MotoGp Poll: Gran Premio de la Comunitat Valenciana

The championship has already been assigned to Stoner, the true revelation of the season but, last year, we had the fingers crossed until the last race with Rossi and Hayden fighting head to head, single point to single point until the end, until Valencia where the Doctor low-sided serving the championship to Hayden on a silver plate. That race was majestically won by Bayliss in front a strong Capirossi, someone who was supposed to guarantee the results for the Ducati Team in 2007 while letting the young Stoner to acclimate himself to the rude Italian horse. Well, all of us know how things have gone …
Sunday race doesn’t have any particular importance if not for the racing numbers well listed by Motogp.com. Among the different records, I would point out that another win by the Aussie, the eleventh one, it would elevate him at the level of Rossi and Agostini, and right behind Mick Doohan’s 12 victories.
Have said that let’s pick the second rider on the podium out of the first seven in the MotoGp World Championship! My pick is Stoner behind Rossi: I hope for an epical battle between the Italian and the Aussie and not their tires or bikes, just the two men.

Norick Abe: another victim of the U-Turn killer

How many riders have lost their lives because of a vehicle making the ominous U-Turn? I know too many but nobody as famous as Norick Abe. Yes, it’s another champion that lives us in a tragic and unexpected way, far from the circuits where he used to challenge destiny and physics of the fields along with his competitors. He died in the far-west of today’s city roads where driving is everything else except a technical discipline. The truck driver who took away Abe's life claimed that he made the U-turn after realizing that he was going in the wrong direction … Another time it was the view of a parking spot available on the other side of the avenue or because the driver wanted to drop the kids in front the school, or because the cub driver was looking for the building with even #s, those on the other side of the street. How many explanation or justifications have we heard over the years? I drive cars, ride motorcycles and road bicycles and you cannot imagine how many U-Turns I count every day in Brooklyn, but in all these year I have never seen a cop to give a ticket for someone making a U-Turn. Here in NYC it’s common if not well accepted: even the old and big American cars had incredible power steering, something that it allowed everybody to make a U-Turn spinning a finger against one of the bars of the steering wheel. Incredibly no one legislator in this country has proposed a tougher stance again the ominous maneuver, but then I am not surprised because with the exception of Arnold Schwarzenegger who was caught riding an Harley Davidson (and crashing without driver license), nobody else rides motorcycles when they can seat in their huge and black SUV s.
I know … I am raging while now it’s time to pray.

Rest In Peace Abe


Picture source