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Yeah it`s that man again - Our Man on the Ground:
AND his mail is never boring. And this is edited!
Since the middle of February I have not done much apart from work. It all started with the official World Superbike (WSBK) test in Valencia the weekend before the first round, the week between I was up near Barcelona at a journalist test for 3 wet days, before getting back to Valencia for the race. I bloody ran out of fuel in the 7.3liter turbo, V8 American Ford van poo box on the way... needless to say my Spanish got a whole lot better after 4 hours on the side of the Freeway trying to get the pig going again... don\'t ask!
WSBK is real different this year, it is a full on Ducati Championship these days and even Ducati are embarrassed about it and have been asked to slow down by the organizers... I am working with Petronis this year, with Troy Corser and James Hayden (No relation to Niki) so that is going real cool. The team is so professional and to work with Karl Foggarty is a honor... the guy may have pissed a few people off in his time, but the guy is a dude... we cant deny him that. The bike is seriously trick with the flame roaring out the exhaust on deceleration. I have to admit that after watching the first race, I never took interest in the second... it was a forgone conclusion. My pick is Neil for Championship...
The Supersport however is Amazing!
It is so much better than the SBK has been for the last two years... there are 10 guys that are equal speed and it is so even and great racing... they should make this class two races and SBK one!
I got back home from Valencia at 9pm Monday night, just enough time to repack and grab 4 hours sleep and then up at 3.30am and off to Venice to catch a flight to Daytona for Bike week... that was an experience! It was not as good as previous years I was told, but it was still impressive. The weather was crap but my luck is often like that. I was there for the Daytona 200 which is the first round of the AMA SBK and also the Daytona Supercross, so it was a double banger.
I have never in my life seen so many Harley\'s... I\'m talking thousands of the noisy things, but impressive. What impressed me the most was the whole week right up until Sunday morning there were so many bikes and biker sluts.
I have to admit, like everyone in NZ, I have dreamt of going to America and being involved with the racing there, but after this event, I am a bit disappointed. I remember asking Ben what he thought of America when he got back after his first time there and he told me that it was all a show and real fake... well, he was right. The AMA is not what you think it to be... Don\'t get me wrong, the trucks are like nothing else in the racing world... I\'m talking US$500,000 units big money, but they let themselves down with their set up and simple things, like no floors under the awning, plastic chairs, no set up under the truck awning at all... it was a joke, but the worst was the sandwich board at the entry to the pits with hand written lists of who has qualified and who was in what group (I thought I was back at a NZ MX!)
Anyway, I was taken back with the difference to what I though it would be like and what was there, but all the same it was real cool. Chad Reed looks so good on the bike now... I worked with him here in 2001 and now to see him over there, the difference is huge, he is so smooth and strong. RC looks like a clubman riding in his first intermediate event... the guy is out of control... sits down everywhere, elbows down, getting kicked in the arse by the bike, the bike is doing what it wants, no style, just full gas! Where he makes up for speed is jumps and corners... he hits them both full gas and that is the amazing thing to watch, he just survives the bits in-between... somehow, the guy still wins and smoked Chad, I haven\'t worked out how yet, but either way, he is a legend and someone to see live!
I went looking for Daryl Hurley, but the team told me he had an operation on his shoulder the week before so he was at home. I was a bit bumbed not to see Hurman, it would have been great to catch up again.
The road racing was cool, to see them roll round the banking at 270km is a sight. In a car you have to be doing 70mph to just stay up there or you slid off it... that\'s cool! Bostrom was on the gas, but Miguel Duhamel is a legend there and out smarted them all. I have been told that I will be going back to the States for another 3 races this year, one of them being Laguna Seca, so that one I am really looking forward to!
I flew straight back to Italy after Daytona and was in the office for two days before back into the van and down to Barcelona for the last Moto GP test... this was extremely cool! The bikes this year are amazing... There is a new noise rule and the decibel rating has been raised so now half of the teams are running straight pips... Imagine a 250hp engine, 4 into 2, or 3 into 1 straight pipe, sounds seriously horn! The new Ducati sounds like a F1 car, incredible. The new starter systems this year are seriously trick. In the past they have always used a stationary motor with a go-cart wheel attached to the crankshaft which they put up against the back tire and use it to run start the bike on the stand. Well this year, they have two new types, one is a starter block that sits on the ground and has two rollers like on a Dyno and they are driven by a small electric motor that starts the bike like run starting it. The other is a big hand held starter motor assembly that plugs into the side of the engine like a big air gun... that one looks seriously mean... Aprilia have this type and a 3 into 1 exhaust that Haga runs... the thing would put a hard on a jelly fish!
I went to another test the weekend after, in Mugello and the Ducati test team was there... 330km per hour up the front straight... HORN MATERIAL!
