Honda Road Racerhead #38

Welcome to Road Racerhead, and to another off weekend in feast-or-famine elite-level road racing. Since there won’t be much going on over the next three days, we’ll start by looking ahead to the next round of the World Superbike series, which kicks off seven days from now in Imola, Italy.

That race will be the first one that Ben Spies comes into as the points leader in the World Superbike points chase, and his timing is good: just three rounds remain, and Elbowz has momentum on his side. He leads Ducati Xerox cohorts Noriyuki Haga and Michel Fabrizio by eighteen and seventy-five points, respectively, and he has tested at both Imola and Portimao, though I think Magny-Cours will be new to him (not that lack of circuit knowledge has held him back much so far in his rookie season).

Last week, I asked readers to tell me the last time an American was atop the World Superbike points standings, and the answer I was looking for was March 2, 2003. That was the date of the first round of the ’03 series, in Valencia, where Neil Hodgson went 1-1 on his way to that year’s title, taking the crown that Colin Edwards had earned the previous season. That said, I also accepted submissions that listed September 29, 2002 (when Edwards went 1-1 to dethrone Troy Bayliss at that year’s finale).

Anyway, we selected one correct answer at random, and the winner of the Ogio backpack is Edwards’ fellow Texan Frank Barker, an Austin resident. Keep an eye out for the delivery man Frank, and same goes to last week’s winner, Matthew Hartlieb (I’ve been a bit unorganized lately and still haven’t made it over to the Fed-Ex outlet).

As anyone who followed that dramatic 2002 season will remember, that title-deciding finale was also at Imola, and you can bet that Spies—a student of racing history and a possible future teammate of Edwards—is looking forward to paying a visit.

By the way, if Spies and Edwards really do make Tech3 “Team Texas” next year, our very own Mark “Backmarker” Gardiner (who worked in marketing in a previous life) has a great idea for a title sponsor:

“The idea of a pair of tabacca-chewin’, gun-totin’ Texans would really capture the world’s imagination,” he wrote me in an email this week, “and would resonate particularly well in Europe and Japan, where Texas has its own mystique…. The State of Texas—particularly its tourism department—would be the ideal team sponsor. Having worked on various tourism accounts over the years, I know that overseas visitors are sort of the Holy Grail of tourism marketing; overseas visitors tend to stay longer and spend far more money than visitors from nearby. Texas’ tourism advertising is already quite high-quality, and they definitely have the sort of multimillion dollar budgets that would enable the state to be a major sponsor. I can imagine cowboy-styled leathers, and great paintjobs that could be themed to various destinations and events, like the SXSW music festival.”

Are you listening, Herve Poncharal?

According to UK motorcycle weekly Motor Cycle News, the Spies-Edwards Tech3 pairing is now official. If that’s the case, who will fill Spies’ seat on the Yamaha World SBK team? The same story says James Toseland’s manager, Roger Burnett, is working on putting the Brit there, but Italian website GP One quotes the team’s manager, Massimo Meregalli, as saying he’s interested in Alex De Angelis. Also pegged as a possible rider with the team is Cal Crutchlow, who has dominated the World Supersport season for Yamaha (though the UK racer is also reportedly interested in trying out Moto2).

This brings up another development, as it serves as evidence that Moto2 may already be adversely affecting World Supersport, just as was feared by many. MotoGP’s new support class will run 600cc Honda engines, which means the skills of the top WSS riders should likely transfer quite well (better, for example, than they would to the 250cc GP class). All other things being equal, riders like Crutchlow are likely to want to be in the same paddock as the planet’s premier class, so it’s possible that manufacturer support could be drained from WSS. This would no doubt be bad news to the Flammini brothers, although some might argue that the sport’s myriad world championships could benefit from a bit of consolidating.

But back to next weekend: Imola is Ducati’s home track, residing just a half-hour from their headquarters in Bologna, and with their backs to the wall, they’re sure to be pulling out all the stops. The team will be debuting a new project whereby fans can follow their progress over the weekend via live streaming video direct from Haga’s garage, through www.ducati.com. The webcam is slated to be up from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST next Saturday, and from 3 a.m. to 1 p.m. EST on Sunday. If all goes well, the service should also be available at the two final rounds. Fore more info, check out www.ducati.com starting this Monday.

As the season winds down, it will be interesting to see if Ducati takes advantage of their solid roster by employing team tactics. With Spies’ Yamaha teammate Tom Sykes still yet to have finished on the podium this year, he won’t likely be in a position to offer much help, although with 2010 contracts being negotiated, he’ll obviously be eager to prove his value if he gets the opportunity.

Whatever the case, one hopes that neither Spies nor Haga is taken out by other riders, as Spies was by Fabrzio at Brno and as Haga was by Johnny Rea at the Nurburgring.

Speaking of which, although I know that accidents happen, I’ve been a little turned off by Fabrizio’s actions since that Czech Republic Race 1 crash. Granted, he seemed genuinely sorry immediately after, but holding up a sign reading “I love you, Ben” prior to Race 2 seemed to make light of the incident. I’m familiar enough with Italy, Italians, and the Italian language to be confident that wasn’t just something that didn’t translate well between cultures, but even if we’re to give him the benefit of the doubt, his Nurburgring helmet paintjob was definitely in poor taste. The helmet was black with bowling pins that had his competitors’ racing numbers on them (like the helmet itself was the bowling ball), with the word “Strike!” painted on the side. Considering Fabrizio also took out Max Biaggi (twice) last year, it’s doubtful the lid endeared him with much of the grid.

You may remember that last year, AMA Pro regular Josh Hayes took part in the final three World Supersport rounds of the season. This year, it’s Chaz Davies who is getting the call, as the UK native (who has raced Stateside for the past couple of years) is replacing Gianluca Nanelli as Garry McCoy’s teammate on the ParkinGO Triumph BE1 Racing team. Davies is becoming something of a European-bike specialist of late, having campaigned this AMA Pro season (and put in some very strong rides) with the factory Aprilia Millennium Technologies outfit, and he tested the Trumpet Daytona 675 in Mugello on Tuesday. Team manager Giuliano Rovelli said in a release that the team had been close to signing a deal with Chaz last year, adding “Despite his youth, he is a very experienced rider and I feel certain that he will fully express the potential of our bike, an equal match for Garry McCoy.”

One would imagine a strong performance in these rounds could result in a 2010 WSS contract for Davies, although he may also be tempted to race the potent Aprilia RSV4 in AMA Pro American Superbike next year (if Aprilia actually campaigns it there, as expected).

Speaking of AMA Pro, here’s Laurel Allen, with an update on that series:

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Thanks, CJ. As has been pretty widely reported lately, AMA Pro reps made a trip out west this week to visit manufacturers’ U.S. subsidiaries, and the word coming back is that the best we can hope for next year as far as factory and satellite presence goes is basically more of the same. Honda’s been reported to be completely disinterested in committing additional resources (and there’s even a question about whether the Corona Extra and Erion efforts will look the same in ’10), Yamaha will likely look roughly the same as in 2010 (minus a hospitality trailer or so, which certainly makes a difference in a small paddock), Suzuki will probably return with factory riders Tommy Hayden and Blake Young (though their main satellites, Jordan Suzuki and M4, are rumored to have been offered half of what they were last year, which was half the support they received the year before), and Kawasaki seems likely to remain as-is.

While the New Jersey Motorsports Park finale saw AMA Pro’s Roger Edmondson announce medications to the 2010 AMA Pro season (summed up here), he said the season calendar will most likely come around October 1. AMA Pro’s director of road racing, Bill Syfan, said he expects the schedule to be released “probably in the next two to four weeks. [Edmondson] is keen to get it done and get something out there; we’re working on it pretty hard.”

When asked what venues the schedule’s expected to include, Syfan said, “The goal is to go back to everywhere we were this year.” The glaring omission to the ’09 schedule was, obviously, Miller Motorsports Park, one of the biggest and most beautiful circuits in the United States (MMP didn’t go for AMA Pro’s sanctioning fees this year, opting instead to create the Larry H. Miller Superbike Challenge, which featured a total purse of $55,000). Edmondson is currently at MMP for this weekend’s Grand-Am races and Syfan, confirming that Edmondson will be meeting with track personnel, said, “I know he’s going to be meeting with them there, so we may know more this week.”

It’s likely, though, that what we learn may not be what riders and fans want to hear, since word has it that AMA Pro—which isn’t yet in a position to confirm what sort of package they’ll be presenting in terms of classes and TV coverage—would have to lower those sanctioning fees considerably to get MMP interested in rejoining the fold. Add to that the fact that MMP was reportedly pretty happy with the inaugural Larry H. Miller Superbike Challenge (which served as a support race at their World Superbike event, just as the AMA Pro races would have done), and I’d guess series regulars won’t be seeing Tooele’s snowy peaks in 2010—at least not as participants in their regular series.

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AMA Pro isn’t the only national road racing championship to have finished up, as Rumblestrip Radio’s Eric Trytko reminds us with this update following a trip to the Great White North earlier this month:

“Over Labor Day weekend, the Parts Canada Canadian National Superbike Series wrapped up its year in Shannonville, Ontario, and the Superbike and Super Bike championships came down to the final round. Jordan Szoke was able to clinch his fourth consecutive Superbike title and—by also nabbing the Sport Bike crown—the tenth  national championship of his career (six Superbike, four SportBike). In both classes, the Canadian Kawasaki Motors racer won out over young, up-and-coming hotshot (and former teammate) Brett McCormick by five points. On the weekend, McCormick scored maximum points in both divisions, taking the poles, leading the most laps, and notching the victories (he also set lap records in both categories), but even that wasn’t enough to overcome Szoke, who took safe runner-up finishes in both races to secure the championships. Szoke is now tied with Steve Crevier for most titles in Canadian history.”

Thanks, Duke.

In addition, the World Endurance Championship has been decided although there’s still one more race left to run, in Qatar on November 14. Last weekend saw Magny-Cours host the Bol d’Or, where Suzuki Endurance Racing Team notched the win, but Yamaha Austria Racing Team clinched the title.

Kenny Noyes’ team finished second in the same race, giving the American his third runner-up finish in three appearances in the series (Albacete 2005, Albacete 2008 and now Bol d´Or 2009—all of which were won by SERT). Michelin Power Research was initially credited with second place, but they were found to have a fuel tank that was larger than the rules allow. The Maco Moto squad of Americas Jason Pridmore and Josh Hayes failed to finish the 24-hour race, while American Will Gruy’s Amadeus X-One outfit finished seventh.

Youngsters interested in trying out for next year’s Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup have just two days left to apply. Good luck!

Thanks for reading Road Racerhead.