[Ducati] Spoiler! Jerez

[Peter Bonner]

Good point Henry,
nobody is 100% every time out (man or machine). We have seen professional
athletes fail to even show up and play when they were expecting a baby, but
that is not an option for a GP rider, who play at a higher level than mere
football or basketball players with a whole team on the field. But even if
events proved to be not so beneficial to Capirossi, the Ducatisti can be
thankful for his mentoring of Stoner, who showed a maturity in race two that
was entirely lacking last year.

More interesting however, is how the new tire rules will play out, because
for the first two races, lots of info was gathered thru testing, but at
Turkey, for the first time, the new limitations of tires will be manifested.
The reduced number of tires, plus the decreased advantage of Michelin to
produce new tires during a weekend to adapt to conditions will greatly
change the way the game is played. Since this will tend to level the playing
field between Bridgestone and Michelin, it is likely to be a good thing.
Dunlog, at least until they win a dry race, will have a greater ability to
change things.

Meanwhile, altho I said Hopkins crashed out of the race, which he did, he of
course rejoined, but was out of the points race anyway, so he might as well
have stayed off track. Really not much point of his return, except perhaps
some reassurance of how the bike was perhaps. It is interesting that Hopkins
entered the season saying that if Hayden could win the championship, then he
certainly could, yet by only the second race, rather convincingly
demonstrated the difference. Unfortunately for Hopkins, he has no one to
tutor him.

Peter



Message: 9
Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:34:16 -0600
From: "Henry Avello" <avello490 at charter.net>
Subject: RE: [Ducati] Spoiler! Jerez
To: "'Ducati Owners Group'" <ducati at ducati.net>
Message-ID: <00a901c76fe6$1f8e5010$3f4b7144 at Henry>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Sorry gang, but what makes you think you know what's in the mind of a rider?
I think it's presumptuous of anyone to think they know what went wrong when
a rider performs poorly beyond what the rider himself has said.  In this
case, Loris said they had engine trouble and he f**ked up.  There's nothing
more to say or read into it.
I'm an expert racer in WERA southeast.  Sometimes I have good days,
sometimes not.  Sometimes I have a particular track dialed in, sometimes
not, sometimes I podium, sometimes I suck, yada yada.
That's all there's to it.  No deep dark secrets.
My two cents.
Henry Avello