VOL. 51 ISSUE 15 APRIL 15, 2014 P21
while Marquez raised a recipro-
cal laugh when he pointed out
"he started in the World Cham-
pionship when I was two years
old."
The loss of a rider from the
U.S. highlighted the decline in
rider supply from a nation that
dominated the championship in
the 1980s and early 1990s. Only
Nicky Hayden remains in Mo-
toGP, plus rookie Josh Herrin in
Moto2.
The reason why? One aspect
criticized by all three riders was
the loss of impetus from the do-
mestic championship, which has
declined in every area since the
takeover by Daytona Motorsports
Group [DMG] in 2008, including
the technical downgrade from
factory Superbikes and a shrink-
age of the calendar.
This year, said Hayden, "It's
five races [actually six with the re-
cent addition of Laguna Seca to
the calendar], two-day events…
so there's not a lot of experi-
ence to be gained. Also with the
economic problems a lot of guys
with talent couldn't get the right
backing, so they had to go and
get jobs."
Herrin, the first American to
move on to GPs since Ben Spies,
confirmed the opinion. "A lot
of people have to pay for rides,
rather than going to the best rid-
ers available," he said. "It's tough
to come up in road racing in the
U.S."
Michael Scott
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
GOLD
&
GOOSE
FUJINAMI, BOU SPLIT
AUSSIE OPENER
I
t was business as usual for current World Trials
Champion Toni Bou on day two of the opening
round of the series in Australia as he took victory
over Gas Gas' Adam Raga and Beta's Jeroni Fajar-
do a day after losing out to his teammate Takahisa
Fujinami.
The organizers had made modifications to six of
the hazards for the second day in order to extract
more marks from the riders and this clearly showed
in the final scores. It came down to the second lap,
however, with Raga knowing that to challenge Bou
he would have to keep the pressure on. But Bou
finished with just a solitary mark in section two -
though Raga also improved from his first lap to
drop only two single marks on sections three and
10 as these two riders pulled away from the rest to
make the fight for the win their own.
It was a tense final lap for Bou and Raga as they
knew that one slip would change everything, but
they both held their nerve and parted with only sin-
gle marks each to give Bou the victory.
Bou now takes a seven-point advantage in the
championship as day-one winner Fujinami faded to
finish seventh on the second day.
"The pressure has been on me to win today
and I am very happy to take this victory," Bou said.
"Second position yesterday was a good start to
this year's series, but I now have the confidence to
carry this victory to the next round in Japan. I would
like to thank everyone in Australia for the support
and also my team Repsol Honda for a good job."
Toni Bou wasn't perfect
in the opening round of
the World Trials Champi-
onship in Australia, but
he was close.
