Alex G. on Mid-Ohio
The youngest Gobert brother makes his journalism debut
By Alex Gobert
Photos by Andrew Northcott

Last week, Alex Gobert announced through www.roadracingworld.com that for 2006, he’ll be heading back to Australia to pursue a career in magazine journalism. The Erion Honda rider isn’t satisfied with his racing results lately, and he wants to try something for which he says he has a lot of enthusiasm. It’s tempting to discount a racer’s ambitions to trade in his helmet for a “real” job, but we thought it would be better to ask Alex to walk the walk. He called our bluff and sent in the following report on last weekend’s Mid-Ohio AMA Superbike round. Please note that in order to accurately reflect how ready Gobert is for the journalism game, we’ve taken the unusual step of not changing a single thing in Alex’s story. Judge for yourself whether he’s up to the task:

With only a few races left to run this year, the 2005 AMA Superbike Championship is winding down fast and the pressure is building on everybody in the series, including the young guns doing everything they can to prove themselves worthy of a factory supported ride in 2006, all the way to the established stars, trying to capture an AMA championship.

With Mat Mladin involved in the crash with Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Aaron Yates in the Mid Ohio Superbike race on Sunday, the Superbike championship is surprisingly coming down to the wire. Youngest member of the Yosh squad, Ben Spies has had a consistent rookie season. If things go his way in the last four races, could we have a new champion? Unlikely, but possible.

Tommy Hayden proved in Ohio why he is the dominant rider and the reigning champion in Supersport. Fresh from surgery on his broken right hand, the eldest Hayden brother put in an inspiring ride to finish second, behind younger brother Roger Lee, and didn’t lose too many points in the title chase. Tommy sat out the weekend on his ZX10-R Superstock bike, giving his hand as much rest as possible.

The silly season always hits full swing at Laguna Seca in mid July and there were plenty of rumors floating around at Mid Ohio.

One of the more interesting rumors was the Mat Mladin Motorsports team maybe expanding to a two rider team for 2006. Who would be the new rider alongside current rider Marty Craggill? Everything from Mat bringing up a young rider, to the man himself riding in his own team has been mentioned.....

One thing to consider is that Yamaha rider Damon Buckmaster will not be with Yamaha next season and is looking for a job. Damon, a good friend of Mladin, might just be a good candidate, making an all Australian line up for the privateer Suzuki team.

A couple of young guns hoping to get a chance at being on a fully supported team must be MPTracing.com Suzuki rider Danny Eslick and Topline racing's Chris Peris. Both have shown a new burst of speed and consistency in 2005 and are rumored to be on a few teams shortlists.

The weather is heating up in Southern California this month and just in time for summer X games. With Supermoto being introduced to the extreme sports line up in 2004, X games is now an important date on many factory teams calendar.

Eric Bostrom, three time AMA Superbike winner this season and on top form lately, has announced he will be racing and will be doing the AMA Supermoto championship round this weekend in Wisconsin as a warm up. Can Eric make it a Bostrom back to back X games Supermoto victory?

American Honda rider Jake Zemke was on the invited rider list, but will not be making his X games debut this year. Known as an aggressive rider who slides his CBR1000RR Superbike around like a mini bike, former dirt tracker Zemke will instead focus on winning his first ever AMA championship in the Formula Xtreme class.

2004 Supercross champion Chad Reed has been preparing on his Factory Yamaha YZ-F 450. With Yamaha running the factory supported Graves Motorsports Yamaha Supermoto team this year, expect Reed to be better prepared and looking for a win after finishing just outside the top five last year.