Laguna reprise

A very different experience than the WSB and GP rounds, that's for sure.
I've been to a number of season-ending rounds before, at Sears, Vegas,
PPIR, Willow, but none in a while. This one felt especially quiet, as if
the season had really already ended but no one had told some of us. In
part that was because a place that's normally packed to the gills had
plenty of elbow room, this being the first AMA-only round here since the
last spring national in '99. But only in part.

Saturday felt like a typical Friday at an AMA round, guys feeling out
the track, lots of practice and qualifying, no racing. There were the
two championships to be decided, but an awful lot of the guys seemed
more focused on next year, more guys looking for a deal than I can
remember. Unfinished business to attend to in the process for a lot of
them, but only a few would manage it. The pole points in SB and SSport
were the only things to be decided, and Hacking losing out to Hayes by
only .06 second in SSport must have really hurt, needing every point he
could get. Mladin vs. Spies was pretty much a preview of Sunday, Mladin
looking like he might do it much of the session, but then Spies taking
point and Mladin unable to respond.

The racing started out strangely in SStock and stayed that way for a
while. I decided to walk the course during that race and was humping up
the hill out of six - easily the loneliest part of this track, you can
be almost alone out there - when Rock Page's motor blew. A bit later I
heard the leaders coming and turned around to see Holden already sliding
on the ground. Then the red flag, and later the announcement that they'd
called it due to the SSport TV schedule and the win went to Holden, the
first time I recall a guy crashing and leading to a stoppage, and then
declared the winner. Fair enough, he probably went down in Page's fluid,
but strange.

Then up to the corkscrew for the SSport race, and the drama of Josh
Hayes - the guy who could barely walk, who should have been thinking
about racing a SB next year, who should have been on that SB this
weekend, who was desperately trying to win a championship for that
factory that he essentially gave away last time in town. Herrin led, but
banged out of the way by Hacking in a very hard move. Then it was over,
Hayes down in six, and scary reports over the PA. The restarted race was
even hairier when Cardenas tried what looked like a hopeless,
Guintoli-type maneuver and bikes were everywhere. Then the usual
sarcastic corkscrew crowd as they mockingly cheered a hapless
cornerworker trying to get Peris' bike off the racing line. All that
gave Hacking hope, but Hayes' exit really was almost the end for his
hopes as well, and there was no catching Herrin.

But no celebrating on the podium for Herrin and Hayden as the SB race
window approached, and the Kawi boys had to jump on them with the
deciding SSport race barely over. Rog lasted two corners and Hacking not
that much more. Up in the tower on start-finish for the first time I
can remember, Mladin got the start he needed and it was Spies who did
the bunny hop. Making the move over between one and two I missed the
aggressive moves by Spies to get back up to Mat, but it certainly
appeared he had something extra in the early laps. Then Mat got up by a
second and it seemed he may have had the measure, but Spies was back on
him in a couple laps. Once by it was over quickly, Mat badly
overshooting turn two the lap after being passed, and it looked like he
was stretching badly to stay on the pace. After that, it was all about
backmarkers and Ben avoiding mistakes, because he had the gap and the
speed. The Yosh boys had a long exchange between two and three on the
cool-down, which was nice to see. Lots of respect there.

So Spies got it done and by the smallest of margins, but you have to
wonder if this was in his math from the beginning. Both guys looked
relaxed and confident going in, but it seemed Mladin was more on edge of
the two, particularly after losing pole. Not that that mattered all that
much - I don't think Spies would have let Mladin get the laps-led point
if it counted. So we get more of the same high-level stuff next year,
assuming this loss doesn't take something out of Mladin. It seems
unlikely, but losing this year after working so hard is a bit different
than getting taken by surprise last year. Can't see Spies getting any
slower, with his GP future still hanging in the balance.

Sounds like Rog will be back as well, his long-odds hope of a GP ride
seemingly gone now, joining SB-only Hacking (or will he run SStock on
the new ZX-10?). Honda will run the Geezers, and it seems likely that
Bostrom will be back at Yamaha. That leaves a second seat there as the
last factory SB and lots of guys wanting it - DiSalvo, Zemke, Hayes,
Herrin, B-Boz, May, on and on. Herrin and Holden got it done Sunday,
Gobert did a too-little-too-late sort of thing in FX, Zemke was really
trying but got punted off the podium by Yates, Hayes ended up in the
hospital for all his effort, Stauffer probably didn't make enough of a
splash to earn a good job here, non-factor Attard has to have played out
his string at Attack, B-Boz was talking commitment to racing yet again,
lots of guys lining up for fewer jobs. And no confirmation of any pens
at work on paper this weekend.

As an aside on the 2008 rider front are the further developments in
MotoGP, with de Angelis confirmed at Gresini and Dovisioso all but
confirmed on another Honda. So two more 250 grads, and on Hondas, making
Hayden's likely compatriots next year being 112-pound Pedrosa, 120-pound
Dovisioso, 125-pound de Angelis, 125-pound Elias, and 139-pound behemoth
de Puniet - think they'll abandon the midget bike approach? Yeah, sure.
Then there's 120-pound Lorenzo taking his reserved factory seat at
Yamaha, while Spies cools his heels in the AMA for another year, his
seat taken by 35-year-old, 130-pound Capirossi, the guy who finished 40
seconds behind his teammate yesterday, the biggest disappointment in the
series this season. Great. And "big" guys Hofmann, Barros, Checa on the
way out. The Incredible Shrinking Grid, and I don't mean the number of
riders. And with five wins between de Angelis and Dovisiosi in nearly
seven combined seasons on factory bikes in the 250 class, it's not like
you can say lack of accomplishment is held against them...

Back to Laguna, a couple other thoughts. This two-day weekend thing
isn't going to have much of a future, I don't think. First, if the
promoters want a Saturday payday, they have to have some racing that
day, and you can't do that if practice starts on Saturday morning. It
might be possible if there are only three classes, but who races on
Saturday? If it's SB, and it almost has to be, they'd have to do an
hour's practice, at least a half hour qualifying and then race all in
the same day. That might work if riders are restricted to one class,
which is the talk. Maybe. But how do you fit the Red Bull rookies into
all that? I don't see it.

Laguna AMA will be back again next year, even as small as the crowd was.
The problem is summer's over, football season has started, and it seems
like all the events that have tried to run in September and October
(very rare over here) have butted up against that. So Laguna will be run
two weeks later next year, a month after Road Atlanta, no doubt to avoid
conflict with the Grand Prix of Central Indiana. I think that's a
mistake, and will people really feel like someone forgot to turn out the
lights at the end of September next year? I seriously doubt this event
has much of a future. What they need to do is what I suggested earlier,
make a GP party of it, complete with an AMA race, big screens showing
the GP live from... somewhere in middle America...

But this race felt more like the 1988 AMA national than any other Laguna
race I can think of, and that was the last one for four years. Hope
history doesn't repeat, because it sure was nice not to battle the
crowds for a change - big isn't always beautiful...

And for anyone believing FX got preferred status this weekend, that's
hardly the case. They had a 50-minute practice, a 25-minute practice,
and 25 minutes of qualifying, compared to an hour of practice, a half
hour of qualifying, and a 20-minute warmup for SB, so 10 minutes less
track time for FX, although 5 minutes more than the SS classes. They
qualified on Sunday morning because it doesn't all fit into Saturday,
and racing after SB on Sunday is what they've been doing all year on
Saturday, and it's an established scheduling tactic that helps spread
out the fan exodus from the track. But misinformation abounds around
here, so...