Honda Road Racerhead #15

It’s magazine deadline week, and I’ve barely got time to get my head above water for Road Racerhead, but with AMA Pro Racing and World Superbike both having done their third rounds last weekend, and MotoGP finally kicking off this weekend, I’d better make it happen. We’ll start with MotoGP, which is holding its second night race ever on Sunday in Doha, Qatar. This is also the first race with the Bridgestone spec tires, and the first race with Kawasaki running under the name Hayate—and with only Marco Melandri on the squad, John Hopkins having made his World Superbike debut last weekend with Stiggy Racing. It’s also Nicky Hayden’s first race as Casey Stoner’s Ducati Marlboro teammate, and American Cameron Beaubier’s first Grand Prix ever, in the 125cc class, where made-in-China Team Haojue is also making their debut. In addition, this is Sete Gibernau’s first race back in the MotoGP paddock following a two-year retirement, and he and Rossi made a show of smoothing over their past animosity during a pre-race press conference (at the site where their animosity started). Oh, and it’s also the first race run under MotoGP’s new cost-cutting measures, which means there was just one 45-minute practice session today instead of two one-hour sessions.

Stoner dominated last year’s Losail race (which was just named the Best GP of ’08), and in today’s single practice session, he threw down the gauntlet again, setting a fast time of 1:57.053, or just under four tenths faster than Valentino Rossi. Third-quickest was none other than Monster/Tech3 Yamaha’s Colin Edwards, who bettered Jorge Lorenzo and Alex de Angelis. Nicky—who got team manager Livio Suppo good last week, claiming on April Fool’s day that he wanted a wall in the Ducati Marlboro garage—was down in thirteenth spot. Dani Pedrosa—riding through the pain of an injured left arm and leg—was last (two spots behind Gibernau), but don’t count the diminutive Spaniard out come race time. Pramac Racing riders Mika Kallio and Nicolo Canepa—who are recognizing the victims of this week’s earthquake in Italy with a special sticker on their Ducatis—were seventh and seventeenth, respectively.

Laurel Allen talked to Edwards this week about his team and the start of a new MotoGP season, and the Texan had this to say: “Honestly, I love where I’m at. It’s a great group of guys and the camaraderie is more than what you get on a factory team. Factory mechanics have different lives, and everybody’s on a plane back home right away; the team I’m on, they’re all young—only a few are even married—and the camaraderie as far as hanging out, working together, going to restaurants together, it’s just like a bunch of brothers hanging out. I fit in there perfect, so it’s easy.”

“Easy” didn’t describe Colin’s last race at Qatar—after qualifying third for the event, he had to settle for seventh behind teammate James Toseland—but the Texan’s been strong in preseason testing and says he’s liked the track itself since his first visit. “And we had a pretty good test there, too,” he told Laurel. “We weren’t the fastest guy out there—I think we were top-four as far as race pace was concerned—but we have a couple of tricks up our sleeves with a front-end setting. I don’t want to tell you everything, but there’s one part of the front end that’s not quite the same angle as what I was riding on last year, and we’ve started to create a little bit of chatter when we start to push, so we might try something at Qatar. It’s really a small change, more or less just for my riding style and the way I ride the front, but we think it might work out.”

Colin also had this to say to Laurel, in another recent phone conversation: “The whole tire transfer thing—I’ve been on Michelin for about eleven years, and I was already excited to come to Bridgestone because I’d heard their front tire is amazing, and I’m a front-end guy. So I was really, really happy to get on those and have it be pretty much exactly what I’d hoped, and to adapt really early and really well. I’m feeling good, to be honest, and as far as starting the season goes, it’s been a couple of years since I went into one feeling as comfortable and confident as I am now.”

Meanwhile, in 125cc action, American Beaubier turned in the 22nd-fastest time in the first practice, 5.347 seconds behind quick-man Julian Simon.

The race will air on Speed Sunday at 10 p.m. EST, with the 250cc race airing two hours before that.

Speaking of MotoGP races airing, check out the latest commercial from Toby Moody and Julian Ryder.

Last weekend was Road Atlanta’s Suzuki Superbike Showdown (also known as AMA Pro Road Racing Round 3), a slideshow for which is right here.

Laurel was representing RRX in Georgia, and she filed this for Road Racerhead: “Rules, schmules, said Mat Mladin, as he blasted off to his fourth and fifth wins of the season, posting win margins of 15.718 and 4.199 seconds, respectively. Mladin’s perfect record and command of the championship points lead may have demoralized some people (particularly those hoping to see the new rules program make the Australian somehow less the rider he is), but Larry Pegram, for one, is taking it in stride.

“‘Mat and Ben [Spies] are both showing that the reason they won a lot of races in the past is because 1) they had a great team, and 2) they’re two of the best riders in the world,’ said the Ducati Foremost Pegram Racing team owner and rider. ‘I think I could have been top-three both days at Atlanta if I was healthy,” he continued (Pegram high-sided in Round 2’s Race 1, knocking himself out and prompting a red flag), ‘but I couldn’t have beat Mat no matter how healthy I was. That’s his place, he’s got that track dialed, and the only person who could run there with him was Ben.’

“‘Those little tight sections where you go back and forth,’ said Larry, ‘you just get through them. And it’s partly the way Mat’s got his bike set up and partly just him, but he gets the thing through those tight little switchbacks so fast. I followed him through the thing at the top of the hill and was like, Well, I don’t know how he just did that, but I can’t get through there that fast.’”

Laurel and Larry are right—Mladin is continuing to dominate, and he’s undoubtedly doing so because he’s the best rider on the best team—but I think it’s only fair to point out that AMA Pro never claimed that they didn’t want Mat to win; they only said they want better racing. Are we getting it? Well, let’s look at last year: At the 2008 Road Atlanta round, Spies scored the AMA Superbike win over Mladin and Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking in Race 1, while Mladin won Race 2 over Spies and Hacking. Obviously, the margins between Mladin and Spies were generally tighter than this year’s margins between Mladin and whoever finishes second—Spies was the only rider in recent years who was able to consistently challenge Mat. But as we all know, Spies is now gone, having departed to World Superbike (where the skills he picked up racing Mladin are serving him well). So again, looking at last year, if you consider the margin between the winning Rockstar/Makita Suzuki and the top-finishing bike from another team (which seems fair, considering that Spies is gone), it was 19.361 seconds in Race 1 and 21.899 seconds in Race 2. This year, that same margin was 16.165 seconds in Race 1 and 4.376 seconds in Race 2. So yes, the team is still winning, but it’s also true that the racing is technically closer—which, again, was AMA Pro’s stated goal.

Laurel also had this to say: “Larry’s looking forward to getting to more flowing tracks where he knows his bike will be more competitive, and so is the majority of the paddock, whether they’re riders in American Superbike or Daytona SportBike. Danny Eslick piloted his Rossmeyer’s/RMR Buell to a third-place finish in Atlanta’s Race 1 and his third victory of the season on Sunday, doing plenty to make for good racing but little to quiet the grumblings of those who feel the Buell has an unfair displacement advantage. If organizers do eventually decide to do any tweaking to the regulations, the upcoming rounds at Barber Motorsports Park and Infineon Raceway—tracks where the name of the game is handling, and where the 600s should shine—will be the events that inform their decisions.”

I was talking above about class parity, and whatever your thoughts about Daytona SportBike, you have to admit that the racing has been pretty even. Sunday’s race saw six different manufacturers running near the front, and there were three lead changes in the last three corners. Eslick’s victory moved him into the points lead, and Danny’s success this year has been welcome for his new crew chief, Barry McMahon. Barry has worked with such riders as Ben Spies, John Hopkins, and Blake Young, and he’s had at least one podium finish per season since he started in the AMA in the late ’90s. After signing with RMR Buell this off-season, he had wondered if the streak would continue, but Eslick certainly quieted those doubts.

Speaking of Eslick, his Auto Club Speedway wins at Round 2 were also significant for the manufacturer he scored them on. For this week’s trivia contest, see if you can name the previous rider of a Harley-Davidson or Buell to score a victory in a major AMA road race (Pro Thunder doesn’t count), and when he did it. And yes, I know the engine on Eslick’s 1125R is a Rotax.

If you know the answer, put it in an email and send it to letters@roadracerx.com. Be sure to include your full name and address, and to put “American Win” in the subject line. We’ll select one correct answer at random, and the winner will get a very Euro-ish T-shirt and chrome pen drive from the Italian Trade Commission, who work with EICMA on the annual Milan motorcycle show.

The Road Atlanta race will air on Speed’s AMA Pro Prime Time on Sunday at 11 a.m. EST.

World Superbike was also in action last weekend for the first European round, in Valencia, and Noriyuki Haga notched his first double of the season. That, combined with Ben Spies crashing out of Race 1 (reportedly due at least in part to a problem with his electronics), resulted in a 40-point advantage for Haga, but don’t count the American out yet: Valencia has always been a good track for Nori, and he hasn’t yet hit bad luck this season. And at this week’s testing Monza—a track he’d never seen, though it’s right down the street from his new digs—Spies was the fastest rider.

Did you catch Matteo Cavadini’s World Superbike umbrella-girl slideshow?

Also struggling with gremlins was John Hopkins, whose SBK debut was marred by problem with his fuel-level sensor. Considering that, Hopper’s 11-12 tally wasn’t bad, and things should only get better for him from here.

And with that, we’re going to have to cut Road Racerhead short, as I’ve got a stack of PDFs that need proofreading. Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend.