House
Rude Awakener
Agreed.
Not agreed. Roberts used 250GP to develop riders for the first time in 1987 with Kocinski, and the 250 class survived for another 16 years pretty much unchanged; Kurtis Roberts raced in it for Erion a decade after Special K. Two stroke racing in the AMA had almost nothing to do with what Roberts was doing in GP. He considered the series to be too screwed up and the tracks too unsafe, at least for his offspring. That's why in 1991 Rainey's Otsuko 250 team with Junior raced in WERA and not the AMA.
Roberts' really became a man out of time eventually, he wasn't a guy who fit easily into the role of a factory contractor who also had to be beholding to big sponsors, and the move that created the Evil Empire, nicking Marlboro from Agostini and taking over as the factory Yamaha team, ultimately was the beginning of the end. When he went his own way I think he made two critical errors, thinking he could get enough sponsorship money to keep his program going, and thinking he could build his own motor and actually win with it. That all got worse with the change to four strokes, of course. But I doubt he was ever foolish enough to think he could run a soup-to-nuts world-class operation based on American money.
I think that's more than a bit contrived. A look at the AMA record book shows that the series never ran 125s as a championship that I can see. F1 was dumped when there was basically no equipment to run in it, Honda had stopped building RS500s, the TZ750s were a decade old, and much of the field was privateer superbikes - no one can seriously fault the AMA for promoting SB to the premier class. And the addition of SSport was a rousing success, and equally great move. But 250GP was kept on as the #2 professional class all through the '90s.
American guys who came up in the '70s had to ride 250s, right, that was the Novice route to a professional license? So Mamola, Spencer, Lawson did that. Rainey only got on a 250 because Roberts put him there, after his first SB championship. Schwantz never rode a 250 to my knowledge (well, he did do one 250 race, at Laguna in '86). I'm not aware of any of the top Aussies racing 250s, other than the 250 street production bikes.
I have serious doubts about that, it just doesn't hold together. Kocinski has said that he talked about it all well after things cooled down, and Kenny told him it wasn't his decision. That's JK, so you believe what you want. But KR had spent six years developing the guy, three championships in AMA 250, a championship year in GP 250, and two generally-successful learning years in 500. I just can't see Roberts deciding to flush all that, especially with Rainey nearing the end, and he certainly knew what he had with JK long before then.
On the other hand, Marlboro had supported Ago when he was racing for Yamaha at the end of his career, they supported him with his team before it became the factory team, they supported Cadalora when he won his 125 championship in '86, and they supported him for four years while running for Ago in 250, even after they pulled support from Ago's 500 team after the disaster of '89. Marlboro was fine supporting Roberts when he had Rainey and was winning championships, but he was gone and Kocinski wasn't exactly certain to step up to that level. And of course some of JK's behavior must have concerned Marlboro as well (although they apparently tolerated uneven behavior by Italian Cadalora). After Cadalora left in '95 they insisted on Bayle, sponsored by Philip Morris in Chesterfield colors at Aprilia in 250, and also got Capirossi with Rainey, after they had supported him with Pileri Honda since 125 as well. When Loris left for Aprilia after '96 they encouraged Rainey to go after Biaggi, but he went to Kanemoto Honda 250 instead - in Marboro colors, and did so apparently because by then Marlboro was telling him to go there (this according to Rainey's book).
I think sponsor behavior changed in the early '90s. The major sponsor game really only started in 500 in the '80s, with tobacco giants Marlboro, Lucky Strike and Rothmans, plus secondary players like Gauloises and HB Int'l. Gauloises was really the pattern for satellite team sponsors, a French product supporting a French team running French riders, and that expanded with the arrival of Pons and Garriga in '90, supported by Campsa and Ducados. The shift with major sponsors that started around the same time Dorna arrived seems to have more to do with target marketing as much as anything, growing sophistication in the advertising process. The watershed change that occurred was sponsors then cared more about a passport than a winning resume, which is what drove 250 Euros into factory seats, even if they couldn't deliver championships. That in turn gave us five years of Doohan domination, in my opinion.
Not as such, they'd probably prefer riders a bit more... normal. But they also don't do anything to help larger (in GP terms) riders either, to level the playing field, because they do not view it as in their interest to handicap the little guys, who are pretty much what they wanted - home-grown Europeans, mostly from their core markets of Spain and Italy. That's what it all comes back to, the desire to develop riders within the series and most especially European winners. 15 years ago I doubt they had any thought that these guys would eventually weigh 125 pounds or so, but that's a "price" they're willing to pay, because it's what they always wanted. This year so far every race has been won by either an Italian or a Spaniard, and they hold the top four positions in the championship - who cares if the race winners average 130 pounds and perhaps wouldn't do all that winning on superbikes? It's not like their core fanbase cares, or maybe even notices.
World championship racing has been in alignment with the national championships - the problem with GP is that it has been the WSB series and not them. And you're right, GP can't afford to get too isolated, that's really what happened when the series retreated to Spain, Italy and Japan with their archaic two strokes in the mid-late '90s. MotoGP saved them, and it wasn't just the bikes, it was also that top guys from the SB world moved over as well, so it at least looked like a true world championship again. But this rampant midgetry and 250 promotion and 800cc electronically-controlled bikes stuff is quickly eroding that superior position, and it may be that only the Phlegminis' Mussolini-like incompetence and Italian nationalism is saving them to this point. Moto2 was a massive step in the right direction - which is exactly why I fear they will end up undoing that...
Just three more races and they get to enlarge those damned restrictors as well...