Rossi...

"Pierre Bonneau" <Pierre.Bonneau RemoveThis @cern.ch> wrote in message
news:bm3hbq$38h$1@sunnews.cern.ch...
<font color=purple> > <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.speedtv.com/articles/moto/</font" target="_blank">http://www.speedtv.com/articles/moto/</font</a>>
 > Also interesting article for Mark on US riders in GP.

Usually Noyes gets a lot of things very right and some things very wrong. In
this case he's more wrong than right in an article that's full of internal
contradictions.

I think he's right that Dorna doesn't very actively push Spanish riders in
GP, which some people seem to think is the case. But that's in part that the
class has included a healthy number of Spaniards since the mid-90s - the
sponsors were seeing to that. He mentions Dorna's support for McWilliams and
you can add the Walker case to that, but that's all because of the huge
crowds at WSB events in Blighty and that GP wants a piece of that action.
That Americans have made inroads over the last couple years might be in part
because of the big crowds at Laguna for WSB. That's business. But then he
says Europe is producing more talent than America and that the British and
Spanish national series "are both today producing world class riders who are
being carefully scouted up by Grand Prix and WSBK teams". True enough, but
is that because of talent or because of business considerations? He says "In
Great Britain there are both works and works supported teams filling the
entire field, all on competitive bikes", which might be a way of saying the
field isn't filled out with SS machines like AMA SB, but if these machines
are so competitive why has Ducati won five championships in a row, over 90%
of the races since Walker left Suzuki, and why have so many of those wins
gone to three riders (Reynolds, Hislop, Byrne)? Yes, almost anyone has the
equipment to win in BSB - as long as you're on the top one or two Ducati
teams, that is. And does it matter? What is his point?

His point on Gibernau with Team Rainey is incomplete, because he fails to
mention that one of Wayne's biggest issues running the factory Yamaha team
was the loss of major sponsorship (Marlboro) when (Mediterranean European)
Capirossi bailed for Aprilia, and Gibernau, a guy with no meaningful
accomplishment, was promoted as bait for a Spanish or tobacco sponsor. Just
as Capirossi was with Pons when his string of Spanish sponsors Campsa,
Fortuna, MoviStar left along with Criville, Puig and Checa and there was no
viable Spaniard available, and West smokes signed aboard shortly thereafter.
Barros came aboard at the same time in large part because of the funding he
brought in Sito's desperate days (including from Dorna, according to Noyes).
Or (med euro) Checa's selection next to (med euro) Biaggi with Yamaha to
keep returning (tobacco) sponsor Marlboro happy. Or way back when HRC
included Criville on their team after longtime sponsor Rothmans bailed for
F1, followed later by the signing on of Repsol as a replacement. Spanish
sponsors do tend to lead to Spanish riders (as Noyes states, relative to
Repsol and the Hayden hire), but it's also true that teams know Spanish
riders tend to lead to Spanish sponsors and that Med Euro riders tend to
lead to tobacco sponsors. And he fails to mention the role that Telefonica's
move from Suzuki to Gresini Honda played in Gibernau making that same move.
Then he says "And, or course, the Spanish conspiracy theory does not explain
Rossi's rise to glory", right after saying "There are market forces at work
(sponsors and national TV rights holders, plus GP promoters) which favor
Spanish and Italian riders". Huh? And even Rossi had to slowly work his way
onto the Repsol Honda factory team, because the Japanese manufacturer with
the Spanish sponsor hadn't brought anyone new to the team that wasn't either
Japanese or Spanish since Repsol signed on in '95. Not even the very fast
Italians - Biaggi arrived on a Honda 500 with Marlboro/Kanemoto, Capirossi
with West/Pons, Rossi with his Nastro Azzuro team. In that sense Hayden is a
huge departure, but does Noyes say it's because of the potential of this
immensely talented young rider? No, it's because of "the clout of American
Honda who used all their might to slot Hayden into the works Repsol Honda
team". It took that to overcome the resistance in the end, yes, but it
couldn't have happened for a mere Duhamel- or Bostrom-level guy. You know,
the kind of guy who could get a GP ride any day, if he was Japanese, Spanish
or...

I think his representation of American racing in the mid-90s is a bit off
center as well. He mentions only Kocinski and Roberts, and fails to mention
Polen, Chandler, Russell and, in that context, Duhamel. Not the same level
of guys as Spencer, Lawson, Rainey and Schwantz relative to the rest of the
world, but not exactly chumps and quite capable of winning championships in
the AMA and WSB anyway.

And his apparent representation of the drying up of the
Australian talent pool since Gardner and Doohan is inaccurate, effected by
his GP-only focus over the years - what about Mladin, Corser, Gobert, who
lie between Beattie and Bayliss in the chain? Like the AMA guys I mentioned,
they might have had too-brief shots at GP on inferior equipment, but they
also have won an awful lot of races and championships on SBs before and
since. He says the young Aussies in 125, 250, WSS are "a thousand times more
likely to be noticed that American riders in their National series", but
that's been because of the choices GP teams have made. They got to the point
in the '90s that they looked almost nowhere else but 250 for riders, and the
only two 125 or WSS guys to directly make a factory spot in 500/MotoGP have
been McCoy and Pitt, I think, and that was in special circumstances with
2nd-tier teams. Given an even-handed hiring policy by the teams, I don't
think there's much chance that 125 or WSS would supply more riders than the
AMA. Shit, WSS might go down the tubes with WSB, and how long will 125 last?
It's a matter of who they are looking for, and not the class or series the
riders run in.

His final conclusion is that the American riders in GP today just seem to
have found themselves on the wrong bikes. True enough, but he doesn't really
say why. He could have said the faster manufacturers have sewn up the big
sponsors, those sponsors want Italian and Spanish riders, the manufacturers
want riders from their countries, so that's mostly what you see with Honda,
Yamaha, Ducati - Spanish, Italian and Japanese riders, same as it's been for
nearly ten years in GP. He says that after winning the '00 championship
Roberts couldn't get a ride with Yamaha or Honda because all the rides were
taken. Now maybe all the guys there signed two-year deals in '00, but I
doubt it. The nationality thing again, even if you are world champion,
perhaps? Or maybe he was just loyal to the team that gave him the chance?
Not anymore, one assumes, but I guess all the good teams' rides are still
taken...

He says "even in the good old days, motorcycle racing was never a major
national sport in the USA as it is today in Spain and Italy. That's why
American riders used to be so anxious to get into the World Championships."
Right, Dennis - they wanted to go because the 500 world championship was the
pinnacle of the sport (they had almost no interest in 250 or 125 or anything
else in Europe), and it was where one could earn the most money. He also
says "Maybe American riders today are less motivated, less hungry, to go
abroad because they can make more money racing in the AMA than in many World
SBK teams and even some MotoGP teams." So how do these thoughts mesh with
Rainey turning down Roberts when he formed his Lucky Strike 500 team in '86,
because American Honda offered him a bigger two-year deal to stay at home?
Most American riders want to race at the highest level, and they also want
to make as much money as they can during their brief careers doing it. It's
the case today just as it was 20 years ago; sometimes those two things line
up together, and sometimes they don't and choices have to be made. But I
think it's more than likely no AMA rider has turned down a top GP or WSB
ride to stay in America in recent years. Maybe crap rides with no pay, but
not a top one - I've never heard of a specific case.

Anyway, it seems perhaps that living in Spain so long and watching GP so
much has left Noyes' previously clear vision with a touch of myopia...<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->