MotoGP: Stoner Wins Brno Snoozefest

Right, that's it. I've had enough. MotoGP needs a control tyre.
Yeah, I know that it's the pinnacle of motorsport and tyre wars mean faster times, but who actually cares? I couldn't give two hoots what kind of tyres they're racing on, and let's not pretend that racing slicks have any relation whatsoever to road tyre development. Use them on the road and racing tyres would have you sliding to your death under a bus before they'd begun to warm up. You wouldn't even get the chance to aquaplane to your death under a bus in an unexpected rain shower.
Control tyres have worked wonders for World Superbikes. Even Boremula One uses them, and they're still pretending to be the pinnacle of motorsport. (Motorsnores, more like.) I don't care who makes the tyres, I just want to see races decided by bikes and riders. Last year, Michelin dominated MotoGP, this year Bridgestone are dominating MotoGP and again we are being robbed of close racing.
Anyway, the Czech GP at Brno. (Stoner Czechs out, Czech-mate to Stoner, etc, etc.) Casey Stoner was blindingly, flawlessly fast as always. His Bridgestone tyres were brilliant, as they have been 66% of the time this year. How fundamentally good the Ducati is, it's hard to say as Stoner was the best by miles and the others had a battery of excuses (Capirossi: lack of grip, Barros: lack of youth, Silva: lack of talent).
John Hopkins rode an impressive race to a best-ever 2nd place, on Bridgestones of course. He stopped pushing in case he fell off, which he does from time to time. Therefore, by about 10 laps to go there was nobody chasing Stoner at all.
Nicky Hayden had a race worthy of a number 1 plate. (I don't care what anybody says, you don't get a World Championship by sending off 6 tokens from packets of Coco Pops.) The Kentucky Kid was on the podium, causing his baby-sized team-mate Dani Pedrosa, finishing 4th, to chuck his toys out of the pram and stomp off after the race. Naturally, we can't tell how good the Honda really was, because the Michelin tyres were a bit rubbish this time out.
Chris Vermeulen was 5th after brilliantly battling through the field on his Bridgestone-shod Rizla Bridgestone Suzuki with Bridgestone stickers on the fairing and Bridgestone tyres on the wheels.
Capirex was 6th, having officially secured a Suzuki ride for next year to pay his 1995 tax bill.
Valentino Rossi was 7th. Since there was no grip from the Michelins, it's impossible to know how rattled he was that he got rumbled for not paying any tax since about 2001. Really rattled, probably.
There was some great racing, but it was way down the field. Guintoli, Checa, Barros, Elias and West were all beating each other up at one time or another. Toni Elias is the one who deserves special mention as he still has a femur that Doctor Costa fashioned out of bailer twine and some of Jorge Lorenzo's discarded lollipop sticks. The little Spaniard can't walk, but he was still a raving lunatic on a motorcycle, finishing 11th after slamming past several people on Brno's high-speed flip-flops. (Well, I'm not calling them chicanes.) It was great to see him back, although we didn't see his team-mate Marco "Macho" Melandri on a bike. Marco has a herniated disc in his neck, which would scare the Bejaysus out of most of us, but just made Marco disappointed that he couldn't move his left arm and therefore couldn't ride.
All in all, a pretty rubbish race. Thank the Lord for guys like Guintoli, Barros and Elias, who will always go for an overtake even if it's only for 10th place. In the next race, I hope that Stoner's as fast as he was at Brno, but that a couple more guys are just as quick so we get some kind of spectacle.
Finally, a word for 250GP rider Taro Sekiguchi. The little Japanese rider is recovering in hospital after an utterly jaw-dropping crash in the 250cc warm-up session, when he emerged from a cloud of dust to find Simoncelli's crashed bike lying in the middle of the track. He hit Simoncelli's bike, took off, flipped over in mid-air, and was thankfully awake and talking after one of the most spectacular crashes I've ever seen. If you don't mind your eyes popping out on stalks, you can watch it here on Youtube.