MotoGP

[LaGrasta]

On 10/4/2023 at 9:20 AM, p6x said:

Jake Gagné will come to MotoGP?

I'm so anxious for U.S. talent to get back in!

[LaGrasta]

Pedro Acosta could be a threat, although not always do Moto2 and 3 winners make the transition well.

Lorenzo commenting on Marquez' obsession with VR46 is rich. Both are dead to me after the 2015 season. I can't believe Dorna didn't condemn those two. As far as I'm concerned VR46 has 10 titles!

[GuzziMoto]

I doubt the US will have a serious entry into MotoGP anytime soon. Our better chance is in WSBK, where Gerloff is gaining his footing on the BMW.

Joe Roberts continues to run mid-pack in Moto2, sadly he was never one of our better racers. He is good enough to be in Moto2, but it seems unlikely he will do enough to get promoted to MotoGP. Reality is currently that success or failure in Moto2 seems to have little bearing on success or failure in MotoGP. It is possible that Joe Roberts could be amazing in MotoGP, but unless he does better and earns a shot we will never know. And I can't see him earning that shot.

[p6x]

5 hours ago, LaGrasta said:

Pedro Acosta could be a threat, although not always do Moto2 and 3 winners make the transition well.

Lorenzo commenting on Marquez' obsession with VR46 is rich. Both are dead to me after the 2015 season. I can't believe Dorna didn't condemn those two. As far as I'm concerned VR46 has 10 titles!

Dorna is only watching their bottom line, and the return on investment; since the introduction of the short Saturday's races, the audience has grown 20%, according to GPMag, a French media that is one of the few that has obtained Dorna's official accreditation.

As for the 2015 feud between MM and VR, I agree with you on the principle while understanding that VR46 made the mistake of giving the only factual evidence to be penalized by kicking. If he had not, then Marquez's poor sportsmanship would have come under review, maybe. Let us always remember that Dorna's top management is Spanish.

[p6x]

4 hours ago, GuzziMoto said:

I doubt the US will have a serious entry into MotoGP anytime soon. Our better chance is in WSBK, where Gerloff is gaining his footing on the BMW.

Joe Roberts continues to run mid-pack in Moto2, sadly he was never one of our better racers. He is good enough to be in Moto2, but it seems unlikely he will do enough to get promoted to MotoGP. Reality is currently that success or failure in Moto2 seems to have little bearing on success or failure in MotoGP. It is possible that Joe Roberts could be amazing in MotoGP, but unless he does better and earns a shot we will never know. And I can't see him earning that shot.

The major issue to get a US competitive pilot in MotoGP starts with the need to move to Europe to learn the tracks, which already put them at a disadvantage. Both Beaubier and Petrucci described the difficulty to live away from home and family.

Therefore, until a young US talent does what Casey Stoner did in his time, basically transferring to Europe, I don't think we will see anybody doing a Hayden anytime soon.

Unless someone joins VR46 rider academy, which still implies moving to Italy.

[audiomick]

27 minutes ago, p6x said:

...the difficulty to live away from home and family.

My opinion: if that is an argument that carries any weight, then "professional motorcycle racer" is the wrong job for the person in question.

Yes, it is hard to be away from home and family, but it is part of the deal.

 

PS: about 35 years as a freelance sound engineer, in which profession most of the work isn't close to home, and doesn't get you home at 6 in the evening for dinner, allows me to make such a "harsh" judgement. I survived, and I didn't earn nearly as much doing that as those pro riders do.

I still work as a sound engineer, but now I'm old and I've found a cushy job in an opera house close to home.

[p6x]

15 hours ago, audiomick said:

My opinion: if that is an argument that carries any weight, then "professional motorcycle racer" is the wrong job for the person in question.

Yes, it is hard to be away from home and family, but it is part of the deal.

 

PS: about 35 years as a freelance sound engineer, in which profession most of the work isn't close to home, and doesn't get you home at 6 in the evening for dinner, allows me to make such a "harsh" judgement. I survived, and I didn't earn nearly as much doing that as those pro riders do.

I still work as a sound engineer, but now I'm old and I've found a cushy job in an opera house close to home.

Well, if we are going to talk about it, I started to work in the oilfield in 1980. Back then, there were no easy way to have personal communications from offshore or onshore rigs; if you were in between jobs at the base, international phone calls were cost prohibitive, even in Europe. So we wrote; whoever was going on days off would mail letters received from strangers. That was the unwritten rule. So you'd have your family receiving letters mailed from around the world.

In some countries, the number of consecutive days you could spend on a given offshore installation were limited. However, my company had found a loop hole. You would do your legal time on rig A, then they would switch you to rig B, and because it was a different installation, the day counter would be reset to zero; and so on and so forth.

But when you work 12 hours a day, every day, you do not have time to miss anything. Sony had just introduced the Betamax system. The first offshore rig where I did three months nonstop received two new films per month... writing was a better way to satisfy your angst if you had any.

VR46, MM93 never really had to leave their respective forgiving environment when they were grinding their teeth in their own national championships. It is a plus.

There is also the financial part of it. Unless you have a deep pocketed sponsor to support you when you are abroad, or come from a wealthy family such as Tito Rabat, you start at a disadvantage.

But the new generations seem to be less resilient than we were. Once I had moved on from being a grunt, running the show, we started to have a lot of defections. Guys that simply could not stay away and breaking down on their first jobs; sometimes, a family emergency would make you feel helpless as you would be stuck miles away from home with no means to get back fast.

It happened to me three times. I know how it feels to receive an emergency message while in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes, perfect strangers would help you beyond what you even thought could be possible. But you could never count on it. As Rudyard Kipling put it: you had to be a man.

In any case, the newer generations do not want, do not need to make the sacrifices that older ones had to. Both my grand-father and father were drafted. There was no choice; you had to go and leave everything behind with no clear idea if and when you would return.

I expect that we are probably going to see racers coming from Thailand, India, Malaysia; countries with more motivation perhaps?

Dorna seems to be wanting to diversify as much as possible as it is clear that only two nations dominate the Motorcycle GP rosters at present, and there is possibly some lassitude there.

 

[LowRyter]

17 hours ago, p6x said:

The major issue to get a US competitive pilot in MotoGP starts with the need to move to Europe to learn the tracks, which already put them at a disadvantage. Both Beaubier and Petrucci described the difficulty to live away from home and family.

Therefore, until a young US talent does what Casey Stoner did in his time, basically transferring to Europe, I don't think we will see anybody doing a Hayden anytime soon.

Unless someone joins VR46 rider academy, which still implies moving to Italy.

US Road Racing has been in the tank for 15 years.  The manufacturers pulled out and the last two talents are gone from MotoGP.  It's not bounced back.  The Daytona 200 is a mere shadow of itself.   There are more opportunities in Flat Track and Moto Cross.  MA has made some incremental advancements.   So the opportunities are largely gone here and the whole scene has shifted to Europe.  That being the lower Moto classes and perhaps British and Spanish racing are the places to start.  It's a young man's game, so not many teeneagers are moving to Europe. 

 I'd suggest that we have better regional racing and perhaps some spec racing bikes that might be under the MA umbrella that keep the costs and travel down.  Then have a few national events for championships.  This has been done, just not with a lot of sponsorship.  Flat Track is able to fund a national schedule even for the amatuer classes although the top class only has a dozen bikes. 

[audiomick]

8 hours ago, p6x said:

I expect that we are probably going to see racers coming from Thailand, India, Malaysia; countries with more motivation perhaps?

Could very well be possible. Professional sport has, after all, long been a way to get out of "the ghetto". Why not with motorcycle racing and the "developing countries"?

[p6x]

14 hours ago, audiomick said:

Could very well be possible. Professional sport has, after all, long been a way to get out of "the ghetto". Why not with motorcycle racing and the "developing countries"?

This is soon going to become a necessity if Dorna wants to keep the show going. It seems to me the traditional MotoGP followers are guys who were born a long time ago. They can probably tank Marquez for that unexpected move to Ducati in 2024. It is certain that it is going to bring a renewed attention.

From what I saw, the "new" countries have a much younger public.

I am watching the 2023 World Rugby Championship, and the crowds are young and enthusiast from all over the world.

[p6x]

Anyone else noticed that with Marquez move to Gresini Ducati, the best and most notorious riders of the modern MotoGP era will have ridden on a Ducati?

Casey Stoner, Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo and now Marc Marquez....

The corollary is true too:

Honda: Valentino Rossi, Marc Marquez, Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo....

When it comes to win a world title on two different brands, then only two: Rossi and Stoner. So maybe Marc Marquez will join them in 2024.

[Twin AH]

On 10/4/2023 at 10:36 AM, LowRyter said:

both Marquez on the same team?  

That's just Grose..............

[GuzziMoto]

As a former motorcycle racer who traveled this country racing for peanuts, I really don't think learning the tracks in Europe is key to getting an American racing in MotoGP. Learning tracks is not that hard for a talented racer. If learning tracks is holding you back, you may not have enough talent. I raced local racers at their home track, a track that I had never been to or a track that I had only been to once before, and was still able to race them and often beat them. And I was not MotoGP caliber. Some racers learn new tracks faster then others, but at that level all of them should have no issues learning a new track in a day or two.

There are Americans like Joe Roberts running in Moto2, but sadly he is not overly impressive. You could say he went over there too soon, but then had he not gone as soon as he did people would say he went there too late. PJ Jacobson went over there fairly early as well, but came back and is now honing his skills and improving. What could have been had he done that first. The pressure is to go to Europe as soon as you can, but it is such a meat grinder that you may kill your career if you don't get the right ride quick enough.

The reality is, at one time the world looked to America for the next hot talent. Now they do not. We have incredibly talented racers here, but they tend to be over looked. As they say, talent is universally distributed, but opportunity is not. The lack of American talent in MotoGP is mainly down to a lack of opportunity in my opinion. But it is what it is. I also think the current feeder system is suspect, with success or failure in Moto3 or Moto2 not being a good indicator of potential in MotoGP. Moto2 is closer then it was with the Honda inline 4, but the Triumph triple is a very different animal then what you have in MotoGP.

[LaGrasta]

My #BB33 had two long lap penalties, and still placed 6th, nearly 5th until  the last corner! Great race.

[LaGrasta]

should we start a new MotoGP thread, without #93 as the headline?