Re: KPaul the Motorcycle prophet and Mladin fan
KPaul, you obviously did not watch the same WSB race I did. Mladin was being passed in the CORNERS due to his inability to select and hold a tight line. Even the guys on last year's Duc waxed him, usually in turns 3 and 5. That's got not his bike's fault, it's his. If his bike were so inferior to the steel framed, single-sided-swingarmed, decade-old-design Vtwin, why didn't said Vtwins blast by him on the straight where it would have been less challenging?
Bottom line is that you take the clear HP advantage away from Mladin and you're left with a mediocre pro racer. You give EBoz Mladin's bike and you'd have EBoz domination.
Why do you think Mladin inked his multi-year deal w/ Suzuki recently instead of waiting until AFTER he's crowned AMA champ? That doesn't make much sense if you want to negotiate from strength, right? In his case, even if he wins the championship, he knows that he'll never have a stronger case than right now. By mid-season next year he'll have Kwak, Honda, Yamaha, and perhaps another MFGR breathing down his neck when they begin to really dial in their bikes. And then it'll be back to the same old "I'm Mat and my bike's a lump of blubber" whining from him.
As far as the obviously inferior Dunlop goes, there were Duc guys out there on the same Dunlump tires who had no problems. Mladin never saw a tire he didn't waste in the first half of the race. Telling him to conserve his tire is futile and is one of the main reasons he's an overrated pilot.
Oh, and BTW, why did Yates not burn up the course against these panty-waist Ducati riders? I mean, let's be honest, if you watch other WSB races, Lavillia's GSXR is not at a massive HP deficit to the Duc, and Laguna is not a big HP track. So where were the AMA guys?
EBoz was the only AMA guy capable of really running with this WSB crew, that is until Yates had to try to win the race on the second turn. All in all, a pretty sad showing from the AMA Suzi jaggoffs.