Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

release the dutch, I would have just a litde bit of slack, and It was hard to get the progressive feel. Those two guys came by pretty quick." "Those two guys" were Gibemau and Rossi, Rossi in the lead for one lap, then Gibemau on the third. Barros and Biaggi were close behind. The order remained static until the 13th lap, when Hayden made a rare pass on Rossi entering turn one. Now the Hondas were in front. "I was ready for the fight," Rossi said. "I overtake Nicky and I know Sete was the fastest, and I try to fight with him." The most Gibemau had on Rossi was .697 of a second, too small to matter. Rossi closed it at will, setting up the expected last-lap charge. It never came. Instead Gibernau gave the race away with a lapse of concentration. "I just saw a whole bunch of people showing hands at me," Gibemau said, and by the time he looked he "was already in the first corner. Then I try to brake hard and the rear wheel went up, and you know, that was a present for Valentino." Rossi had expected a hard fight, "but he unfortunately did a mistake on the first braking. It happens. Also sometimes I make a mistake on the last lap. For sure is not easy and the victory was more easy." Hayden never lost touch with the leaders. The pace comfortable but not easy. "I could run that pace," Hayden said, "but to raise it just a little bit to try to pass, stick it in the holes, was right on the edge. My rear tire was really good, but I was pushing the front a lot at the end and just didn't have the confidence. A couple of times I pushed the front kind of big, and it would take me about a lap or two to get over it and get back to where I wanted to be. It's weird, I could run that pace all day, 23.9, 24.0, 24.1, but to raise it, honestly, one-tenth felt the limit." Hayden said the lead trio all just got sucked into turn one too hot. "He [Gibernau] left the door wide open for me into one," Hayden said, "and I actually - when we got down in there, looked like Valentino was going to run wide, too, and I thought, 'Oh boy, this is going to be right.' And he stayed on line and I just ran a bit wide." Barros and Biaggi stuck with the leaders until the final seven laps, when they Colin Edwards (5) struggled with bike setup all weekend and could only manage an eighth-place finish, just ahead of Capirossi (65). were both over a second out of the lead. Then it was up to them to decide fourth, Blagg! made a pass early on the 23rd lap when Barros' tire struggles worsened. Eight laps from the end, Barros began to lose rear grip, and changing the power delivery didn't help. "Not only was I unable to get amongst the battle for the podium, but I lost the duel with Max as I tried to control the bike which was sliding so much out of the bends," Barros said. The pair had nearly been joined by Nakano close to mid race until the Kawasaki rider began to lose traction. "Toward the end of the race I had a couple of front-end slides, so I just made sure I finished," he said. The trail behind the lead six was short and processional. Melandri was at the front of it and unhappy with his motorcycle in the second race. "I didn't have the same level of traction," he said. Edwards had struggled as badly as Rossi but didn't have a similar breakthrough. "We just never made that big jump in performance that Valentino made, after we both had problems on Friday," Edwards said, so he was relegated to riding around alone in eighth. "Sections one, two and four were okay, but I was losing three-tenths of a second in section three. It's only about 19 seconds through there, but I really couldn't afford to be losing that much time on nearly every lap." Capirossi was next, some nine seconds behind Edwards after being passed by the Texan mid race. "Towards the end, the bike began moving at the back, so my pace went down," Capirossi said. The Italian's ninth was better than the early exit of his teammate, Checa. "It went past the limit when I let the brakes off and the front lost contact," Checa said. Tamada was 10th on the Konica Minolta Honda. eN SACGSENRING CIRCUIT HOHENSTEIN ERNSTTHAL, GERMANY RESULTS: JULY 31, 2005 (ROUND 10 Of 17) MOTOGP QUALIFYING: I. Nicky Hayden (1:22.785); 2. Sete Gibemau (1:22.889); 3. Alex Barros (I :22.932); 4. Valentino Rossi (I :22.973): S. Marco Melandri (1:23.051); 6. Max Biaggi (1:23.054): 7. Colin Edwards (1:23.139): 8. loris Capirossi (1:23.174); 9. Kenny Roberts Briefly... . Continued from page 18 still - in the back of my head - in left-handers am more comfortable. I know it sounds odd, but there's some tracks, big left-hand corners, are still more comfortable. I feel like I'm almost even on both, I would like to think. Still sometimes I seem to falloff more in right-hand corners. Here, Phillip Island, laguna, I got a couple of tracks that go left. But more of them go right. That's not nothing. Even at home, when I go out riding my TT track, I ride it both ways and I always try to go right more than I go left, but I always end up going left because it's more fun. When we were kids, we used to always go right-handed and left-handed. Still, that's what I grew up doing, going left, left, left. Some of that stuff you pick up as a kid is still natural. Dirt track is pretty much all oval - like a NASCAR driver trying to go Formula One, I guess." Hayden revealed that he still keeps a close eye on the AMA Superbike Championship. Not only Supersport and Superstock, where his brothers fly the Kawasaki flag, but Superbike as well. Hayden remarked that when Alex Barros crashed in front of him, he almost got caught up the way Mat Miadin had in the Aaron Yates secondrace crash at Mid-Ohio. "I was on a personal best, and I was in hot anyway," he said. "It was right in front of me. I'm actually really happy, because it's so easy right where when a guy crashes to just pick it up a little bit. And I've done it before, and I always get mad when I go back to the track and watch it and think if you would have just kept your line. I was actually glad I did it because I get mad at myself when I screw up." The difference was that Mladin squared up the corner, taking a much deeper line in the Mid-Ohio Carousel than Yates. So when the bike slid towards the edge ofthe track, Mladin had nowhere to go. When Barros crashed, Hayden was able to hold the tighter inside line. Alex Barros has turned the matter of his $3 million-plus fine over to his attorneys, he said in a statement released in the Sachsenring pressroom. The statement said that his lawyers had been contacted and "are considering what steps to take, if any." Barros said he'd comment once he returns to his home in Brazil to assess the situation. "For the time being, Alex Barros simply wants to state that he respects the decisions of the courts," the statement said. The fine arose in a contract dispute with tobacco giant A1tadis. At the end of the 2003 season, Barris skipped out on the second year of his two-year contract for a chance to ride the Repsol Honda alongside Nicky Hayden. The matter was put to a court of arbitration in Paris that ruled that he owed $2.9 million, plus interest of 3.85 percent from November of 2003, and nearly $300,000 in court and administrative costs. John Hopkins said that he had three offers, in addition to Suzuki's, and that at least one of the teams ran on Michelin tires. "To be honest, Suzuki has a good progra(1l and I have all my crew and mechanics. Being a young rider, obviously people will take chances. You're getting a young rider. of course. Sometimes you don't have the leeway of taking your crew with you. That's one of the unfortunate things if I went another team, and staying at Suzuki I have my entire team which has been built to be pretty much like a family now. So that weighs in more than a more competitive bike. Just having an awesome crew and crew chief and everyone you really respect and get along with and trust is the most important thing. Hopefully by Czecho, it will be all sorted out," Hopkins said. Hopkins said that he believes in Bridgestone, but that time is running short. "Whether they can do it in time, because next year is, basically, there's no more screwing around. It's time to fight for positions. Michelin were threatened so they made a huge step. Michelin's like Honda: If you back them into a corner, they're going to fight the hell out of the way out." Ducati is known to be one of his suitors, with the Italian factory opening up the coffers to sign the young Californian. Where would Hopkins use Michelins? Most likely on the Sito Pons team. With the Camel sponsorship sure to decline, Pons is looking at an alternative and has talked to Red Bull, one of Hopkins' personal sponsors. The weekend didn't start well for Hopkins. A fourth-gear highside - according to him, "Definitely the highest I've ever been from a highside or any crash" - sent him to the medical center with a litany of injuries. "It went into fourth gear and just the edge grip lost it, just lost grip immediately. I hadn't done anything different. We looked on the computer. Everything was the same the lap before. I guess the grip level dropped. I was trying to do a consistent fast pace, and I just went all the way out. It was impossible to stop it." He describes the crash: "First, I went pretty much a 90-degree angle and then it sent me up in the air. Ended lip dding a flip and a half, and then just landed on my stomach and face, and then somehow spun around going into the gravel trap sliding backwards. All the rocks, my helmet was like a scoop. Just battered the hell out of the inside of my mouth and chipped the hell out of my tooth. Then I couldn't get up for a while." He broke the fifth metatarsal in his left foot and did ligament damage to his right thumb. '~d then, I don't know, my whole body's just all beat up." Rib damage made breathing difficult. "Not riding was an option [on Saturday]," he said. "Yeah, with the ribs and everything, it was just such a nightmare trying to sleep last night [Friday]. I had pain all the way down my shoulder. My lower back's all bruised and stuff." For the race he hoped to finish in the points. "With the way I feel, not racing is maybe a smarter option, but I feel like I can get through the race safely. 1had both options through the team. They're not pressuring me in any way. I feel 1can finish within the points; that's the only reason I plan on riding," he said. While Rossi and Edwards were partying on the las Vegas Strip following the U.S. Gp, Hopkins was at the Playboy Mansion. The invitation came for the afterparty of the ESPYs, the sports awards program for ESPN, the largest sp"rts network in the United States, which was held in Los Angeles. The athletes roaming the grounds of the Playboy Mansion impressed Hopkins, but surely there was something else that caught his Continued on page 22 CYCLE NEWS. AUGUST 10, 2005 21

• Cover