With a damp but drying track, MotoGP got underway at Jerez, Spain this weekend with Jorge Lorenzo sitting once again at the pole position. A favorite to win at the Spanish track, Lorenzo’s bid for his second race win of the season would surely be challenged by fellow countryman Dani Pedrosa. Always unable to count out Casey Stoner, and with Nicky Hayden and Cal Crutchlow mixing things up at the front, the Spanish GP promised to have some good close racing, and its results will surely frame the discussion about who the contenders are the 2012 MotoGP Championship.
Writing about MotoGP is hard at the moment. There are so many great stories to tell – the astonishing rise of Romano Fenati out of nowhere in Moto3, the legion of Kalexes taking on Marc Marquez in Moto2, the frenetic pace of development among the CRT machines, the ascendancy of Dani Pedrosa as a challenger for Jorge Lorenzo and Casey Stoner, the rebirth of Cal Crutchlow as a serious force to be reckoned with, the HRC design gaffe that left the RC213V seriously afflicted by chatter, just to name a few – but it is hard to get around to telling them. Because the vast majority of fans only want to read about one single subject: the enigma of Valentino Rossi’s continuing battle with the Ducati Desmosedici, and his fall from championship contender to mid-pack straggler.
With rain in all three of MotoGP’s Free Practice Sessions at Jerez, qualifying for the Spanish GP was unsurprisingly shaped by the weather. Getting a dry track with damp sections, riders were able to go out initially on slicks, though mid-way through it looked like rain could cut short the chance for lap-time improvements. The weather more or less cooperated though, only interrupting the qualifying briefly, though it did help make for some interesting results, with more than a few riders caught sliding along the asphalt.
There were plenty of big names to watch out for at Jerez, but the real star of the show was the weather. She turned out to be such a prima donna that she almost completely halted on-track action for the first session of MotoGP, though not so much through her ferocity as by her fickleness. A rain shower at the end of the previous Moto3 made the track just greasy enough for it to be no use for slick tires, and nowhere near wet enough to get any useful information from wets, and so the vast majority of the MotoGP grid spent all of FP1 suited up but twiddling their thumbs.
After the opening of hostilities in the black of the desert night in Qatar, the 2012 MotoGP season gets underway for real – or at least, what feels like for real – this weekend in Jerez. The paddock finally full, not of Nissen huts, but of sleek and shiny hospitality units and race trucks; the stands full of fans, and spread all around the track, not huddled together at one end of Qatar’s single grandstand; the bikes displaying their natural glory in daylight, not the fluorescent glare of Qatar’s admittedly spectacular floodlit fish bowl.
The track is familiar to all. We were here just a month ago, for the final IRTA test ahead of the season, and everyone has had a chance to find a decent setup for the track. Fastest man during the test was also the fastest man at Qatar, though arm pump prevented Casey Stoner from capitalizing on that speed, and his title rival Jorge Lorenzo taking advantage to secure a well-deserved victory.
We will have to update our CRT spotter’s guide, as BQR’s Avintia Blusens team has dropped its aluminum Suter frame in favor of Inmotec’s carbon/aluminum chassis for rider Spanish Ivan Silva. Making at least Silva’s side of the garage an all-Spanish affair for the team, BQR has reportedly been working with Inmotec since the pre-season, but opted for the British-designed FTR chassis for the start of the MotoGP Championship.
Ben Spies’s sophomore MotoGP season of 2011 can only be described as a wild roller coaster ride. The former AMA and World Superbike champion finished on the podium four times in 2011 including a legitimate alien-slaying maiden victory at Assen, but was also tempered by an equal number of non-scores and several other generally forgettable weekends.
Indianapolis was the scene of a season highlight for the Texan. Running Yamaha’s red and white 50th anniversary GP colors for the final time, Ben sliced his way to a podium finish against track conditions that provided no real passing line to speak of and finishing behind only the lightning fast Hondas of Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa.
Having nearly won the last race of the 800cc era, Ben will no doubt be looking to challenge for the 2012 title. “There’s always a changing of the guard”, he has been quoted as saying on more than one occasion. Could he be referring to himself? Time will tell.
Last month I was fortunate enough to stop by the ranch of one Kenny Roberts Sr., and got to look at the Grandfather to American Roadracing’s personal motorcycle collection. Comprised of nearly a dozen KR Proton MotoGP machines, amongst the nearly forty bikes in the collection, King Kenny easily has the quintessential motorcycle dream garage — and I haven’t even gotten to mentioning the stacks of race leathers, helmets, trophies, and other racing memorabilia that line the walls and cover the tables in the small two-wheeled gallery.
Making some space in his collection, Kenny Roberts Sr. has put four race bikes from the Team KR racing heritage up on the auction block, two of which are KR Proton GP machines. The first bike up for grabs is a KR Proton KR3 (above) that was ridden by Nobuatsu Aoki, which raced in the 2001 500GP Championship and features a two-stroke V3 motor. Also offering a MotoGP-era four-stroke machine, King Kenny has added his KR Proton KRV5 XM2 (below), which was ridden by his youngest son, Kurtis Roberts, in the 2004 MotoGP Championship, and features a proprietary five-cylinder motor.