.....the only person who could fall out with himself :Giggle
My god, the guy had talent though....he won Superbikes, 250\'s, 500 Grand Prix.
Do you know he\'s a really successful property developer / estate agent now selling mansions to the stars in California.

I was never a Doohan fan, and was pleased when he retired.

[jetpilot]

Not Scott Russel, i think it was Anthony someone, sideways absolutely everywhere on that dog of a Zx7rr. He wasnt around long, got in trouble for drugs etc

Mr Greek will surely remind me.

[Dan Norton]

Anthony Gobert!

Yup...i remember him well.....he also won Bimota\'s only ever WSB race when half the field crashed out....wasnt it raining if i remember?

[Nik da Greek]

You do remember correctly, it was on the SB8 TL1000-engined Bimota thing. The next race it ate its crankcase and launched him up the road. Think he went to lose himself in the GP wilderness after that, a real shame and a massive waste of talent when he went off the rails. Few people ever had the raw natural talent on a bike he did.

Koscinski used to Hoover his motorhome like eight times a day, even in the middle of the night! He had soem OCD cleanliness fetish apparently, used to iron his socks and stuff! I remember him doing an interview when he went to Honda and all he went on about was how much nicer the HRC socks he got were than the ones he\'d got anywhere else like at Ducati or anything. Mad as a fish!

[jetpilot]

OCD cleanliness fetish apparently

:Giggle

Never heard of OCD being a fetish.............. :Giggle

Yep, that was the fella, The Go Show, really liked him, although i forgot his name, i think he was the original strip out his leathers and lob them into the crowd.

Anyone who could win on that Zx7rr was a legend and more so that Bimota, think he retired back to the AMA than back to Australia.

[Nik da Greek]

Yeah, can\'t remember the chronology for sure, he rode the Bimota after he\'d been busted out of GPs for drugtaking and general random behaviour, didn\'t he? He took a p!ss in Hodgdson\'s crash helmet when they were teammates, which I found quite funny, but then I am childish!

I use to like Aaron Slight, he was harder than a coffin nail and with hindsight, to keep the RC45 up as close to the front as long as he did speaks volumes for his skill. Perhaps under-rated at the time, a shame really. He started riding in New Zealand championship, which made the Irish roads look safe. The "Cemetary Circuit" involved a stretch through, you guessed it, a cemetary (imagine crashing into a gravestone at 130!) and at one point went over a level crossing over the railway! Incredible!

[jetpilot]

Well if i known he had taken a .... in Hodgson\'s helmet i think i would have liked him more!!!!

Does anyone else have that thought that it should have been Walker not Hodgson getting all the good rides???

[jetpilot]

So 2010 over bar the shouting for 2nd, 3rd etc

Not the best season to watch and although i think Lorenzo has been awesome, i think his win is more down to the fact there was never really a consistent challenge from a single rider, the other three contenders all had their issues, but i guess thats what winning is all about!

Rossi, obviously his big crash!
Stoner, front end issues (not just his Ducati before any of the Rossi fanboys get on his case)!
Pedrosa, bike just not good at the start of the season and when it does get good, once again he his plagued by bad crash injuries, i got to say, feel so so sorry for him, every time he comes of he seems to f*uck something up and badly!

So onto next year and big change all round really!

I hope it will be a better battle next year and with any luck, with Spies performance on the Tech 3 you got to think a true works bike will see him up there with the other four.

And certainly interested in 2012, where i think it reverts to 1000cc.

[Dan Norton]

Yea, its been at bit anti-climatic this year.

Stoner falling off all the time, then pulls out back to back wins.
Pedrosa crashing big again, and breaking bones again.
Rossi, crashing big for the first time in his career.

Lorenzo.....just having the most consistent year going while everyone else had massive issue\'s.

Good to Vale back to form today, from 10th to 1st in 10 laps....classic Vale.

Next year is going to be vintage.
Big egos\' on all the factory bikes, Spies moving upto factory Yam, Cal Crutchlow on Tech 3!

Hopefully we\'ll see more bikes on the grid, but it appears not with Suzuki going down to 1 bike!

[Nik da Greek]

Good article in Performance Bikes last month about when Yamaha finally saw sense and started leasing YZRs out to privateers in order to try to save the series from the dwindling entry lists. Millar were the only ones to afford to lease the first year and ran McWilliams on one for a year before ROC, Harris et al stepped in and leased some others to fill the grids. The field now has to made be larger, and made up of more bikes capable of running at the front. I am a rabid bike fan, and I just simply CBA to watch most of this season, it\'s just of no interest, no personalities left in the face of corporate sponsor PR steamrollers, no relevance to real-world bikes, just no interest really. Moto2 is good. WSB is good. BSB is good...Motogp is.....academic. In my busy busy 21st Century life I simply don\'t have time to waste on something that bores me more often than not simply out of a perverse sense of loyalty

[jetpilot]

Perhaps not in touch with bike trends as much as Mr Greek, but still enjoy the Moto Gp, i have watched every race but admit some have been switched off early due to as said, the academic nature of in some races knowing who will win in the first 5 laps or so!  

Mr Greek, correct me if i am wrong but is the dwindling grid not one of the reasons for the move back to 1000cc? There has been a lot of commentator chat about the small grid this season and cutbacks in spending due to the economic climate and the making of an 800cc engine which doesnt appear in any shape or form in a road bike. It is mentioned that if its a 1000cc they will so to speak use the basic design of say an R1, GSXR etc block for whichever manufacturer thus keeping costs down and hopefully increasing the grid. Also the cutbacks in spending and testing time are not allowing the up and coming riders, Bautista, Espergaro etc to get used to the bikes as the only time they get any real time on the bike is race day, testing has been cut and practice sessions.

They also suggest that this will make the racing aspect much closer as the 800\'s are so close to each other that there are no variables, i.e its literally small tweaks that put you ahead in 800\'s but if it was a 1000\'s you could have say a not on the money handling 1000 but if you had monster power it would make up for slightly off handling, tyres etc

Characters is a difficult one, i am not sure we will ever see characters like the past and most riders these days are groomed from an early age and are pr packages plain and simple. I dont think we get to see the real characters of any racer these days i think thats one thing we will have to get use to.

Pleased for Biaggi by the way, but almost find that laughable that his current engine will now be banned as everyone complained its too fast.

[Nik da Greek]

I think the global recession is the primary cause for the dwindling entrants, tbh. If firms the size of Kawasaki feel that racing is a pointless frippery that can be economised then it\'s small surprise that numbers have fallen. Remember that the money Kawasaki make from bike sales is minute compared to their income from their real business of supertankers, nuclear submarines and heavy plant. 800s were a thinly veiled attempt to keep the series fresh under the veneer of reducing costs and adding safety, but it was purely an excercise in smoke and mirrors by Dorna. Since there\'s no spending cap in place, why would it reduce costs (the limited engine rule was a patch bunged on this season, don\'t forget). The safety argument is a farce when the 800s are faster almost everywhere than the 1000s were. I think the 800s were simply a chance to placate manufacturers by giving those who were struggling a chance to steal a march on that blank sheet of paper, and nothing more.

I dunno what the answer is tbh, but I certainly don\'t think it\'s fiddling and changing the rules wholsale every other season, it certainly hasn\'t worked with the sterile spectacle that was Formula One. Maybe a budget cap for the year, so you can spend it on whatever you like, if you want the best electronics suite the world has ever seen, fine, but it\'ll take your entire budget to do it, so you better pray it doesn\'t get damaged during the season. If you wanna build a rocketship engine, fine, but when it blows up and you don\'t have the budget to replace it.....

Personally, I believe the electronics should be banned completely. No traction control, nothing. That would remove the single most expensive component and its support and also re-introduce the idea of the rider being the deciding factor as to whether a bike goes fast or not. Oh, and force the manufacturers to franchise customer bikes again, and proper works-level machinery, not ropey old donkeys that can only plod round five seconds a lap slower than the works bikes. Maybe if you bring in some privateers and let the riders feel it\'s them that make the difference, some shred of personaltiy may re-assert itself?

[jetpilot]

I think the limited engine rule is a lot of old toss to be fair, if you want an engine to last longer go endurance racing! I am not really sure i like the fuel limits either, look at the Yams this weekend, easily on par with the Hondas and Dukes because the race distance was shortened thus allowing them to burn that little bit more fuel to compete on the straights! In fact i dont like any of the limits imposed, tyres etc etc This is supposed to be the pinnacle of bike racing, not the pinnacle of inducing limits! I guess that then really makes the sport a "whoever has the biggest budget" type affair, but arent we seeing that in every avenue of sport these days, football, F1 etc etc

I know your a big fan of no electronics, i guess i dont feel as strongly as you on this one, maybe you would sort out the men from the boys, but as with F1, these are really prototype development trials!

I guess this year hasnt really been the spectacle i would like it to have been, i am not sure there is any one reason for that to be honest and more so, perhaps nothing to do with mentioned from above!

I enjoyed the Stoner domination season but i think the last season i really really enjoyed was the Hayden championship year! Until the last race, it could have gone either way and i guess if Moto Gp is to reach its hype and previous glory we need seasons like that and its up to the riders and Dorna to give us that. Unfortunately there will be a lot of Rossi fanboys who probably wont follow MotoGp (as much) when he leaves so they need to fill that void too!

[Dan Norton]

Get rid of 800cc engines. get rid of electronics such as anti wheelie and traction control.

Thats the most obvious improvements you could have.
The 800 thing they are acting on, hence why we will see 1000cc engines 2012.

In regards to electronics, the majority of riders are all in favour of getting rid, so hopefully they will act on that aswell.

I\'ll still follow Moto GP when Rossi decides to call it a day, maybe not to the extent i do now, but like everytime a mega superstar with his talent graces any motorsport, it will always gain more fans.

I just hope we get a top class Brit to cheer on in Moto GP in the next 10 years.....someone who we can really get behind and know he has a chance at the title if he is on a factory machine.