That's gotta' be a first!

On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:48:33 -0700, Dave <no1 RemoveThis @home.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:15:42 -0500, Russell Watson
><russell-watson RemoveThis @comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>I'm with T3 on the "we don't have a dog in the fight" frame of mind.
>
>You know, I really don't mind that there aren't any Americans in the
>series at the moment. The racing is good now that there's more than
>one brand at the front, and therefore more than one or two riders.
>
>But, what bothers me right now is the disconnect between the SBK
>series'. There's no apparent path from AMA SBK to WSBK. Nobody in
>the AMA seems to want anything to do with WSBK these days. We never
>hear any AMA riders speak of wanting a "promotion" to WSBK, only to
>MotoGP. There hasn't been any interest in moving to WSBK since,
>probably, BBoz did it in 2000 and EBoz took a few rides a couple years
>later. Right now, the AMA riders just don't see WSBK as a step up.
>The tracks may be better or safer but the series just doesn't have the
>esteem of a World Championship it once had thanks to the recent years
>of single-team-dominance (Factory Duc) and then the spec tire
>boondoggle of picking the third rate Pirellis.
>
>Ten years ago someone like Ben Spies would have been shipped off to
>WSBK after riding the way he has over the past five years.
>Personally, I'd rather see Ben go off to WSBK than MotoGP. Especially
>if he's going to have to settle for a second rate MotoGP ride like a
>Suzuki or Kawasaki. I'd really like to see him ripping on an Alstare
>Suzuki. Actually, I'd like to see Ben on another brand at some point
>just to prove he's not a one-trick-pony.

I think we had a thread last year about how cool it would be to see
the top riders do a "round robin" through all the different makes of
bikes to see how much is rider and how much is bike, but of course
it's not possible to actually do that.