After watching Nicky show the international crowd how we do it over here, you have to wonder, how well would Nicky be doing against Rossi and friends if he had come up through the GP ranks? He rode dirt bikes and then the AMA races, Rossi ran the lower GP classes and became familiar with the tracks he would run on in MotoGP. Track familiarity certainly plays a role as most of the others, except for Colin Edwards, had to get used to a new track. Funny, too, Edwards came in second.
If we had more than one MotoGP round in the States, and with the turnout we could certainly support it, we might be seeing a different lineup in the championship points. The U.S. market is certainly huge for all of the manufacturers, you might think they would welcome running in front of a lot of fans and potential customers. At least we have one round here and with next year already confirmed we should ask, how about another?
Derrick Gibson says
Here we are – the largest motorcycle market in the world and we only have one race at the world level? We need at least two more MotoGP races and two World Superbike events as well.
Oh and the home series – AMA Superbikes – should join those two World SBK events; what will it take to harmonize the rules for superbike racing? Is this really rocket science? Do these folks want to be the standard against which all other racing series are measured or not?
I was disappointed in the low television numbers for the Laguna Seca event: http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2005/Jul/050718l.htm. Does anyone of us not believe that ESPN2 could use the programming?