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Following another great race at Sepang we should be in for a good race at Phillip Island (read this to mean Motegi has been the only other race this year of notable edge-of-seat viewing). At last the gulf seems to have been bridged between Rossi and the rest and we can look forward to some vintage Blue Ribband Class racing. Hopefully.
Max still seems to be the only one able to get the M-1 in or in front of the RC211V, while Checa is showing his usual spates of inconsistency….so it will probably be another Honda dance in Oz; but at least Rossi has to work for it now!
I think last year the first 10 bikes crossed the line in less than 5 seconds; this race there’ll be 4 RC211Vs and Max….so hopefully that’ll mean at least 5 bikes in 5 seconds…..
The disparity in machinery this year has changed the racing that’s for sure– remember how good Shinya Nikano was on a 500 in his first year? He finally got a four stroke at Motegi and promptly finished 6th. He too will hopefully be scrapping at 320ks down Phillip Island’s famous main straight.
The 500s are dead…..long live the four stroke, I guess…..as long as Yamaha et al can produce a bike to compete with Honda. Still, with Edwards most likely to be on Aprillia and Bayliss and Capirossi on Ducati, Kawasaki finally back in the mix; and Suzuki showing occasional signs of hope – we will hopefully see at least one consistent challenge to the mighty Honda next year.
Which brings me to my final point – Bayliss and Edwards were the class of SBK this year – they were on a different level to everyone else. With them gone from SBK, Flamini must be squirming even more than when they found out GPs were going 4 stroke. While Hodgson and Haga battles will no doubt be entertaining; there will be an even more apparent flavour that we aren’t watching some of the best riders in the world – the days when you wondered if Fogarty could beat Doohan (a show on a Cagiva at Donington I think is proof Fogarty would’ve been up there) will next year be over. So perhaps SBK should accept their fate and make their rules even more production based (ie SS and SBK having similar production based spec restrictions).This may mean, just possibly, someone from Kiwi land might be able to afford to race a wild card race or two on a close to competitive bike, get noticed, and then we might be able to enjoy the good old days of watching kiwis mix it up with the best.
Dreams are free I guess…
