MotoGp Poll: Alice Grand Prix of France

As stated in my first poll, I don't want to ask who is going to win the next race because it will reduce too much the number of potential riders. Again, for every race I am going to suggest the first 7 riders in the championship as candidates to "miss the victory", and in case we have the same rider classifying 2nd twice consecutively, in the next poll we will try to guess the 3rd place rider's name. Scroll up and down to read the whole list and click on one of the choices. The poll will be immediately updated.

Round 4: Polini Grand Prix of China

Sunday, starting from the pole position Danny Pedrosa had a clear goal: destroy the competition. Who knows what he thought after the poor start that relegated him in 5th position at the end of the first lap while the Americans, Edwards and Hopkins were already trying to establish a gap from the rest of the group. My impression is that he didn’t want to take any chance of waiting too long and then being forced to recover at an unsustainable risky pace like in Turkey where in ended up crashing. Different race, different strategy: take the lead of the race and transform it in a competition against the time. If it worked in 250, it can work even in GP! Once Pedrosa passed Gibernau, he took him another 6 laps, or the first half of the race, to reach Hokpkins and Edwards. From that point on it was a matter of keeping an eye on the board displayed by his team at the finish line to maintain Hayden at a safe distance. The Kentuky kid spent the whole race chasing the Spaniard and when in the last few laps he tried to escalate the pace, Pedrosa went even faster in the following lap, to the point to set his best time right at the end of the race. Hayden was unuasually smooth going into the turns, but not enough to match Pedrosa’s corner speed.



The petit ex 250 world champion is definetely experiencing an advantage on the brakes, but size doesn’t matter when is compensated by skills. My claim is proved by Rossi’s performance.


A faulty bike and a lousy qualifying session put him in 13th place at the start of the race. A lot of credit to the Reigning Champion: his perfomance was absolutely astonishing. When he had to abandon the race because of a huge hole on his front Michelin tire he was in 5th position ready to attack Hopkins and Edwards for a podium finish. Now the situation with the M1 and the Michelin is at least embarassing. The Tavullia Champion has been doing miracles with the “package” offered to him, but for how long can he sustain this situation before cracking mentally?
A clap to Stoner! Not only crashed during the practice and the warm up: he run off in the grass during the race and he was still able at the end of the day he conquer a solid 5th place.
A boo to Melandri! That fight on the brakes with Valentino at the beginning of the race was unnecessary UNLESS he was obeying like a soldier to the “HONDA’s orders”.

Picture #1: source
Picture #2: source

MotoGp Poll: Grand Prix of China

In creating this poll I didn't want to ask who is going to win the next race because it will reduce too much the number of potential riders. Instead for every race I am going to suggest the first 7 riders in the championship as candidates to "miss the victory".
Scroll up and down to read the whole list and click on one of the choices. The poll will be immediately updated.

Casey Stoner and Freddie Spencer’s record: rectification

In my recent post I claimed that Casey Stoner was still in race to win the record of youngest rider winning a MotoGP race. Well, unfortunately I was wrong because as reported by motogp.com last Sunday Stoner had exactly the same age of Spencer (20 years and 196 days) at his first victory at the GP in Belgium at the Spa Francorchamps circuit. I didn’t check the motogp.com calculations but I am positive that they made a mistake with the year. They indicate 1992 but the correct date is July 4^th, 1982.

The following year, 1983, Freddie Spencer became the youngest World Grand Prix Champion in history.

Picture source

The versatility of the GSR-R engines

Last March DaimlerChrysler announced that sometime in 2006 or the latest in 2007 will start to distribute the Smart Fortwo, a really small and light car (microcar) very popular in Europe and in Japan. The engine range is composed of only a turbocharged three cylinder 700cc motors capable of 50 hp, more or less according to the configuration. In the Old Continent people have been zipping with the Smarts in the congested cities for years so it is easy to find them at cheap prices if they were involved in accidents. As you can imagine it must be easy to find savaged bikes too, so some passionate Spaniards have had the idea to spice up an old Smart with a Suzuki GSX-R 1000 engine with 200hp. Researching the net I was able to find another similar project, the Smartuki (article 1 and 2), much more refined from what I can depict from the pictures.

Round 3: Instabul Park Circuit - Turkey

“What a show (Che spettacolo)". This is the sentence printed on a shirt that Rossi had on right after a victory some time ago. Well, last Sunday we had to thank other riders for the show they put together in the gorgeous Turkish circuit. Melandri was the first one to pass under the checker flag but with him other people have won my heart and my mind. Let’s start from Melandri: his race was just perfect, saving the tires for a final where majestically out braked Stoner on the inside going into the final chicane . I am tempted to think that given the type of circuit he preferred to let Stoner to lead the last lap taking advantage of the draft and the objective difficulty in protecting the entrance of that critical turn .
The 21 year old Stoner, second at the end of the race, has won the helm of new star of the circuit. The Australian proved that the incredible performance was not accidental. The accident was instead losing this race after riding like a veteran. He knew the track and Melandri’s strategy so he pushed as much as he could to gain a couple of bikes on him going to the final hill, but his plan failed short with the complicity of a lack of extra speed versus Melandri. At this point everybody is betting on him being able to take Freddie Spencer’s record of youngest rider ever in winning a GP race.
Hayden’s third place has given him the lead of the MotoGP World Championship. A position built on 3 consecutives podium. His consistency will probably give him a new contract with Honda at the end of the year, but … with Pedrosa as first rider. His fans are going to hate me for this but I believe that Nicky has not built yet the skills to out bit consistently his competitors. Yes he is fast, but Sunday race, as others in the past, proved that when the bike starts sliding he goes back to his AMA days by backing out the bike and sliding in sideway to the entrance of the turn: technique spectacular to see but not efficient on GP because it seems to reduces too much the mid/exit turn speed. Also I notice his tendency to make out the gap accumulated at the exit of the turn with late-deep braking at the following turn with a compounding effect of the original problem. This is my modest opinion, but the time will tell if I was wrong.
4th place: Rossi. Valentino Sunday won the odds against him. Starting in 11th place he arrived very close to Hayden after overshooting a turn in lap 2 and wasting almost 3 seconds. With great focus and skills he was able to go back toward the front of the race and with a couple of other laps maybe he could have taken a podium position. Regardless he is only 12 points away from Hayden and still in position to win the championship. His ability to ride above the problems gives him the authority to criticize the chattering without becoming a whiner.
A round of applause to Elias, Vermuelen, Hopkins, Gibernau, Pedrosa, Capirossi and Nakano. Their final classification is not representative of their race performance but everything makes to think that they will be among the protagonists of this competitive championship.

Picture source

While waiting for the next GP

Next MotoGp in Turkey is going to be the 100th consecutive GP race in the top class for Valentino. Also with the victory in Qatar he matched Mick Doohan's record and if Sunday Rossi gets at least a 9th place, he is going to overtake Max Biaggi's record of total 2886 points accumulated during his career. It's important to notice that Valentino has never won in Turkey and last year he took 1.5 second from Melandri at his first MotoGP win.
While waiting for the event we can enjoy an old video of his that ends with the famous Lambretta riding style.

NESBA event in Pocono Raceway (PA)

The Brooklyn Crew gathered this past Saturday at the Pocono Raceway for the first event of the season. The day was organized by NESBA, the big but still very friendly club for which I have been a control rider for almost 6 years. Unusually warm for this time of the year we had a great day of riding and …dicing. This is "our backyard" and even though the past winter provided us with new bumps and potholes to deal with,still we were able to put together several hot laps during the middle part of the day. In the pictures besides me, Alex Matteucci on the blue Yamaha R6 555, there is Steven Lombardi, Suzuki 600 324, Giuseppe Uricchio, Frank Aluzzo, president and owner of United Watermains, Brooklyn (NY) and his son Vito.

Pics of the event at racedayphoto.com

Round two: Qatar

It’s not the first time that Valentino proves his mental skills, but in the last race in Qatar we witnessed the execution of a masterpiece. After crashing in Jerez and struggling in finding the solution to the chattering of his M1, it’s now clear that at the start of his second race of the season, he had a precise plan. The qualifications left him in the second row, behind Honda and Ducati, the two bikes that, as of now, are ruling the pre-race tests. Regardless, Rossi was aware that he could have had his opportunity once his tires had lost part of the grip because he would have had less chattering. Yes, a bike that slides and spins makes difficult to accelerate, but on these conditions Rossi is the master and the M1 probably becomes easier to ride than the competitor brands. So, given the conditions and variables he needed to stay in the front pack in the first part of the race to use his edge toward the end. And this is exactly what he did: starting from the 6^th position at the exit of the first turn he was already 3^rd. It took him 5 laps to pass Hayden and chase Stoner. The Australian talent was passed at the 9^th lap and then Rossi maintained the lead until the end with the exception of the 19^th lap when he left Hayden to take the lead, Capirossi to catch them and then to leave the two other competitors to dice while him running away to win his first race of the season. It’s interesting to notice that he crashed the competition with 14 laps at 1’57, against 9 for Hayden and 10 for Capirossi, and the bulk of them were realized in the last 2/3 of the race, when Hayden was riding in the 8s. Capirossi put a few laps right before the end in the 7s to get Hayden, but it’s not surprise given his quality of “sprinter”. To really appreciate what Rossi was able to accomplish we should look at the other Yamaha: Colin went in the 7s only once at the 3^rd lap and since then he became progressively slower finishing the last 2 laps with a time of 2’ 00.

My personal bet is that during the season we will have more races like in Qatar where Valentino’s superior riding and mental skills will offset the gap between Yamaha and the duo Honda – Ducati. In what seems to be a chess game, their riders had the advantage of the first move at the opening but Rossi’s strategy is clear: he will use all the tactics he knows to collect points and victories to prepare the final battle against the real challenger, that as of now is still to soon to call by name.

Picture source

New Road Racing School in Brooklyn, NY

The NYSBC web site reports that Robert Lombardi will be teaching the Sportbike Basic School. After a short presentation of Robert’s racing achievements, the article describes what to expect from these “one day” school events organized at the Pocono Raceaway track. At the exciting news, I am going to add that I have just formalized with Robert Lombardi my commitment in collaborating to his new challenge. By having worked together in the past, Rob and I have blended perfectly our skills and experience in teaching the foundamentals of road racing.


By combining a friendly atmosfere to a method that splits complex techniques in easy to learn steps, we let the rider to relax while enjoying his substantial improvements from one session to the other one.
Our program is aimed to challenge the traditional tradeoff between speed and safety, thrill and peril. Going faster doesn't mean to take automatically more risks if the improvement is the natural result of a better and more systematic execution of the act of riding.

I can not wait ….see ya.

Pictures: Robert Lombardi Suzuki # 382, Formula USA Solo Challenge National Champion 2005
Alex Matteucci, Yahama # 555, during a NESBA event as Control Rider