Brno race - POTENTIAL SPOILERS

[Possible spoilers in followups]

Where did that come from?

 

Six pairs of lucky underpants worn at once.

 

Capirossi in a very inspired performance. Several people started strong, but
couldn't quite hold it up.

Most notable was the battle for second between Rossi and Pedrosa. These two
don't ride well along each other, and it's probably only a matter of time
until they crash. One move reminsiced me of the one that sent Biaggi one a
few years ago, were someone had a line that swept in from the outside into
Biaggi's line. Hm. Perhaps we see a few paralels in riding style between
Pedrosa and Biaggi, masters of the 250cc clean line, clashing with the
somewhat more brtual approach some of the other top category riders take on
occasion, braking deeper and then going for a line towards the inside that
allows them to apply power to make up for lost corner speed. Not a good mix,
and predictably Rossi nearly swept Pedrosa's front, on Pedrosa nearly took
Rossi's rear out, depending on where your loyalties may lie. In the end,
Pedrosa made a predictable mistake and lost out on Rossi.

Hayden had a good start and looked like he'd be a shoe-in for the podium,
but started to fade and finished a disappointing 9th. He very maturely
stated in a post-race interview he made some wrong decisions in his setup,
blamed himself, and promised to come back strong. Champion's attitude,
they're not going to crack him mentally.

Entertaining fight -which was highlighted way too little- between Roberts,
Melandri and Stoner for 4th. Roberts' good q this time translated into a 4th
place, second best Honda, etc etc. Things are looking good for the Roberts
team. Makes one wonder what would happen if eventually the Roberts' team
chassis expertise was matched with full-blown factory top spec Honda engines
and support.

Melandri and Stoner finish 5th and 6th, this time Stoner keeps it together
and finishes in what must be regarded as a great result for any rookie in a
novice privateer MGP team, but somehow with Stoner expectations have already
built up to the point where it amazingly simply seems a decent result for
him. It is a competitive grid alright.

Hopkins and Nakano follow.

Now to the Edwards thing, once again he comes in what must be a very
disappointing 10th. However, I just don't believe he no longer is one of the
better riders in the grid, unable to come close to podium finishes
henceforth. I suppose this means that he just showcases where the Yamaha
truly ranks as a competitive machine this season. I conetinue to hang on to
my theory that Rossi's pre-season distractions and lack of focus resulted in
the Yamaha going astray, and thus I think that all in all Rossi is where he
deserves to be. Winning a title is a combination of many on track and off
track things, and this year Rossi failed the grade when it came to preparing
for the season.

....pablo

 

Very surprised at Hayden today after getting off well i fully expected
him on the podium today,but he did seem to be scrutinizing his tyres
at the end of the race,but that could of been a bit if sandbagging,who
knows
maybe your right and the pressure was telling.If all his main rivals
have no dnf's for the rest of the season i fear he may wilt a la
Bayliss under
the pressure,i've always sensed a bit of nervy there,as in compared to
Rossi
Ped,Capo et al.and the pressure amounting will be huge.
There was an interview with a Honda top brass before the race,and he
implieed
no team orders at that time,and any decision on that would be left to
Pedrosa
who they would expect natrually to comply if out of the title race.So
no change
there.Lets just hope for Nickys sake theres no team orders for him to
assist Danni at the last race of the season!
Must add shocking coverage of the race today,very disappointed.
we missed an epic battle for fourth with constant positional change
including championship
leader,and we saw a nano second of it.Was screaming at the freakin tv
to switch to
them and they stayed on Danni falling back from Rossi,and Loris miles
in front,
when possibly the best fight of the season was reaching climax.
Absolute shite.

 

Totally agree with the above.You may have something with a tv coverage
euromed conspiracy,i'll admit that.Another small annoyance when they
switch
the results off after about 8th comes in,as if the rest of the field
doesnt matter.
Cant be long before multi cam option,or rider watch as in the football
coverage.

 

as opposed to US coverage, where they will not cover events unless a US
athlete wins or a well-known US athlete stands a chance of winning. Look at
the disgraceful coverage of the Olympics in the US every for years if you
doubt that...

It beyond amazes me someone in the USA with an IQ over 75 would fall for
this shit, really. Wait a sec, let us collectively guess why they showed
coverage of the Laguna Seca GP with a one week delay, pimping the Hayden
legend all the way in the process, and trying to make it look like it was
all happening live for the USA backyard... oh, conspiracies, hey?

At least they show the fucking races live in Europe on public TV before it's
established who'll win.

....pablo

 

I'll admitt i'm being picky
live on two channels here,if you got satellite as well.Plus live
coverage of practice
and qualifying too,with plenty of repeats through the week also.
just seems strange that the climax should be spoilt by ridiculous
direction from
whoevers producing it.
I'm sure most countries have a slight bias though when it comes to the
Olympics
and such events.Any event Britain is in will get over hyped just the
same here.
you should see the state we get in when we have a chance of the ladies
curling gold!
And as for Eddie The Eagle Edwards.....
I dont see too much wrong with a country focusing on its own.

 

I actually do when I just want to see the best events with the best athletes
covered. I take huge exception to coverage that prioritizes based on who
wins what, as opposed to what is the biggest event. case in point, when a
Greek athlete won the 200m, the event wasn't shown on US prime television,
it was browaed through at a total off time... disgraceful, I thought. I
honestly felt the same way about the delayed Laguna coverage, as good as I
thought the fact was that the event got prime time coverage. For the record,
track and field and MotoGP is shown in Spain live no matter what, and the
100m and 200m sprints are highlighted as top events even though no Spaniard
in history has ever won them. Just like the 500cc races were shown live,
always, even when no Spaniards even competed or stood a hope on hell of
winning back in the late 70s and 80s, and were covered as the top event.

So when people talk abou the "biased coverage"... or a biased public...
bullshit. Europe has a long history of watching the event live, by the
100,000s... irrespective of who wins. And when people exalt the greatness of
AMA.. remind me how many people attend the events live...

Why does it always come down to these garbage arguments about bias and bla
bla bla? Again, all the USA has got to do is cough up some interest and some
fucking sponsors. Sadly, those who care in the US represent such a minority
that US sponsors don't bother to cater to them, or expect them to simply
follow the events in Europe and be happy with that. Hardly Europe's fault.

As far as race coverage goes, they tend to focus on the front too much,
irrespective of nationalities. And perhaps someone can tell us why the 250cc
and 125cc races are often omitted in US coverage. And let us know whether
they truly think it'd be the same if some young hotshot got recruited into
the Red Bull development team, eh?

....pablo

 

I thought that being able to go to the limits of traction, but no
further, was a sign of a good rider. Rossi does this frequently does he
not? I can't remember the race, but right at the start Rossi was about
5th or so, and had a "moment" which the commentators said would have
been a DNF if it wasn't Rossi having it.

 

dude, USGP was shown *live*
it was rebroadcast a week later (and once or twice in between)

Bruce

 

The first 10 laps I must've seen Pedrosa slide the front 4X.
He recovers amazingly. He seemed to ride better later in the race. I
think he was REALLY pushing to get up to Rossi. Then he settled in.

--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
71 Kawi H1
05 Infant

 

Heh....we get Speed, and they do live coverage of some of the AMA races,
and the USGP. We get F1 Live on Speed too, but MotoGP, is rarely live
on Speed. I think Brno might have been a live broadcast, it was on at
8am Pacific time. We also get WSBK and WSS.
The USGP/ABC repeat was basically a Honda commercial.

There's a lot of Motocross action on TV in the USA.
ESPN, OLN, ABC, etc all show Supercross, MotoX, and Freestyle.
I think the dirtbike market over here is pretty big.



--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
71 Kawi H1
05 Infant

 

So what you're saying is that the only MotoGP shown live on a major US
channel was the one MotoGP that took place in the USA and was won by a USA
rider? Not a very strong point for USA networks' utter neutrality, you'll
agree...

Note that, it was shown live on a specialized cable channel, SpeedTV. In
Spain, every MotoGP is shown live on the top air channels everybody gets to
see. There's a difference right there.

 

But bigger than the sportsbike market?

 

Yeah I regularly see families trailing 4 or 5 dirtbikes into/out of
Seattle. Cheap fun for the kiddies. I can't wait till my toddler can
get on a dirtbike.


--
Andrew
00 Daytona
00 Speed Triple
71 Kawi H1
05 Infant

 

As far as I know, the Eurosport satellite footprint doesn't reach North
America. I don't know how far east it goes or how hard/expensive it would be
to re-aim it.


Carl
Contributing to the NG in a positive manner

 

You don't see many 8 year olds on sportbikes.

 

who won was a non-issue. they scheduled it live before they knew who won.

and yes it is the only live GP I know of (time zone differneces eh?)
although the BRNO this weekend was broadcast early so I guess it might
have been live.

But before you go off on some tirade about how the US is bigoted against
foreign blah blah blah, also not that very few AMA races are live either
and there is no timezone problems like most of the GP rounds.
The truth is that the US Public isn't that interested in MC racing,
so it doesn't get the broadcast exposure.

people here like football, baseball, nascar - all of which get plenty of
time both live and ancillary shows.

then live there for your own happiness.

Bruce

 

Among my entire circle in CA (and I know a lot of people) only 1 family has
a dirtbike. I have met far fewer people with dirtbikes than sportsbikes.
This probably distorts my perception, since I am well aware MotoX is a big
sport. But it'd be interesting to see market size studies.

This would be awesome:

http://www.packagedfacts.com/produc...3&kw=&CatReturnURL=&SearchReturnURL=&view=abs

 

It could just be a factor related to whom you hang out with if you hang out
with a lot of sportbike people.

There's gotta be a site showing sales figures somewhere on the web for free.