MotoGP: Pedrosa Pounces, Stoner Stunned

When the MotoGP circus rolls into Valencia, most fans snuggle up in front of the TV with a mug of cocoa and a teddy bear, prepared for a nice refreshing snooze. Two riders ruined the ritual this time: Casey Stoner and Ben Spies.

Stoner caused eyes to pop out on stalks across the world. Heading off the grid for the warm-up lap, the Aussie failed to make it to his pole position slot. After two corners he was caught out by the cold rear tyre and flung over the high side, the Ducati tumbling to a halt next to him. Casey has crashed in races before, but this seems to be the first time he has crashed before the race even started. On the plus side, it was pretty funny. On the downside, it has used up Valencia's allocation of interesting things for the next decade.

Dani Pedrosa had qualified 2nd, and was caught by surprise when the starting lights came on with no sign of Stoner. The miniature matador revealed that he had to start with his visor still up as he had been casually waiting for the pole sitter to appear alongside. Of course, that didn't stop the small star from taking the hole shot and disappearing into the distance on his Repsol Honda, unchallenged until the chequered flag.

Jorge Lorenzo was running in 2nd until he had a bizarre incident of his own. He got his FIAT Yamaha into a massive tank-slapper, which was so terrifying that the airbag in his leathers went off. (It puffs up around the neck area and is designed mainly to prevent broken collar bones.) With Lorenzo highly puckered after that scary moment, and hindered by his leathers turning into a sumo suit, his rival and team-mate Valentino Rossi sneaked past into 2nd. Jorge speeded back up a bit when the leathers deflated themselves, but had to settle for 3rd on a track that he has never won at in any category.

Colin Edwards was pootling round in his usual "best of the rest" style on his Monster Tech 3 Yamaha, in 4th place instead of his usual 5th as one of the four "aliens" had crashed on the warm-up lap. The Texas Tornado had to score plenty more points than Andrea Dovizioso if he was to steal 4th place in the championship. However, Dovi was in 7th place on the second Repsol Honda machine, which was enough to nick the championship position from Edwards.

That was until Ben Spies started charging through the field. He was supposedly using the race as a test before his transfer to Tech 3 Yamaha, and was running Yamaha's test team bike with the Sterilgarda colours from his title-winning World Superbike. Sure enough, Benny Elbowz started off gently, but got quicker and quicker as the race went on, starting to overtake people on a track where there is little overtaking, in a race series where there is little overtaking. With growing astonishment, the crowd saw Spies rise to 8th place, and finally pass Dovizioso for 7th.

This overtake guaranteed 5th place in the championship to his fellow Texan, and team-mate next year at "Tex 2" Tech 3 Yamaha, Colin Edwards, who danced for joy and hugged Spies when the race was over.

So it was a relative snoozefest as usual, since the Valencia track is just too small and nadgery for MotoGP bikes, being a more exciting track for the baby categories. However, it will be remembered for two reasons: the coming of Ben Spies, and the going of Casey Stoner.

BSB End of Season Roundup

With the British Superbike Championship finishing in autumnal scenes at Oulton Park, let's have a look at how some of the top names performed over the course of the season.

Leon Camier - BSB Champion

Even if you chopped him in half at the waist, he'd still be one of the tallest racers in the paddock, but he's damn quick nonetheless. Camier's record of 19 wins in a season blew away Niall MacKenzie's previous record of 13 wins, and will probably stand either until BSB has 50 races per season, or until Ducati are allowed to dictate their own rules again. Terrible starts followed by scything through the field were the order of the day, nearly every day. Needed a masterclass in flag rules from the marshals after failing to stop when there was a teeny bit of smoke coming out of his bike, but apart from that and a couple of erratic races at Croft and Silverstone, the big lad was head and shoulders above the other riders. (Head, shoulders, hips and knees above Stuart Easton.)

James Ellison - Runner up

The Kendal Beefcake had a pretty good year, getting closer and closer to his lanky team-mate as the season wore on and ending up right on the pace. There's not that much to say about a guy who was there or thereabouts all the time but rarely challenged his title-winning team-mate for victories. He certainly did well enough to bag a good ride for next season, though.

Stuart Easton - 3rd

The BSB paddock's answer to Dani Pedrosa romped away with the Stihl award for leading into turn one in more races than anyone else, winning a chainsaw among other things. Presumably the little baby-faced Scotsman, who doesn't look a day over 12, had to show ID before being allowed to play with power tools. He got his Honda off the line like there was a rocket up it, and won a couple of races towards the end of the year. After flattering to deceive in years past, he seems to have clicked with the Hydrex Honda team and is now one of the big shots.

Josh "Bowling Ball" Brookes - 4th

Brookesy has his own way of making friends and influencing people. Poor Sylvain Guintoli was left sitting in hospital, sticking pins into a voodoo doll after being torpedoed by the fast but erratic Aussie on the way to the grid at Donington. However, rumours abound that his HM Plant Honda team staged a cover-up after realizing that Brookes's brakes failed... Still, he was given a second chance, which he seized with both hands, bowling a clean strike when he took out virtually the entire field at Mallory Park. Strictly speaking, he only hit the leader, but the oil and carnage caused everyone else to fall off down to about 12th position. The race win was awarded by Race Director Stuart Higgs to a baffled Leon Camier on the grounds that he hadn't had a chance to fall off yet when the red flags flew, leading to comical scenes as various team bosses surrounded Higgs like hungry hyaenas. A judiciously acquired injury forced Brookes to sit out most of his resulting ban, but he remained fast and unpredictable when he returned. Probably the only rider who could pick up a 7-10 split with a bike.

Sylvain Guintoli - 8th

The likeable and charming Frenchman looked like being the only rider who could give Camier much of a challenge at the start of the season, until it was all ended with a broken frog's leg at Donny. He was starting to get back to form at the end of the season, but the year has basically been a write-off. He should be back on the Worx Suzuki next year for another go, and will be hoping that Josh "Bouncing Bomb" Brookes bags a ride in World Supersport or something.

Karl Harris - 11th

The burly Yorkshireman must have been hewn from granite. The last race meeting proved this when he tangled with Tommy Hill and bounced through a gravel trap into a tyre wall. He was knocked out, but nobody was at all surprised to find him back in the paddock the next day (albeit battered and bruised and banned from riding due to a concussion.) Not a great year for Karl, with Hydrex showing him the door due to poor results, but he's made of strong stuff and will be back again for more.

Tommy Hill - 14th

Only a partial season for Tommy "Super Sub" Hill as he lost his WSBK ride early on and ended up deputising for Guintoli at Worx Suzuki then replacing Harris at Hydrex Honda. However, he was another rider who got faster and faster as the season progressed, and ended up battling at the front in the final races at Oulton. This has pushed his stock value up hugely, and he's one of the big fish in the BSB pond as the team bosses try to poach next year's riders.

Michael Rutter - 16th

A ridiculous season from the veteran rider saw him ride Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki and Ducati bikes at various points. He had a couple of decent results, particularly with Worx Suzuki as one of the Guintoli replacements, but this year will be remembered for his full house of manufacturers.

GSE Airwaves Yamaha - Championship winning team.

They started the season with fairly stock bikes, which many people took to mean as similar to a dodgy Superstock bike with full race swing arm, cams, pistons, conrods and traction control, as the Airwaves Yams certainly didn't appear to be 30bhp down on the opposition when they were clearing off into the distance. Anyway, they cleaned up the championship thanks to Camier's great performance. Team Boss Colin Wright should also win an award for the most number of times someone embarrassed Eurosport's Tony Carter on live TV, topping it off with a comical "I love you, Tony" at Oulton, that left the ginger presenter speechless for almost a whole second (the longest silence from him all year.) GSE's usual rivals HM Plant Honda were left looking like a bunch of amateurs in comparison, and it was the smaller Hydrex Honda and Worx Suzuki teams that provided the opposition, though neither could keep up the momentum all season long. GSE are now claiming that they might pull out of BSB, but as they've cried wolf about a million times in the last 2 years, who knows?

BSB has had a mixed season this year. Leon Camier legged it with the title before everyone else had woken up, leading to some boring races. However, the season ended very strongly with Ellison, Easton, Hill, Brookes and Guintoli all looking quick. It bodes well for next year.

Horhay Hin Horbit, Cracking Casey Comeback

When MotoGP goes to Estoril, everyone salivates over the 2006 race, which started with tiny terrorist Dani Pedrosa ramming his team-mate Nicky Hayden off the track, and ended with loveable birdbrain Toni Elias out-dragging Valentino Rossi over the line. Of course, that means that every race for ever more has to be a snoozefest. It's sod's law.

This time out, the racing was OK for a couple of laps, then the entire field strung out into a procession of almost F1-like tedium, but without the idiotic cheating.

Jorge Lorenzo had been quick all weekend on his FIAT Yamaha, and in the race he soon disappeared into the wide blue yonder. At least it was a slightly different sight, as the factory Yams were running a white colour scheme to promote FIAT's latest crapwagon.

Dani Pedrosa made his usual rocketship start, thanks to his power to weight ratio approaching that of a riderless bike. However, Casey Stoner had returned to ride the Melandri-bashing Marlboro Ducati, and was almost completely recovered from his fake illness. Back to his gobby self, he earned himself even less fans by slagging GP legend Kevin Schwantz. Trying to make the Yank crowds boo you as well, Casey?

At least during the race, Stoner couldn't complain to the media, so he focussed his energy on passing Dani Pedrosa and taking off in second place.

Dani had to settle for third position on his Repsol Honda.

Valentino Rossi trundled round in fourth, and complained of a lack of grip. For once, the Vale and Jerry show failed to set up the Yamaha.

The increasingly consistent Texas Tornado, Colin Edwards once again finished best of the rest, first of the satellite bikes as usual. His book of excuses must be all dusty and covered in cobwebs by now. The likeable Southerner hasn't needed to consult it since the innovative "Wet engine map" debacle, months ago.

Nobody really raced anybody for most of the race. A lot of people passed Nicky Hayden. The second likeable Southerner doesn't have a big book of excuses, and would be too honest to use one anyway. Ah well.

Jorge Lorenzo had decided that his white leathers looked like a space suit, so he had a crash hat made to look a bit like a space helmet. He celebrated by planting the Lorenzo's Land flag in a gravel trap, walking in slow motion as if he was on the Moon, and thereby proving beyond all reasonable doubt that the Moon landings were faked not in a studio in Nevada, but in a gravel trap in Portugal.

He also did the spaceman act on the podium, which caused his two grumpy podium-mates Pedrosa and Stoner to stop licking piss off nettles and crack brief smiles.

Jorge was h-outstanding, Stoner was too. Pedrosa was there or thereabouts as always. Rossi was AWOL. Finishing 4th on a factory Yamaha isn't much better than finishing 10th on a satellite one.

MotoGP: Donkey Business as Usual at Misano

Valentino Rossi stopped calling himself The Doctor and started calling himself The Donkey after his silly crash at Indianapolis. He made up for it at Misano, though. His crash hat had a cartoon of a donkey on the top, and at the back were the words "The Donkey" in the same colours and font as his usual "The Doctor".

At the start of the race, he waited a while for everything to settle down, then overtook everyone and disappeared into the distance. His downbeat team-mate Horhay Lorenzo was behind him, with diminutive Dani Pedrosa trundling in 3rd.

Rossi's mechanics met him in parc ferme wearing enormous pairs of donkey ears, and Vale wore a pair on the podium too. It's incredible that he is still coming up with chuckleworthy celebrations, but as an 8-time world champion with number 9 on the way, he's a bit special.

The relative dullness of the race was partly down to the dimwitted actions of local hero, Alex "300 Game" de Angelis. The San Marinese, rainbow-painted yokel showed that bowling isn't just for Americans.

He did this by bowling for Americans, and it was a perfect 300 game as there were no Yanks left when he was finished.

It happened in the first chicaney, flippy-floppy corners, less than 10 seconds into the race. De Angelis braked stupidly late, bumped Colin Edwards, who bumped Nicky Hayden. The two Southerners went down along with de Angelis, and someone tagged Jorge Lorenzo, who managed to stay aboard his Yamaha.

There was a hilarious altercation in the gravel trap, with Nicky Hayden blowing his cool and trying to shake some sense into the miscreant while Colin just raised his eyes to the heavens in despair.

It was disastrous for both the Kentuckian and the Texan. Nicky is just starting to look good on the Bologna Bullet, taking a podium at his home race and being the first 800cc number 2 rider ever to get re-signed by Ducati with his career intact. Colin Edwards has had a surprisingly great year, being top satellite team rider and breathing down the neck of factory Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso in the points table. The likeable, plain-talking Texan has barely had to dip into his big book of excuses at all.

Still, Nicky has inked a Ducati contract for another year so it's not too bad. Colin seemed to be on his way out of Tech 3 Yamaha, but with Benny Elbowz being re-signed by Yamaha for the WSBK campaign, everyone now says that Colin will be staying at Tech 3. That's great news for him, and rubbish news for his hapless team-mate James Toseland, who has been crushed into the dirt by the Texas Tornado this year. It looks like the only thing about Tech 3 that Toseland has to concern himself with is not letting Herve Poncharal's motorhome door hit him in the arse on the way out.