What do you know - the 2009 racing season is well underway and I haven't posted a single entry on it. Well, while I have your attention, I will make grounds rectifying this deficiency.
MotoGP - the 'big league', the 'premier class', the 'F1 of motorbikes' - is a bit of a late starter. The first round of the year was a couple of weekends ago in Qatar. A relatively novel calendar entry, the track is in the middle of the desert, and runs in the middle of the night (for telecoverage reasons I believe). In the end, it was delayed a day for novel reasons as well - rain! Rain is wet by day, but under lights it was an unprecedented danger.
In the end, the inevitable occured one day late: Stoner won, Rossi was the only who kept up the appearance of competition, and Someone Else came third (Lorenzo in the end - third-place qualifier, and the only real expected pointy-end challenger with Pedrosa injured). Pedrosa and Hayden struggled with injuries; Edwards and Dovi showed signs they need to be taken seriously; De Angelis surprised everyone by staying on the bike (and got a top-six place as a result); Vermeulen and Kallio will be looking to build on positive results; the rest were uninspiring, in particular Gibernau, Melandri and rookie Takahashi (wtf is he in MotoGP for?).
Stoner has dominated preseason testing and round 1 in no uncertain fashion, and should he manage to shake off the pressure from Rossi and his inner deamons the result will be emphatic. There is little doubt of a top-two result for the Great Man Rossi, and it feels like the rest of the field are fighting for third place. Dovi, Pedrosa, Lorenzo and Edwards have once again had positive starts, and Kallio, De Angelis and both Suzuki riders (the other Aussie Vermeulen and Capirossi) are making habits of exceeding expectation.
The field heads to Motegi (Japan) this weekend for round two, and the expectation is that Stoner will be setting the pace come Friday afternoon. Fortunately for the Aussie contingent we have a rare afternoon timeslot for this round, so take advantage of it while you can and get yourself back into the swing of things (I assume nobody got up to watch the 4am Tuesday Qatar race?).
Far as the 125s and 250s go... well I haven't paid much attention to the 125s yet, but the 250s Qatar race was gripping - and with some bad results from big names the championship is alive and kicking. Watch Barbera (first at Qatar), and a few MotoGP hopefulls in the making in Bautista, Simoncelli (2008 250 champion), di Meglio (125 champ was it, or was that T?), Pasini and Talmasci, also family names like Faubel, Pesek, Debon, Locatelli and Luthi, hoping to finally put a good season together. Riders like Cluzel (2nd at Qatar) and Wilairot (Indonesian/Thai/something) are always around to spice up the standings.
The World Superbike championship (WSBK - production-based machines) is the dark night in a sense. When it is not being led by an Aussie (Bayliss or Corser in recent years) it receives little public attention and irregular television screenings. It has a cult-like status among racing fans, however, many of whom much prefer it to the occasionally urbane chastity of the world's fastest bikes - and for good reason. I personally am a little turned off by relatively unappealing machinery (GP bikes are sexxy), but they are fast no matter what way you look at it, and the racing is always hot. Round 1 was at Phillip Island this year, and those of us lucky enough to attend enjoyed some rivetting racing.
We are much further into the WSBK season, with round 3 up this weekend (the Netherlands, somewhere - presumably Assen?), and some solid headway into the championship (with two races a round there have actually been six races already). 'Nitro' Noriyki Haga is opening up a worrying lead over American Ben Spies (for a number of years relatively uncontested 'AMA' American SBK champion - and head-turning MotoGP wild card), who has often looked the goods with some very fast times and good consistency. His results have been more explosive than Nitro Nori's, however, with a number (three? or was it only two?) crashes interspercing some convincing wins. Neukirchner and Fabrizio have wed some good times with surprising consistency to round the top four, as a few big names appear to be struggling on new machinery (Corser and Xaus on BMW, Nakano and Biaggi on Aprilia). A second Aussie in Broc Parkes is struggling to make much of an impact on a green-looking Kawasaki, and I just noticed John Hopkins with one more championship point on a Honda (that's how bad his season has been).
If anything, the world's best racing is probably to be seen in the World Supersport (WSS - 600cc productions) races. You have to hunt to get news on this championship, but if you can get into it the close racing and strong Aussie contingent (Andrew Pitt and Ant West tied for 3rd with French Laverty, Aitchison 7th and McCoy the leading member of an ininspiring two-man Triumph lineup) should prove rewarding.
On which note, why the hell haven't I been following it?
Somebody tell me how the Australian Superbike Championship is going, because I would like to think that somebody pays attention to it. I know a few who enjoy watching the racing (sporadic coverage on Ten/SBS I believe), and many pay attention to the results, but it's sad it is such a private series in a country with such a strong auto-racing interest.
Anyway, that's my start-of-season rant. I won't be investing heaps of time into writing about these series, because frankly I don't see the point in doing what others are already doing - and much better than I ever would.
I will make the effort, however, to write a few articles over the next few weeks to help you along the way. I will try to make these weekly commitments.
First up, I'm planning an article on where you can get your racing-info fixes - the hot blogs, useful websites and timing and video hotspots; if I still haven't given up after that I will tell you a little about one of the ways I personally enjoy a race weekend, by putting money on the line - both the places to do it, and a few of the tips I have learnt to make the most of it (I averaged 5% returns per round of the MotoGP for most of 2008 - a hell of a lot better than my stock portfolio).
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@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com
jsbaxter.com.au (coming soon!)
@JohnSBaxter
2009-traveldiary.blogspot.com
2009-motorcyclist.blogspot.com
jsbaxter.com.au (coming soon!)
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