Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128349
- - -~-- ~ -~-I MOTOGP Final Round ~ World Cha mpionship Road Ra ce S er ies Briefly.•• "We tried a soft tire on the front and it didn't work well," he said . Fuchs Kawasa ki's Ale x Hofmann was I Ith , one spot in front of Hopkins. Then c a m e the fi rst Apri lia of Je r emy McWilliams. The En g lishma n said he'd mad e a t ir e choice t hat didn't suit th e weat her. Carlos Chec a did w ha t he had done m a ny t im e s o n t he Fo rtuna G auloi se s Yama ha: he crashed it. This tim e he rem oun ted t o finish 14th . Marlboro Duca t i ann ou nced Che ca wo uld be join ing t he team in 2004 . Ro ss i finish ed his fou rth c ham pio nshi p year in a row w ith 30 4 points , 47 mo re t h an G ib erna u . Biagg i w as another 40 b a c k . T he n came Barros a nd Edwa rds. H ay d e n ended t he ye ar in a three -w ay tie w it h Carlos Ch eca an d Loris C a p irossi fo r se ven t h . Ro ssi 's t e a m , G a u lo ise s Fo rtuna Yamaha, a lso won t he team c hampio nship , t ho ugh Hond a w on t he manufact ure r's c hampi onship. New ly c ro wn e d 250cc World Champi o n D a ni Pedrosa too k t he le ad on the 10th of 27 laps o f the 250cc Grand Prix, then sped aw ay after challenger Sebast ian Porto crashed out on the 19t h lap while he was 2 ,5 seconds behind . That left t he Telef6n ica MoviStar Honda ride r to w in his seventh GP of the year, this one by 8 .086 seconds. The battle for second went to Fo rtuna Ho nd a 's Ton i Elias over Telef6nic a MoviSta r Honda 's Hi roshi Aoyama , w ith 2 .3 seconds be twe e n them . T hen t here w as a gap to Safilo Carre ra LCR's Randy de Puniet in fo u rth a n d C a m pa t ella Racing 's Franco Batta ini in fifth . Aoya m a 's Ho nd a N SR250 was found t o be 500 grams ( 1. 1 Ibs .) u nderweight, how e ve r, a nd d e Punie t was moved up to t hird. Ped rosa e n ds t he se ason wi th 3 I 7 points , Porto w it h 256 and d e Pun iet w ith 211 . Se e d o rf Raci ng' s H e cto r Barbera won t he att riti o n- pla gued 12Sc c G rand Prix . Wh ile o thers were cras hing o ut an d reti ring , Ba rbera ke pt u p the pa ce a nd pulle d away fro m w hat was le ft of t he original 38-ride r g rid . Continued from page 13 "am azing." Since forging a friendship with fe llow golf and motorcycle e nthusiast Michael Jordan, Pridmore's life has been a blur of goif, motorcycles and travel. "It' s such an honor to be ab le to hang out just do the things we've done with him ," Pridmore said in the converted pit lane garage that was serving as Jordan's base at Valencia's Ricardo Torma Circuit. Pridmore flew from Ch icago to Valencia on Jordan' s Gulfstream G-5 along with a number of Jordan's and his own friends . " Ididn't have to tum my cell phone off before I started, I didn't have to put my seat be lt o n, my seat cou ld be reclined - it didn't matter how it was ." After a day 's rest, Pridmo re played go lf with Jo rdan, Ahmad Rashad and Spanish golfing legend Seve Ballasteros at the world-class EI Parador de EI Saber golf course outside of Valencia. "It was neat be ing ab le to play w ith Seve , and he was so he lpful. He was always willingto give you advice and answer any questions that you had. He was good, he was awesome." After wards, they had dinner w ith Ballasteros at the golf club. Golf aside , Pridmore was impres sed by his first Grand Prix. "It's unreal. I think the biggest thing is that I'm still racing, and I was talking to Roger Lee [Hayden) - I was talking to all the Ame rican guys over he re that ar e here - and they're like, 'It's neat being here, but you wa nt to ride, because it's such a neat atmosphe re .' It' s so unlike going anywhere else. I've been to other series around the w orld, and you don't get the same fee ling as w he n you come here. This is where you wan t to be . It's pretty cool." Th e thunder of th e Mot oGP four-stro kes left an impressi on. "I don't ever wear ear plugs racing, non e of that; he re , you can fee l it in your sto mach when they go by. It's neat to know t hat somewhe re in the w orl d, mo torcycling is where it' s at." Pridmore saw a giant billboard of Set e Gibernau as soon as he left the airport. "I noticed it too as soon as you walk ou t of the place. It's just different. It woul d be so neat IIwe cou ld get the same atmosphere back home." Colin Edwards won' t have long to wait . Four days after the Valencia Gp, Edwards was to test the Yamaha M-I he'll be racing alongside Valentino Rossi next year. "I th ink it's 99 percent," Edwards said in the pre-event press co nfere nce . "Just a few little things got to get taken to make it po litically co rr ect. Yeah, I think it'll hap pe n. I'm looking forward to it." The obstacle would be his re lease from the Telef6nica MoviStar Honda team. Ifthat doesn't happen, he might have to wa it until after January IS, the end of the test moratoriu m, to ride the Yamaha. "Nobody wants to wait , untilthen to ride a new bike . Pe rso nally I'd like to ride it Monday right after the race ." Which bike Edwards might ride was n't known. The 2005 M- I made its de but unde r Valentin o Rossi in Friday's free practice, but whether the re 's a second new model for Edwards isn't known. The Haydens were out in full force at Valencia, w ith Tom my and Roger Lee joining Nicky 14 NOVEMBER 10, 2004 • CYCLE NEWS 40th Anniversary and father Earl for the final GP of the year after an extended detour to Madrid. Aside from tha t ordeal, their first impressions were unifomnly positive. "Everyt hing is just first class," Roger Lee said o f his first GP."Ican't believe how organized it is. All the practices go out on time . You don't worry about somebody leaving oil on the track. It kind of bums me out tha t we have to go home and deal with that." The noise also impressed them. "The bikes are so loud it's crazy," Roger Lee said . To mmy had heard the Kawasaki GP machine when he tested in Japan this past summer. "The garages were even farther away the re than they are he re , and when the y went by, it rallied your brain," the newly crowned 600cc Supersport Champion said. Tommy had been to a GP before - in 1996 w he n he came over to do a Spanish dirt track. He 'd planned on coming to this same weekend a year earlier but was detoured when Kawasaki scheduled a test of the new ZX-IO at Ho mestead-Miam i Speedway. "I've been hearing about it fo r two years from Nick and my dad ," Tommy said. "It wasn't a huge shock. I was prewarned ." Tommy said when the season-ending AMA race at Virginia International Raceway was de layed due to Hurricane Ivan, the later scheduling of the Valencia meeting made sense . The Haydens w eren 't the only two AMA road race rs in the padd oc k. Ja ke Zem ke, now with the Ame rican Ho nda Superbike team, cam e over to have a loo k at his first Europ ean GP."Wh e n I was a kid, I went to laguna when they were o n 5005," Zem ke said in th e A1pinestars hospitality unit on Saturday eve ning. "Then I went to Rio [Brazil] for the last 500cc GP. I knew the four-strokes were coming, so I figured I bette r go see the last 500 GP because I hadn't see n one since I was a little kid. This is my first time see ing the four-stro kes and being at a Europ ean round as wel l. The only other ones I'd been to are flyaway races. It's definite ly the spectacle that everyone told me it was . It's de finitely the first-class deal. I've been out th rough th e infield right in the com ers . It's hard for me , because I don't know what it looks like when I'm out on the track from standing o n the inside looking at it- I on ly know what it's like being on it. To watch th ese guys, yeah , it's cool , it's impressive, but at the same time I have no idea what we look like too. But the biggest thing I'm impressed with is the acce leration off the co rners. Watching the m come off the final comer, it's such a slow co me r and by the time they get off the curb , abo ut the same time pit in is, you can see those bikes acce lerate so hard, and it's very imp ressive. It's the one that worked out that I could get to . It's really nice to see the circuits over here and knowing that this isn't even o ne o f the best ones , it's still head and shoulders be tter than what we have in Ame rica for sure . The tracks in America, so me of the tracks are worki ng hard to make impro veme nts, which is nice to see, and o bviously with MotoGP coming to Laguna, there's de finitely going to be some improvements there. Laguna was Continued on page J7