Honda Road Racerhead #18

It’s May Day, and while March and April may mark the official starts of the various major road racing championships, May is when the weather and the racing both really start heating up. This weekend, MotoGP is holding its first European round of the series in Jerez, Spain, while AMA Pro Road Racing is in action in Birmingham, Alabama. Check out Matt Coffey’s On Track for track maps, weekend schedules, and more.

Pre-race press releases for the Barber Motorsports Park round are here, and although the race won’t be aired on Speed until next weekend during AMA Pro Prime Time, tomorrow night’s show will feature the previous round from Road Atlanta. Laurel Allen arrived in Alabama today, and she filed this report:

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This weekend’s Honda Superbike Classic is the first event at which the Suzuki factory team and satellites will break out the 2009 GSX-R1000s, but if anyone was actually expecting the ’09s to be slower than the ’08 versions (or even hoping for a temporary respite while the teams and riders adjusted), those hopes were dashed by this afternoon. Mat Mladin topped the timesheets in morning practice ahead of National Guard/Jordan Suzuki’s Geoff May (whose team tried out its ’09 machines at a private test post-Road Atlanta), and Mladin’s Rockstar/Makita Suzuki teammate Blake Young notched the fastest time in the class’ afternoon basic qualifying, followed again by May. Mladin later said the new bike feels very similar to the old one and just requires some fine-tuning specific to rider.

Yamaha’s Ben Bostrom, for whom expectations are running a little higher than usual this round since he laid down the fastest laps of the recent Infineon Raceway test, will start Superpole in third. Another rider worth watching may be Team Aussie Dave Racing’s Dave Anthony, a 27-year-old Australian who split Bostrom and Tommy Hayden in this morning’s practice session and was eighth in basic qualifying ahead of Josh Hayes. Last year was Anthony’s first of AMA competition, and though he turned in several top-ten finishes in Superstock and one in Superbike, this is the strongest we’ve seen him thus far.

M4 Suzuki’s Jason DiSalvo topped Daytona SportBike times in morning practice, followed by teammate Martin Cardenas and Aprilia Millennium Technologies’ Chaz Davies, a quick rider still searching for better and more consistent results this season. Monster Energy/Attack Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking—fresh off a visit to Spies in Italy—was fourth and Steve Rapp, who joined the Bazzaz/Pat Clark Motorsports team at Road Atlanta after bouncing from a first to a second smaller effort earlier in the season, rounded out the morning’s top five. And just as I’m typing this up, DiSalvo was fastest in the afternoon session ahead of teammate Martin Cardenas, Graves Yamaha’s Josh Herrin, Davies, and Rapp.

Barber Motorsports Park is as stunning as ever this time a year, and if you’re looking for a silver lining to what appears to be a significantly smaller crowd than Friday traditionally sees here, you could point out that the lack of people shows off a lot more of those beautiful green hillsides. “Green” is one of two words I seem to use annually to describe this track; the other is “ominous” as it applies to the thunderstorm-prone skies, and this year’s event weekend doesn’t look like it’ll get away without at least a couple. For now, though, we’ve got bright skies with plenty of blue overhead, and even if a rainstorm or two break loose, Barber has great grip in the wet.

With Round 4 just getting started in earnest, I’m going to head back out and see what’s doing in the paddock. Keep an eye on www.roadracerx.com this weekend for event updates and blog posts.

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Thanks, Laurel.

The first MotoGP practice session from Jerez happened today, and you can see the team press releases here (pre-race releases are here). The premier-class race happens at 8 a.m. EST, and it will be aired on Speed at 6 p.m. (with the 250cc race airing one hour earlier). So far, the first two MotoGP rounds have been seriously affected by weather (the Qatar race was postponed one day, and the Motegi qualifying session was canceled), but things look good in Spain this weekend (riders were opting today for the hard Bridgestone spec-tire option and Casey Stoner joked about being happy to finally use his dark visor).

Valentino Rossi is still winless this season, but the defending champ is coming into a series of tracks at which he has historically done quite well: Jerez this weekend, Le Mans in two weeks, Mugello at month’s end, and Catalunya in mid-June. He has won at Jerez five times in the premier class, and he was fastest in today’s single session, his 1:39.647 being under the race-lap record. Although he didn’t win last weekend in Japan, he did finish second, a result that marked the Italian’s sixty-third podium finish since signing with Yamaha; in the likely event that he notches another one on Sunday, he’ll be tied with Wayne Rainey for most Yamaha premier-class podiums. Motegi also marked Rossi’s eleventh podium finish in a row, his longest stretch since 2005 according to MotoGP statistician Dr. Martin Raines.

If you’re a fan of The Doctor, you might want to consider signing up or renewing to Road Racer X. As a part of our new subscription promotion, a winner will get a new AGV Face It! helmet (a $999 value), similar to the one Rossi wore to the win at Mugello last year, only with his or her very own face. In addition, the first 1,000 to sign up will receive a free AGV Rossi sticker.

Anyway, second-quickest today was a very impressive Loris Capirossi, who won at Jerez back in 2006, when he was still with Ducati Marlboro. The Rizla Suzuki rider has been strong since the winter, although he admitted that his team is having trouble getting enough life out of even the hard Bridgestone option.

The track is more abrasive than it was last year, and although Bridgestone had the pre-season test to gauge off of, the weather was decidedly cooler back in March. Last week, we talked about the troubles Honda seems to be having with the spec tires, and in fact Dani Pedrosa was slowed toward race’s end by a seriously damaged front (GP One has a photo here). It will be interesting to see how the rubber holds up on Sunday, although teams are sure to alter their setups between now and then to be easier on tires.

Since we’re on the subject of tires, let’s answer last week’s trivia question, which was provided by Jim Race of www.rideontwo.com: Jim asked which riders had ridden at least one race on Bridgestone tires last MotoGP season, and according to his research, these are the seventeen men: Kousuke Akiyoshi (Rizla Suzuki wildcard), Nobuatsu Aoki (Rizla Suzuki wildcard), Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki), Alex de Angelis (San Carlo Honda Gresini), Toni Elias (Alice Team), Sylvain Guintoli (Alice Team), Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki Racing substitute), John Hopkins (Kawasaki Racing), Marco Melandri (Ducati Marlboro), Shinya Nakano (San Carlo Honda Gresini) Tadayuki Okada (Repsol Honda wildcard), Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda), Valentino Rossi (Fiat Yamaha), Ben Spies (Rizla Suzuki wildcard), Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro), Chris Vermeulen (Rizla Suzuki), Anthony West (Kawasaki Racing).

The reader who came closest to getting this one right is Mongomery, Alabama’s Chip Hays, who I would assume is at Barber this weekend and who only left out Okada—close enough to win the EICMA swag. Thanks to everyone who sent in their guesses, and thanks to Jim for the great question.

Fresh off a win, points-leader Jorge Lorenzo was third-fastest today in Spain. Andrew Northcott photo.

Jorge Lorenzo’s win last weekend (Andrew Northcott’s slideshow is here was his first on Bridgestone tires, and his first in sixteen races, but it put him into a very narrow points lead in the championship (teammate Rossi is one point back). The Spaniard, who turns 22 on Monday, was third-quickest today. The win was impressive—Lorenzo passed Rossi straight-up and then pulled away—but his post-race victory celebration, during which he planted another “Lorenzo’s Land” flag, was somewhat flawed by his stalling his bike and requiring a push back to the podium by corner workers.

Jerez has not historically been a good track for Ducati, as Capirossi’s aforementioned ’06 win is the only one for the brand at that track, and Stoner has never finished on the podium at Jerez in any class (though he did win a BMW car in March for posting the top time during the IRTA test). The Aussie was fourth-fastest today, complaining of losing the front on several occasions, but few doubt that he’ll be a threat on Sunday.

At Motegi, Stoner finished just fourth after passing Andrea Dovizioso late in the race, but he was obviously struggling with his bike in the early stages (it turns out he had front-brake problems).

The next-fastest Ducati rider was Grupo Francisco Hernando’s Sete Gibernau, way down in twelfth, on the same track where he was punted by Rossi in the last corner back in 2004 (a move Vale said yesterday that he’d repeat on teammate Lorenzo this weekend if necessary—though he also stressed that it had been unintentional). Pramac Racing’s Mika Kallio (who has been the second-finishing Ducati rider at the first two rounds), was two spots lower, while Ducati Marlboro’s Nicky Hayden and Pramac’s Niccolo Canepa filled in the last two spots, though Nicky says things aren’t quite as bad as they appear.

Nicky seemed to be snake-bit at Motegi, where he missed out on valuable track time when the qualifying session was canceled and then was taken out of the race on Lap 1 by a kamikaze move from Yuki Takahashi (the Japanese rookie was likely someone excited at his home race). He landed on the same area of his back that he had during his wicked Qatar high-side, and he admitted to not feeling great today.

Colin Edwards was sixth-quickest today, continuing a trend of very strong showings during pre-race sessions. The American was only twelfth in Japan, but his bike wasn’t working well in the early going (toward race’s end, he was the only rider after Stoner posting lap times in the 1:49 range).

As for our other American over there, Cameron Beaubier (who has come within one position of a Grand Prix point at his first two races) was 22nd in today’s 125cc session. Actually, since Jerez is the first venue to host a stop on the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup tour, there are a couple of other American racers in Spain as well, the fastest of which today was Benny Solis in 18th. Sunday’s race will be streamed live on www.redbullrookiescup.com, and they’ll be stored at www.redbullcontentpool.com.

Just a few more notes on last week’s race before we move on: Did you notice how exaggeratedly Rossi was taking his foot off the peg entering some corners? I know, he regularly this during hard braking, but at Motegi, he seemed to be dangling it even more—almost like a dirt tracker. Also doing the one-footed routine—which helps initiate turn-in and set the bike up for the corner—were Pedrosa and Stoner. Finally, big props to Marco Melandri, who finished a very respectable sixth for Team Hayate, a result not many people would have predicted pre-season.

There was also a World Superbike race last weekend (check out Matteo Cavadini’s slideshow), and Assen was a case of best-worst for American Ben Spies, who won Race 1 only to crash spectacularly out of the lead on Sunday (Soup has a spectator video of it posted here).

Spies—who has qualified on pole at every WSBK round he’s been to so far—is now sixty points behind an impressively consistent Noriyuki Haga, last week’s Race 2 winner.

If you’ve got last month’s issue of Road Racer X (the one with Geoff May on the cover), then you may have read Randy Mamola’s column in which he talks about real roads racing and reminisces about events like the Marlboro Series at Wanganui, New Zeland’s Cemetary Circuit. The column prompted an email from Kiwi RRX reader Joe Lett, part of which follows:

“As Mamola mentions, we still hold this event every Boxing Day down here, and we would love to add some international flavor to the proceedings by having some American riders take part this, or any other, year. We already have a bunch of Australians lined up to come and take on us Kiwis, so if anyone in America is keen to ride a real road circuit, come on down!! With enough interest, maybe we could run a ‘Tri-Nations’ championship?

“Back in Randy’s day, the Cemetery Circuit had three railroad crossings. Things have changed a little—we now only have one! It still does run right through the middle of the old town cemetery though.

“To add a bit more incentive to come all this way and ride the Cemetery Circuit, the week before Boxing Day, we’re having a race meeting at the Manfield (a purpose-built racetrack), and a couple of days after at the Taupo track (again, a purpose-built race track): three awesome race meetings in ten days, with an overall Tri-Series championship up for grabs.

“For more information and contact details, please visit our website www.cemeterycircuit.co.nz. You can even do a lap of the Cemetery Circuit on last year’s winning sidecar. (Yep, we have those to!) Randy Mamola has ridden here. The great Pat Hennen dominated here and made these streets his own for three years running. Are you next?”

For those who are interested (and who aren’t familiar with Boxing Day, which has nothing to do with pugilism), the dates are December 19 (Mansfield), December 26 (Cemetery Circuit), and December 28 (Taupo). You can email the race organizer at l8@cemeterycircuit.co.nz.