3 Must Watch Motorcycle Races this Weekend
This weekend’s American Superbike, World Superbike and MotoGP racing should offer compelling viewing for every race fan. Mat Madin competes for the last time on a road racer in American Superbike racing whilst battle is resumed in two feuds featuring Noriyuki Haga and Ben Spies in the World Superbike Championship and Valentino Rossi and his young team-mate Jorge Lorenzo in MotoGP. Light the blue touch paper and stand well back!
AMA American Superbike Championship
After announcing he was retiring from road racing at the end of the year while sitting out the Topeka round of the AMA American Superbike Championship due to safety concerns, Mladin returned to the series at VIR last month and wrapped up his 7th AMA #1 plate with a 2nd and 9th place.
The final round at New Jersey’s Motorsport Park will see Mladin’s Suzuki wearing the #1 plate for the 2009 season for the first and last time. Mat has struggled with his motivation now that his competition, one Ben Spies, has moved on to pastures new and clearly dislikes the current DMG run variant of the championship which sees the riders racing basically Superstock machinery. The key question is whether Mat will just ride around and take whatever positions come or will he go out in his last race meeting determined to blow everyone away and end the way he began – as a blistering fast road racer who wants only to win.
After double victories in Topeka, Team Foremost Ducati’s Larry Pegram struggled at VIR, running off the track twice in the first race to finish 10th but improving on the Sunday to claim 4th in the second race. The final round of the championship is an opportunity for Pegram to shine and try to secure even more support for a credible championship run in 2011. He will have to deal with an on form Josh Hayes though.
World Superbike Championship
At the World level of Superbike racing, the season long duel between Mladin’s former team-mate Ben Spies, and factory Xerox Ducati’s Noriyuki Haga will resume at the Nürburgring in Germany after a 5 week break. If you call breaking your wrist and fracturing your scapula lucky, then Haga has been very lucky to injure himself at a time when there was only one race spanning an 8 week period. After a brave set of races in Brno that saw him finish 8th and 6th as his team mate, Michel Fabrizio, took out Spies in the first race, Haga is still leading the championship as he has done all year but this time by only a scant 7 points with four rounds to go.
Nitro Nori now must simply finish ahead of Spies in the remaining races which will be a tall order since Spies has been unlucky to not win even more than the 10 races he has claimed victory in due to crashes and mechanical issues. Meanwhile Haga’s teammate, Michel Fabrizio, fresh from a ride on the Pramac MotoGP machine that didn’t go well returns to his 1198R having a numerical if somewhat unlikely shot at the title himself. Haga and Fabrizio have been testing over the last two days at Mugello which has given Haga an opportunity to get back up to speed on track and test out his fitness following his recovery from injury.
Noriyuki Haga (1st in championship, 326 points):- “I got a great result at Nürburgring last year and hope to be able to do the same again this time around. It’s a really nice track though last year was pretty wet for race day which made things interesting! Anyway I’m feeling much stronger than I was at Brno and, after a relaxing holiday back home in Japan, I’m totally ready to continue the fight for the world title.”
Michel Fabrizio (3rd in championship, 273 points):- “Brno didn’t go to plan and so in the last four races, starting at Nürburgring, I really need to make up points, with the aim to be on the podium every weekend. I’m in good shape and after the long break I’m more than ready to get back on the bike and try to maintain my recent run of podiums.”
Source: Ducati Press Release
Ben Spies (2nd in championship, 319 points):- “It has been great to have some time out to relax at home in the US”, said Ben Spies. “I’m fully recharged and really excited about getting stuck into some more racing. We’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain so I’m just going to keep on giving it 100% and see what we can do to catch Nori this weekend.”
Source: Yamaha Press Release
MotoGP Championship
After crashing out twice in a row in straight fights with his team-mate Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo finally turned the tables on the championship points leader at last weekend’s Indy MotoGP in the USA as it was Rossi who blinked and lost the front after getting offline. For Ducati it was a good weekend too. With Casey Stoner still away resting, Nicky Hayden stood on the podium for the first time this year and will be buoyed by the experience as he prepares for this weekends race at Misano in the Republic of San Marino.
There has been no announcement by Ducati of a Hayden signing for 2010 despite Ducati’s option expiring on September 1st. So once again Hayden must ride at Misano as if his job depends on it because it does. Ducati has made no secret of it’s disappointment in his performance this season and is actively shopping his ride around the paddock.
Temporary team-mate, Mika Kallio, finished an okay 8th at Indy but must do better still if he is to put his hat in the ring for a factory rather than a satellite ride next year. Aleix Espargaro debuted well in 13th place standing in on Kallio’s Pramac machine and it will be interesting to see if he can progress from there at Misano. Niccolo Canepa qualified well ant Indy in 8th position but then had a mechanical DNF in the race.
In any event most of the fireworks will be at the front with Rossi going toe to toe with Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa looking to make amends for crashing out of the lead in the race after leading every practice session. I can’t wait!
Try These Related Posts:
