Bruce Hartweg wrote:
> pablo wrote:
>> The eciting thing is that it is close. The boring thing is that the
>> Yosh Suzukis have been so darn superior.
> Yeah, like FX a couple of years ago. Jake & Miggy battled
> all year - no-one else close (of course - no other factories
> involved then). But the two of them took it down to the wire,
> not only the last race, but down to the very last lap.
>
> Thing is, they were actually close in races - not just points.
> This year even tough the points are close, i can't recall a real
> direct battle between Mat & Ben. It seems whichever one of them won,
> it was generally a runaway.
Yeah, it sure seems like that, but I wondered if it's really true. So I
took a look at some numbers:
- Through 18 races, Mladin and Spies have led all but six laps. And
those six laps were at the very start of races, meaning once these guys
got by they were gone. Dropping those six laps, one of these two guys
led all the laps in 11 of the 18 races. The latest that there was a
change in the lead from this standpoint was at Mid-Ohio race one, where
Mladin took over on the 18th of 24 laps.
- At the finish, Mladin beat Spies by less than a second in 3 of the
first 5 races, and 4 races have been decided by less than 5 seconds
since. Which means 10 of 18 have had a margin of more than five seconds,
although only 3 have been decided by more than 10 seconds (not including
Daytona, where Mladin finished 10th and 46 seconds back and Spies beat
Duhamel by 3 seconds). The most common occurrence has been a margin of
5-7 seconds, and with one of two scenarios - one guy fairly close but
still beaten cruises to 2nd late in the race, inflating the margin; one
guy gets a bad start (usually Mladin) or starts off the back row (red
flag crash) and by the time he works through to 2nd the race is over.
I suspect some of this is the result of both riders being on essentially
the same bike and the same tires. If one guy has a slight edge in setup
or an edge in riding on a certain track, it becomes decisive. Spies won
the single races at Daytona and Laguna, doubled at Miller, won the wet
race at Elkhart, leading all but a few laps early on before Mladin's
crashes at Daytona and Miller, and other than that only won at Fontana
in the first race, where he had slightly more pace early on but couldn't
get past Mladin. On Sunday Mladin came back and managed to hold him off
all race, winning by the smallest margin of the season. Mladin, on the
other hand, has doubled at Barber, Sears, Mid-Ohio, VIR and Road
Atlanta, took that win at Fontana and the one at Elkhart after Spies
crashed on the warmup. So it's been rare that a change made overnight
between doubleheader races has made a material difference. The racing
has only been fairly even a few places, most notably Barber and
Mid-Ohio. Yet even with both races at Barber being decided by less than
a second, Spies never led a lap there.
Looking back at FX in 04-05, it looked like this:
- In 2004 Duhamel and Zemke led every lap except those led by Bostrom
in the two races he did, Daytona and Laguna. There was considerably more
swapping of laps led, although in 3 of 11 races Zemke never led a lap.
The races were closer as well, 5 of 11 decided by less than a second
(although one was between Duhamel and Bostrom) and 4 others by less than
5 seconds. Duhamel and Zemke finished 1-2 in 7 races, were broken up by
Bostrom in two, and Zemke had two DNFs. Duhamel won the championship by
87 points, so that wasn't so close. Zemke never led in points, the
closest he got was within five after PPIR in May.
- In 2005, when Zemke had moved to the factory team, there continued
to be more lead-swapping, but perhaps slightly less than in '04. Zemke
led all the way at PPIR; otherwise neither led all laps - although Zemke
never led at Elkhart, where both Attard and Barnes led, the only
non-Honda laps led all year (Roberts also led laps at Daytona). 3 of 9
races were decide by less than a second, and 3 more by less than 5. They
finished 1-2 except for Roberts between them at Daytona and Zemke
crashing out at Road Atlanta. The championship was close all year, and
came down to that final lap at Road Atlanta.
So what's the difference? Well, most of the FX races were run right
after the 100km SB race on Saturday, so not only was it a less important
race but the guys were probably kind of tired at that point, so may have
been conserving energy more than Mladin and Spies this year. That means
they rode around only to decide it on the last couple laps. As a shorter
race there is less race strategy to trouble with, they just go as hard
as they could, or were willing to. Less sophisticated, less powerful
bikes probably makes setup choices somewhat less critical, as is tire
management.
I don't think in a premier class head-to-head championship battle it's
all that odd to see a lack of close race battles. I don't think there
was much of that between Roberts and Spencer in '83, or Rainey and
Schwantz in '87 or in '93, etc. While Edwards and Bayliss ran close a
lot in '02, from a results standpoint it was two seasons - Bayliss
winning 14 of the first 17 races, then Edwards winning 9 straight. Not
sure how many times they swapped leads that year, but probably less than
a lot of people would guess - I know Bayliss hardly led a lap between
the end of race one at Laguna and the finale at Imola. I guess that's
the way it goes at the highest levels.
>> Stay informed about: So, who you like? 
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