MotoGP Off-Season Thread

[kevin 714]

the days of hard partying racers is long gone. if you arent 100% commited in every aspect of your life, without exception, you arent beating guys like dani and jorge. you arent beating rossi, who may be one of the most talented and gifted riders of all time, who regonizes he needs to work his ass off just to stay with them. you arent beating guys like marquez, who were basically trained from youth to be a world champion, and has a focus and fire that ben simply isnt matching. look how hard jorge worked last year, how he rose to the occasion after stoner wiped the field. look how he was pounding laps in the sepang heat durring testing, riding as much as he could. working harder than nayone. hell, look how a little outside distraction was able to derail casey. in any other era, casey would have won the title last year even with all those issues. but against the onslaught of the spanish, even he couldn't overcome that.

the bikes are harder to ride, take much more focus, the season longer, the politics more intertwined than ever before, and the talent starting younger than ever before. if you cant master all of those things...

as you said, how you handle it, is what decides your character. if you dont recognize what you need to do, then you will not succeed. ben has the talent...whether he can come nack form last year? I dont know, I hope he does, hes really the last american hope for a long time, a LONG TIME. but ben is starting as low as he can be, injured on a satelite ducati...ug

 

[fawndog]

Yep, look at Hopper now

 

[sidewazzz]

yep. exactly. you could call last year a fluke because jorge got lucky when stoner was injured, then dani got taken out by hector barbera. you could call a lot of rossi's titles flukes, not only because of luck, but because of a serious lack of talent on the grid

being a champion is the perfect storm of preparation, skill and luck. i dont think its fair to take anything away from the champs.

PLEASE>PLEASE stoping saying shit like that. Lack of talent in GP is crazy to say, every once in a great while (like 1-1,000,000,000) some god gifted athlete comes along and dominates. Like makes the best look average, this happens in every sport. I think we are lucky to have Stoner, Dani, Jorge, Rossi on the same grid for a bit.

You every see Ricky Carmicheal race? Holy shit it was amazing, then came along James Stewart. I remember covering Hangtown for Fox racing back in... 2007 or something. Some clown asked JS in the post race interview "if the lack of talent in the field was why he was able to lap up to the 5th spot". Lets just say what JS said didn't leave that room and that media guy never came back.


ZOOG has been covered to the moon and back. Winning a championship takes a bit of luck and bad luck for others but it also takes a bit of consistancy.

Yes two other riders had more wins than hayden & another had the same amount (2)

Yes it was the lowest point total to EVER win the ship

Yes Hayden had more luck then one would ever imagine

Yes Edwards gave Hayden the win at Assen

But at the end of the year, he had the most points. Was he the best rider on the grid? You could argue yes with little ammo and you can surely argue yes with a boat load of facts. That's all I will say about ZOOG

 

[sidewazzz]

"I didn't come here to save ZOOG from you....I came here to save you from ZOOG."

That made me choke on my beer

 

[clutchslip]

the days of hard partying racers is long gone. if you arent 100% commited in every aspect of your life......blah, blah,

So you agree that where you live has nothing to do with your success in any sport, or not? How do you know how all racers live? You don't. I only brought up Sheene as an example of someone who did not match YOUR dedicated definition and still was fast. Don't make assumption based on your experience of life. Mick Jagger can still out perform guys half his age, and he has done more drugs than god. Bottom line, living in Como has nothing to do with Spies' success.

 

[kevin 714]

So you agree that where you live has nothing to do with your success in any sport, or not? How do you know how all racers live? You don't. I only brought up Sheene as an example of someone who did not match YOUR dedicated definition and still was fast. Don't make assumption based on your experience of life. Mick Jagger can still out perform guys half his age, and he has done more drugs than god. Bottom line, living in Como has nothing to do with Spies' success.

All I was doing was voicing my opinion, nothing more nothing less. I have mine, you have yours. thats my last interaction with you on the topic

edited for kevin 714 faggotry

 

[JO EBRMC]

PLEASE>PLEASE stoping saying shit like that. Lack of talent in GP is crazy to say, every once in a great while (like 1-1,000,000,000) some god gifted athlete comes along and dominates. Like makes the best look average, this happens in every sport. I think we are lucky to have Stoner, Dani, Jorge, Rossi on the same grid for a bit.

I think tat's a matter of perspective and I can't really make the call on it. Was there a dearth of talent after the mid-90s that Rossi took advantage of (clearly he was vastly superior to any rider since then with the possible exception of Doohan) or are we in a period of unbelievable coincidence with a multitude of superhuman riders?

I'm guessing we won't know for some time.

It's simpler than that: when you win the championship only because the guy leading it (both in points and wins) crashes out in the last race, that's a fluke.

 

[sidewazzz]

I think tat's a matter of perspective and I can't really make the call on it. Was there a dearth of talent after the mid-90s that Rossi took advantage of (clearly he was vastly superior to any rider since then with the possible exception of Doohan) or are we in a period of unbelievable coincidence with a multitude of superhuman riders?

I'm guessing we won't know for some time.

All domination comes to an end. Some people come into any game and make it look like others have been playing it wrong eventually player learn and adapt. Before you know it the game has improved overall. I sure believe rossi started the transition and the much younger guys noticed. That's why it was really years and before anyone came along. I think Stoner was that next guy to make the tranformation again and show a new way to ride but with his leaving... We are left with mystery. The guy clearly rode much more different than all the riders.

 

[DaveT319]

There is nothing that wins a MotoGP championship called a fluke. I don't see how you can even think that really.

Nicky rode his butt off and indeed got lucky, but some luck figures into a lot of championships. KR JR had some luck too.. Many guys have.

I hear what you're saying, but in the case of Hayden it just seems like a fluke to me. You can call it luck, but to me it's deeper than that:
-The guy only won 2 races that year; Rossi won 5.
-They had the same amount of podiums (10).
-Going into the last race, Rossi led by 8 points; because of a crash he only scored 3 points while Hayden got 16.
-In the 990/800/1000 era, no champion has ever won less than 6 in a season.
-Going back 25 years, no champion had ever won less than 3 (1992).
-In those same 25 years, only twice had the champion won fewer races than a competitor ('89 & 92); in each of those, the one with more wins had at least 4 DNFs.

Again, I think that makes it a fluke. In fact, I would say the '92 championship for Rainey and even the '89 championship for Lawson were flukes as well. But I didn't know about those until I started doing the research (haven't been following motorcycle racing that long).

 

[DaveT319]

I think Stoner was that next guy to make the tranformation again and show a new way to ride but with his leaving... We are left with mystery. The guy clearly rode much more different than all the riders.

I believe Stoner could have been the greatest ever - better than Rossi - if he had been on a quality machine from the beginning, and hadn't retired after last year. Another 10 years on Hondas or Yamahas, I think he could have surpassed Rossi. As you said, "we are left with mystery"; we'll never know just how great he might have been.

 

[Spec-ECU]

I hear what you're saying, but...

To finish First, you must first finish.

 

[Mikeeh76]

in the end, racing is almost here.
and finally can get away from bench racing

 

[Kurosaki]

You don't fluke a whole season, Christ. All the planets might have been aligned and voodoo dolls may or may not have been involved but how do you call it a fluke when he was riding the best bike on the grid?

A fluke is a CRT bike winning a flag to flag race with lots of crashes and DNFs.

 

[Mikeeh76]

A fluke is a CRT bike winning a flag to flag race with lots of crashes and DNFs.

 

[sidewazzz]

A fluke is a CRT bike winning a flag to flag race with lots of crashes and DNFs.

Thats a bigger possiblity than you think... just last year a CRT bike lead the way during a rain race for a few laps.

When has ANYONE other than Dani, Jorge, Rossi, Stoner or Spies lead a race?

 

[Kurosaki]

Thats a bigger possiblity than you think... just last year a CRT bike lead the way during a rain race for a few laps.
When has ANYONE other than Dani, Jorge, Rossi, Stoner or Spies lead a race?

Yes, I know. That's why I said it.

 

[sidewazzz]

Yes, I know. That's why I said it.

Well at That point a crt bike has a better chance at winning than a sat bike. So a sat bike winning would be a fluke. A crt bike would be chance.

Now that I think about it I believe spies was the last sat rider to lead any laps and that was indy back in 09 (?)...meh

 

[Zerox]

When has ANYONE other than Dani, Jorge, Rossi, Stoner or Spies lead a race?

Agostini?

 

[clutchslip]

W
Now that I think about it I believe spies was the last sat rider to lead any laps and that was indy back in 09 (?)...meh

I am sure the Sic-Man lead at Jerez in '11. (I didn't search for others, though.)

Miss ya' Marco!!!

 

[firstbuell]

Agostini?

you mean that late '60s/early '70s steamrollin' Yur-ri-pee-un movie star?

the one whom, with the exception of Hailwood [& occasionally Read or Pasolini], won Daytona & flat OWNED 350GP & 500GP, year after year?