By Oldgit on Sunday, September 29, 2002 - 06:38 am:

Well done Colin Edwards, congratulations you Yanks,top racer. 

By Prilliant on Sunday, September 29, 2002 - 08:54 am:

How good was race 2. Gotta feel sorry for Bayliss. I'm sure he must've thought it was all over half way through the season.  

By Befbever on Sunday, September 29, 2002 - 10:26 am:

I'm making it my New Year's resolution to only watch the final race of the season from now on. It's the only one worth watching!

J/K!!!!! 

By No7flanker on Sunday, September 29, 2002 - 11:11 am:

hey there's always formula one  

By Andyjfalco on Sunday, September 29, 2002 - 03:17 pm:

I LOVE formula 1.
No realy, It's sooooooo gooood I'm nodddding offffff

Colin Edwards fully deserves the title, I fell very sorry for poor old Troy, 14 wins and no title?
GUTTED  

By Maloosik on Sunday, September 29, 2002 - 04:58 pm:

Hey you bloody race fans over there!! I'm just passing time until the race is on over here, and shit fire i'll be pissed-off now since I know the outcome of the race I'm about to watch!!!

but I'll watch it anyway since my wife doesn't know yet 

By Befbever on Sunday, September 29, 2002 - 08:27 pm:

It was Oldgit! I didn't do it!
 

By Benw on Sunday, September 29, 2002 - 11:00 pm:

Last lap of the second race has got to be one of the best I've seen in a LONG time! It really did come down to the wire!

Astounding ride by Edwards. Sneaky, nasty ride by Bayliss - he deserved not to win that race!

B  

By Oldgit on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 02:12 am:

Sorry Matthew, couldn't contain myself, best race I have seen in a long time.

Bnew, couldn't agrea more, Troy was beaten fairly no thanks to the Ducati mafiosi.  

By Islefalco on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 02:31 am:

What? A Ducati doesn't win the Ducati World Series (aka WSB)?

That was pretty exciting stuff, I have to admit. WSB needed a race like this, and the result, to inject some life into the championship. IMHO its a dead formula now, a glorified Supersports series. WSB brought this on themselves by allowing one type of engine and one marque to dominate it for so long. I would like to support it more, because Hodgson lives just round the corner from me, but I just get bored with the usual procession of Ducatis and V Twins (even though I am a V fan). Not taking anything away from the brilliance of the riders, its the rules that have ruined it.

Roll on MotoGP 2003 with Rossi facing some real competition.  

By Geo on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 05:01 am:

A little recent history for Islefalco:
ten years ago no one but Ducati made a sport twin and the public didn't care -everyone thought that L4s were the ONLY way.
If it wasn't for Duc sticking blindly to V2s, to WSBK and the 888 we probably wouldn't be able to ride a twin today.
I don't believe neither Aprilia, Suzuki, Honda etc would have been making them.
What I don't like about WSBK is that they allow too many squads of the same brand to compete -and they all chose Ducs of course.
Yeah they should allow the L4s to be more competitive (900cc maybe?) but neither Yam nor Kawi are doing any improvements on their 750s and who's fault is that? Answer: the public's fault because it's only buying liter bikes these days.  

By Racerxlilbro on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 06:08 am:

Brought that trophy back to it's rightful home, the Texan did!

Now, we just need that SAILING trophy back... 

By Befbever on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 12:31 pm:

Excuse me, Geo, but Ducati's weight and cc-advantage was so big and remained substantial despite changing the rules, that even the big H could do nothing else than make a V-two. Now, they're allowing 1000 cc bikes but with restrictors? Another one for the Italians methinks. It's like eunuchs in a harem if you ask me. The view is nice, but that's about it.

Honda indeed won the Ducati Trophy. Just like Kato won the Aprilia Trophy on a Honda last year. Fogarty is forgotten already. I remember Doug Polen playing games with the competition in his heyday. How much is that trophy worth at the end of the season? For the rider I mean.

Let us not forget that the WSB is the only World Competition Ducati shines in. I haven't seen many of them finish an Endurance race. For that, you need an Aprilia!

Yeah, okay, a Suzuki then.

Rant over. 

By Prilliant on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 01:41 pm:

It seems to me that the comparativly huge Japanese factories could've built a decent V twin years ago, instead they just threw their toys out of the pram and said "Not Fair". If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

As for Ducati flooding the grid with bikes, has anyone noticed the utter crap "customer SP2" that Mark Heckles was saddled with this year. At least Ducati can still get decent (sometimes even podium) finishes with 1 or 2 year old bikes.

Also, this year the British superbike Championship allowed 1000cc fours in for the first time. The winner? Steve Hislop, Ducati 998.

Power is nothing without control. Don't forget the RC45 was the most powerful bike on the grid in its day, even matching the NSR 500 V4 GP bike on BHP. At pure power tracks like Monza or Hockenheim it had a real advantage. All falco owners will know that a V twin has a way of delivering big torque without feeling to be always on the edge of a high side.

It would be great to see more competition from the fours in future, but Ducati can hardly be blamed for applying the rules better than the rest.  

By Geo on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 01:44 pm:

yada yada yada.

My point is that for 20 years our choices were only Ducati, Guzzi or any number of generic l-4s and if Ducati hadn't stuck to V twins we'd all be riding Suzi-Yammi 4 pots today.

I don't really care that the rules were biased to make twins competitive (only after they managed multi valve, water cooling and higher revs mind you). For years no one was able to make V engines larger than 900ccs rev, they had to scale them down to 851 and start from there to get any power.

Back in 1991 the 851 had less power than a common 1997 Firestorm. You don't seem to realise how far Vtwin technology has come up in the last 10 years thanks to WSBK.

I don't much like where Ducati is at today but if it wasn't for them, the Falco would have been an L4 just like every other CBR/gixxer/Yz/Kz.  

By Prilliant on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 01:48 pm:

Oh yeah, a engine development technician from one of the Japanese factories (Yamaha,I think) admitted a few years ago that using whatever formula they use to figure these thing out, the fours really should have been limited to around 730cc to give similer power to a 1000cc twin.  

By Geo on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 02:00 pm:

The 750 class is dead, long live it's glorious memory!
Nobody asked me or I would have voted to allow 825-860cc fours and forget the "restricted" liter bikes...or even to limit back the twins to 900cc!
The last thing that I want to see is the Japanese getting another way to sell 160 rwhp bikes to the general public.  

By Islefalco on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 02:23 pm:

Hey, don't get me wrong. I am not against Ducatis, or V Twins. Far from it. My point was that the WSB rules have created a competition between Ducatis and other 2 other V Twins. The other manufacturers may not have wanted to create a bike that could compete under the prevailing rules, which may have contributed to the Ducati dominance. All I am saying is that this has led to a rather stale formula which does not grab the interest that it once did.

I just think that WSB have been slow in providing the rule changes that were needed to keep the series a true spectacle and the introduction of 4 strokes into the MotoGP formula has provided much stiffer competition for them. Many of us, even Brits consisder the WSB series a bit redundant. It was a good race last weekend, but what would have been the interest if Honda had chosen not to compete and Bayliss or other Ducati riders had just carried on winning all the races? I stopped watching a while back.  

By Crmc33 on Monday, September 30, 2002 - 11:49 pm:

I think unlimited capacity single cylinder bikes should be allowed in, just so we can see the carnage when the first 3 litre supermono goes pop! 

By Islefalco on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 01:15 am:

A 3 litre supermoto! Yep, that WOULD be worth seeing and hearing (from a distance)!  

By Bonerp on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 03:35 am:

I still thunk WSB is better than GPs. GPs is between 2 companies, just - Honda and Yam.

Its boring watching Honda dominate just because they are committed to spending oodles of dosh of their teams.

Look at next year - there are loads of RCVs being fielded. It'll just turn into the state WSB is in now.

At least we have Aprilia (hail be) in the mix (albeit occassionally) too! 

By Befbever on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 04:56 am:

Yada yada yada indeed!
This thread goes yin yang, ping pong!

Supermono's, yeah, whatever happened to them? 

By Benw on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 05:02 am:

They grew a cylinder and became twins...

B 

By Geo on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 08:36 am:

nah they became Super motards.....as long as they don't go wing ding ding ding it's ok with me!  

By Befbever on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 08:58 am:

Wing ding ding ding? My fave sound!
 

By Geo on Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - 01:02 pm:

Oy!!
What are you doing on that Falco kid? Go on home before I tell your dad about it!  

By Befbever on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 08:38 am:

Oy? As in 'oh dear' ?
What can I say? Our Powermaster doesn't like me liking strokers either but I think it has something to do with the sound of over-revving when downshifting. And the entrance speed into corners.
The Falco's just too easy - put it in a higher gear and drive it thru long winding corners you'd need to shift twice or three times on a two-stroke.

And somehow the sound of over-revving a Falco doesn't have the same appeal. Pop!

Now don't say I've got to get me one of these Desmo things, will ya? The fact you don't see them in bad weather must mean something.  

By Litre1 on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 09:24 am:

Personally, I will be keeping an eye on GP next year, because Nicky Hayden will be joining Rossi on the Honda team. In case you don't follow superbikes in the states, Hayden ran away with the AMA title on his RC51 this year. Talk about your culture clashes! It remains to be seen how Rossi will react. I think it will be a competition to see who can be more outrageous! It will definitely be entertaining.

AMA superbike 

By Befbever on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 10:07 am:

We know all about the illustrious Hayden, but as King Kenny once said: wait and see for every year some Boy Wonder is gonna shine, but many a star has been exstinguished.

Whatever happened to Kurtis Roberts, Matt Mladin, Anthony Gobert, Troy Corser, Scott Russel, the list goes on and on...
I'm not taking anything away from these fine gentlemen. After all, Freddie Spencer is still unsurpassed. Rock on next year!
 

By Litre1 on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 11:58 am:

I hear ya! Too bad Mr. Russell is such a jerk. He was a pretty bad a$$ on the track. I've got friends who hang out with him, and let's just say he thinks a lot more of himself than other people do. He is Mr. Daytona, though. You can't take that away.

Hayden's rise has been pretty gradual, and under the guidance of legendary Miguel Duhamel. I think he might amount to something other than a one-timer. I hope he stirs things up a little in GP, God knows they need something.  

By Befbever on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 12:06 pm:

Add the 'legendary' Miguel Duhamel to the aforementioned list.
His dad however, Yvon wasn't it? Superfrog, because of his spectacular offs. Kwak-man wasn't he?

Mr. Russel was awesome on the Kawasaki in his day. But then again, so was Aaron Slight. Aaron who?

How quickly we forget...I'll never ever forget the sound of a H*nda V4 revving before you could see it coming out of a corner at the Spa Grand Prix in 1985. Aboard the thing was the Sultan of Slide.
Who? He also won the 250 that day.  

By Litre1 on Wednesday, October 02, 2002 - 12:56 pm:

Yeah, it was funny seeing everyone (including myself) standing in line for Miguel's picture or autograph at Road Atlanta in May with Yvon standing beside him. No one was making a comotion over him, but I thought to myself how his autograph would really be worth quite a bit!