Road Racerhead #36

Road Racerhead comes to you today from somewhere over Kansas, as I adopt a Ben Spies-like posture to type from seat 11A while winging my way east for this weekend’s final round of 2009 AMA Pro Road Racing, at New Jersey Motorsports Park. It’s my second transcontinental trip in less than two weeks, and we’ve barely had time to recover from last week’s Red Bull Indianapolis GP. That series is once again in action today in Misano, Italy. World Superbike is also resuming racing following a lengthy summer break, with this weekend’s race at Germany’s Nurburgring.

Laurel Allen is already on the ground in New Jersey, so I’m going to hand off to her right off the bat, then come back for a roundup of international-racing news.

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Any time I run into Scott Russell in a Starbucks, it’s a sure sign there’s a racetrack nearby, but today was the first time in years I’ve had to ask for directions to it. And with only about half the paddock having seen New Jersey Motorsports Park before—mostly those factories and teams that made it out to an earlier test—I wasn’t the only one. Whatever I expected Jersey to look like, it’s been a revelation thus far, with cornfields turning into sand dunes as you drive through pretty little towns on your way to the coast and fresh seafood on restaurant menus. NJMP is likewise a good-looking facility; its actual personality hasn’t manifested for me yet, but there are quite a few local fans already wandering around and checking out both the track and the series themselves.

Rider response to the track has been favorable. Mladin said, “The facility is quite good. Same as many of the racetracks that we go to, there’s work to be done. As I think I said after the test here, [NJMP] had no rider contact before the test and they’ve made some really nice changes since then.” Hayes said the track “has a really fun layout,” adding, “It feels a little small on a superbike; I think a 600 would be really fun to get around here on. With a superbike, it’s a lot of work, but it’s challenging, which is always fun.”

Despite the above photo (story below), Mat Mladin looks like his old self again here at NJMP, his old crown reclaimed and his old #1 firmly reattached to the front of his Rockstar/Makita Suzuki GSX-R superbike, impervious to whatever happens on-track this weekend. And with M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas having just withdrawn from this weekend’s competition due to the hand injuries sustained at VIR (“Unfortunately, I made a mistake, a very stupid mistake,” said Martin of the Virginia crash), yet another championship is approaching clinched, since Danny Eslick leads third-place Josh Herrin by 36 Daytona SportBike points. Herrin remains mathematically alive in terms of taking the title, though second is a far more likely scenario as long as he rides smart.

The injury was obviously a huge blow to Cardenas and his team—and to those of us who looked forward to a down-to-the wire contest between the two wildly different riders (and bikes)—but Martin’s performance this year was fantastic, even frequently brilliant, and my money’s on Cardenas having a pretty interesting career to look forward to. That’s cold comfort at the moment probably, but M4 team owner John Ulrich has already made it clear Martin’s got a home in 2010 if he wants it (and other teams have noticed the Colombian this season as well), which is something that would be comfort indeed to most riders in the paddock right now. “I got surgery fifteen days ago but the scar is coming apart in one section,” Martin said after announcing his withdrawal, “and it’s beginning to be too painful. I’m worried about infection, so I think the better thing to do is to stop for this weekend and heal up properly for next season.”

New to Daytona SportBike is 21-year-old South Africa rider Clinton Seller, who’s making his AMA Pro debut this weekend as a fill-in rider for Markbilt Racing Yamaha rider Melissa Paris, who broke her leg at VIR. Seller is currently third in the South African Superbike championship and says he’s “really been looking forward to the opportunity to ride in the USA.” Hoping to make an impression on U.S. teams, he’s already off to a solid start, having come in third in initial Daytona SportBike qualifying and setting himself up as a possible X-factor in the class’ results this weekend.

Okay, on the guy in Mladin’s leathers who is definitely not Mladin: that’s Dennis, and that was the aftermath of a visit from the New Jersey State Troopers, who were tasked with doing some of the rules enforcement at the track this morning. NJMP rules require long pants for anyone doing any fueling, and Dennis came dressed in shorts. With the Rockstar/Makita generators on empty and the rest of the paddock without extra pants (hey, I’m as surprised as you are), Dennis’ new outfit actually represents superior problem-solving.

With both of the AMA Pro SuperSport titles also locked up—the East championship went to Josh Day and the West to Ricky Parker (congrats again to both riders)—what mystery remains cloaks only the runner-up championship positions, and in American Superbike, the most interesting face-off is between Tommy Hayden and Josh Hayes, currently separated by just four points. While Hayden’s been on the podium nine times this year to Hayes’ six, five of Hayes’ six podiums have been wins—and Tommy’s still chasing his first of the year and his career. In this week’s Tuesday Conversation, Tommy (who’s been consistently fast through most of the season) told RRX intern Jesse Cecil he’d “definitely feel better about the year if I could at least get a win,” but whether that added motivation will make a difference against the Josh Hayes we’ve seen recently is what this weekend’s all about.

In other notes, longtime crew chief Gary Medley is back in the paddock this weekend, having joined the LTD Racing crew to wrench for regulars Thomas Puerta and Huntley Nash plus Californian Jake Gagne, the former Red Bull AMA U.S. Rookie who transitioned to the European Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup for this year and took the final step on the podium at Assen, the Sachsenring, and Brno. With that series completed—and now that Jake’s 16, having celebrated his birthday a few days ago—Gagne’s using the last round of the season to make his AMA Pro debut. JD Beach—the who won the 2008 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup title in only his second year of road racing, and who returned to his flat track roots by winning the Pro Singles main event at last weekend’s Indy Mile—is also here this weekend, again contending the AMA Pro SuperSport class for Rockwall Racing (he finished third at Topeka).

Okay, American Superbike Superpole just wrapped up, Mladin holding off Hayes for his sixty-second career pole, with Aaron Yates and Ben Bostrom joining them on the front row. “I think it should be on for Saturday and Sunday,” Bostrom said in the post-Superpole press conference. “Expect really close racing with everybody.” “Anytime we go somewhere new,” Yates added, “it’s exciting, it’s a challenge. The place is a bit of work; a lot of direction change. You spend so much time on each side of the bike around those couple of corners back there that you kind of get tired of hanging off the thing. [But] it’s the same for everybody. It’s going to be a long race.”

Valentino Rossi may have made a miscue last week, but he was back at the top of the charts at his home GP today. Andrew Northcott photo

Jason DiSalvo took his sixth pole in Daytona SportBike, followed by Tommy Aquino (who’s sporting a neck bandage from being run over by his own bike yesterday), Herrin, and Chaz Davies.

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Thanks, Laurel. I’m looking forward to seeing the facility for the first time.

Okay, I’m at my layover in a Detroit airport bar now, my 17-inch screen having barely survived an aggressive seat-recline by the guy in 10A. While my between-trip time back home was abbreviated, it was more than American MotoGP racers Nicky Hayden and Colin Edwards got to enjoy. With Indy barely in their rear-view mirrors, both were on their way to Italy by midweek.

Tuesday was when Ducati’s option on renewing Nicky’s contract ran out, and I figured he had good news when I received a simple smiley-face “emoticon” IM from him that day. Then again, it could have signified joy at having snapped his podium drought, and he wouldn’t be coaxed into letting me know which was the case. Two days later, Ducati announced that #69 will be back, and Nicky expressed his satisfaction during the pre-race press conference at Misano.

“To renew another year with Ducati just makes the week that much better,” Nicky said (thanks to GP One for the audio). “I’m focused on these last five races. There’s a lot of racing to go and a lot to be learned.”

The news gives us a much better idea of what next season will look like, and despite some fairly dramatic contract negotiations by several of the series’ top athletes, the answer is: a lot like this year. Yamaha’s factory team will have the same rider roster, as will Ducati’s (assuming Casey Stoner makes a successful return after the upcoming fall break) and Honda’s (assuming Dani Pedrosa and Andrea Dovizioso both make good the “agreements in principal” announced at Brno by HRC president Tetsuo Suzuki—and with Nicky signed, they don’t seem to have much choice). That means that the most interesting changes will happen at the least-competitive teams, with Suzuki swapping Chris Vermeulen for Alvaro Bautista and Gresini Racing going to an all-new, all-Italian lineup of the two Marcos—Simoncelli and Melandri.

There’s even a good chance that Tech3 Yamaha could be unchanged. As recently as three days ago, Colin Edwards told our Laurel Allen that there was a good chance of Team Texas being a reality; team boss Herve Poncharal and Ben Spies had been engaged in a long mating dance, but it was announced today that the World Superbike phenom is staying with Yamaha in that series next season before making the jump to Tech3 in 2011. (Between Spies’ decision to stay put next year and that of Jorge Lorenzo to do likewise with the factory MotoGP squad, that’s two talented Yamaha riders who caught me by surprise in recent weeks.) Of course, even with Elbowz out of the 2010 Tech3 picture, there’s no guarantee that the underperforming James Toseland will be back with the French squad. The team is highly in demand, and Herve could well pick up someone like Vermeulen, Toni Elias, or the recently hot Alex De Angelis for cheap or even free. (Word is that with the OEMs still hurting in this economic downturn, a decent racer can often make more from endorsements in MotoGP than in salary in World Superbike.) Expect the last remaining pieces of the 2010 MotoGP team puzzle to fall into place shortly.

I must say, I’m pleased to see Spies sticking with WSBK for another year. Even when—okay, I’ll be journalistically responsible and say “if”—he wraps up this year’s crown, it could prove to be a good decision. After all, between learning new tracks, bike, tires, team, etc., and dealing with untimely crashes and mechanicals, Ben has had to endure some serious pressure this season. He’s done incredibly well under the circumstances, and I don’t see why he should immediately pile on even more of a workload (though defending a title—should, of course, he take this year’s—is anything but a walk in the park).

But while next year may look a lot like this year, that won’t necessarily be the case in 2011. There’s Spies’ looming entrée into MotoGP to anticipate, and with the unusually high number of one-year contracts for ’10, it’s unlikely he’ll be the only change. I think those short-term deals reflect a general reluctance to make lasting financial commitments, an attitude that is reflected in the current housing market. The future’s still uncertain, and people want to take steps past where they can see.

I feel fortunate to have been present at the historic 2009 Red Bull Indianapolis GP, and only partly because it was a centennial celebration of the Brickyard’s very first motorsports race, back in 1909. I know it’s en vogue for everyone to say how they love dirt track (and yet they only go when there’s a road race nearby). Well, I’m as guilty as anyone on that count, but I’m honest when I say that for me, the highlight of last weekend was watching King Kenny cut loose on the TZ750 at the Indy Mile; as he exited Turn 4 on his second lap, I actually squinted and imagined him overtaking Mike Kidd in 1975. I wasn’t present for that race, but no I feel like I sort of understand it anyway.

Props also to Kevin Schwantz for his laps on both his title-winning RGV500 and the BQR Moto2 machine. These guys are both still legends, and the sport is the poorer for not having them running their own racing teams (something both still want to do). Hopefully, that situation will be rectified in the near future.

Speaking of Schwantz, Suzuki’s Garrett Kai was among the lucky few who got to take a riding school with #34 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway just days before last weekend’s race, and he was nice enough to put together a blog on the experience.

Speaking of heroes, I was surprised to see Rossi make that rare mistake at Indy last week. The crash actually reminded me of his tumble in the 2006 season-finale MotoGP round at Valencia, where Nicky took advantage to earn the title. This last portion of the MotoGP season could be pretty interesting.

My next flight is boarding soon, so I’m probably going to have to cut this much shorter than I should, but I won’t be back online until the wee hours of Saturday morning—and I’ve got to wake up early to drive from DC to New Jersey. I’ll just squeeze in a few more tidbits.

Congratulations to Riders for Health, whose fundraising auction at Indy collected over $22,000 to help deliver healthcare and medicine to hard-to-reach communities in Africa. It’s still a ways off of the annual haul made at the UK’s Day of Champions, but between this, the Laguna Seca activities, and some other plans Don Emde and company have cooked up, we’re definitely starting to have a presence with the charity here in the U.S. Check out www.riders.org to see how you can make a tax-deductible donation to a group of people who use motorcycles to do some very good work.

Have you voted yet for your favorite graphics scheme for Ted Zagraniski’s Formula 450 motocross-road race conversion project?

Check out Stephan LeGrand’s video from the incredible Primm motorcycle museum in Las Vegas last week.

Hey, check out RRX publisher Scott Wallenberg tearing it up with Crash at Indy!