They are amazing, getting pretty close to the Superbike times even. Comparisons to last year may not be too meaningful, though, because the have changed the two chicanes (where they had the fatality last year). I don't have any guess what impact that has on times.
RoadracingWorld and AMASuperbikes have great websites (and RRW's print rag is great too). As their titles suggest, their main focus is road racing, but they do have some other content as well.
MO is a much more general interest e-zine. It has a lot more tests and general interest content (RRWs print rag does quite a few sportbike tests, but they usually are not available on-line until about a month after the print issue is released).
Virtually every e-zine out there uses the approach of including links to other sites. As a good example, I cite slate.com -- MSNs magazine. Virtually every article includes links to other sites. This is not much different from your local print newspaper, which picks up stories and analysis from AP, UPI, Reuters, NY Times, Washington Post and many other sources.
If you are a hard core roadracing fan like I am, you probably already regularly check in with sites such as RRW's, AMASuperbike, MotoGP.com etc. For the more casual, fan, it is great to have someone post the more interesting bits here.
I think MO is clearly the best general interest motorcycle site out there. The MotorcycleDaily site usually posts inane speculation as hot news and most of the sites run by the print guys are largely intended to get you to buy the magazine -- that is how they pay their bills.
Personally, I would prefer to pay even more and have MO add to their staff so that they could provide more original content, but I am not sure that the market is there at this time.
From a recent (2/5/03) roadracingworld.com posting:
>>Wednesdays testers rode the entire day on what some believe will be the layout AMA will race on in April with a tighter chicane preceding the decreasing-radius, right-hand turn nine and a more open turn 10/11 chicane at the beginning of the infield straightaway.
"Obviously, they changed it after the fatality last year," said Mladin of the tighter chicane before turn nine. "It seems better, but how can you tell in this wind? Its alright except for all the cones and stuff. Ive had about 10 cones (lying) in front of me already."
Since the last AMA team test at California Speedway in early January, the overly tall curbing on riders left exiting the turn 10/11 chicane has been ground down, according to Ducati Austins Anthony Gobert.
"Thats a lot better. They took that right out; they knocked it down," said Anthony Gobert.
"They swapped chicanes," said Yamahas Aaron Gobert. "The one that was fast is slow now, where it was slow, its fast now."
"Its a ****hole!" was Dream Team Ducati Racings Larry Pegrams first impression of the infield road course at California Speedway. "Its a *****-poor excuse for a racetrack when its such a nice facility. They could have such a good track here, but its just a straight, then a chicane, then a straight, then another chicane."<<
Re: Finally Mladin has fair chance against V-Twins
Not to mention the fact that EBoz on his ancient 750 Kwacker came within a whisker of beating Nicky's RC51.
I think that we are likely to see that each configuration (VTwins, 750 4s and 1000 4s) will shine at certain tracks, and struggle at others. Fontana is generally considered a horsepower track, so it is impressive that the Ducati is as close as it has been.
It will be really interesting to see how the big 4s do with tire life at race distances.
My money says that the championship will come down to EBoz vs BBoz, with GoShow as a possible. I'll have to give Mladin and Yates better odds than I would have previously though.
I am ready for the season to start so we can start commenting on what actually happened rather than speculating (based on the slightest thread of data) on what will happen.
In case I have forgotten to mention it, I (and I am sure, many other MOtards) really appreciate all the posts you have put up here. The site is much better since you started posting regularly.
Sure, it would be nice if they would put you (or better yet, ME) on the payroll and sent us out to report on the tests and races first hand, and to do a bunch of road tests in Spain, etc, but since that ain't gonna happen, we will settle for getting this news second hand.
I understand -- I also wish for more commentary and analysis. In the past, more of the submissions had that kind of substance, but they were relatively few and far between. In response to feedback on this board, they started picking up a lot more posts like this, many submitted by us, or by LongRide (who is one of us, but who was given access to post articles directly) to supplement the more in-depth analysis from John, Sean etc. The substance and analysis tends to come from the commentary and analysis (and sometimes pure drivel) that we all add.
Probably one reason why so many of us tend to pile on when someone criticizes is that we feel it is OUR site, because so much of it is OUR contribution. We tend to take it kinda personally.
I dunno, but it might not be the slam dunk you expect. I don't know specifically about Mladin, and obviously, I don't know how good you are, but a lot of roadracers DO ride mountainbikes and some are very serious -- I believe that both EBoz and Boz are examples. A lot of the European GP racers list mountainbiking as one of their favorite hobbies.
A lot of others ride road bikes seriously. Troy Bayliss competes seriously in the offseason and has stated that he may race bicycles professionally once he retires from cycles. Colin Edwards sometimes trains with fellow Texan Lance Armstrong.
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