News 5 May 2010

Racing Insider #18

Get the scoops from behind the scenes in the latest edition of Racing Insider.

rip-sharky

AUSTRALIAN MOTOCROSS
Last Sunday was a dark day in the history of Australian motocross racing, the loss of Andrew McFarlane coming as a severe blow right as the sport is surging forward in its quest to become a mainstream motorsport in Australia.

The death of Sharky has impacted the sport in many ways, perhaps opening many riders, mechanics and fans eyes while reminding us of the dangers that our top athletes face every time they are on that starting line.

But it is the glorious memories that have been filtering through the life and career of McFarlane, which is a great testament to his success on two wheels both here in Australia and abroad.

There have been many ideas as to how the sport will remember and celebrate the career of Sharky, from naming the Broadford circuit in his honour, retiring the number seven plate, or simply leaving the Pro Open field at 39 riders for the remainder of 2010.

Whatever the sport’s controllers decide to do, I for one have spent a lot of time reflecting on his career and personality – remembering the early days of when we were young kids in Juniors, watching him ride the KX500 to third in 2001 at Broadford’s World GP, and even our final few video interviews that we had done at the MX Nationals this year.

Sharky will be missed, and I highly doubt anybody who had the pleasure of meeting the man will forget him during their lifetime. Rest in peace, mate.

It was announced during riders’ briefing on Sunday morning that the Port Macquarie’s seventh round of the MX Nationals has been replaced by Barrabool, which was originally supposed to make up round two of the series.

The reason for Broadford replacing Barrabool at the last minute was due to some council issues that are in the process of being resolved, while the Port Macquarie round has been replaced partly due to the club losing money when the Australian Off-Road Championship visited the venue earlier this year.

There were a lot of media in attendance for the Broadford round as well as a sizeable crowd considering it was still in the early parts of morning practice when Sharky’s incident occurred, again indicating the strength of the series this year.

Having the parade laps in honour of McFarlane was a nice tribute on a very sad day, with the JDR Motorex KTM riders using the number seven on their front plates as a tribute to the Queenslander.

Speaking of the JDR team, the word doing the rounds at Broadford on Saturday was that the team has launch an American side of the team in 2011, potentially taking Californian PJ Larsen and young Aussie Tye Simmonds with them.

We’ll see if we can get an update in the next few weeks, however you do have to take your hats off to the sheer size and professionalism of the Aussie team as it is in what is only their second year in operation.

AUSTRALIAN SUPERCROSS
Many would have noticed the Monster Energy Super X calendar for this year up in our Breaking News section this morning, kicking off at Newcastle’s Energy Australia Stadium in New South Wales – essentially right in Chad Reed’s backyard!

The series will visit New Zealand twice in the mid-stages of the season, however Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania all miss out on a round of the Australasian series.

Stadiums haven’t been released apart from the Newcastle venue, so stay tuned for that when we get official confirmation from Global Action Sports in the coming weeks – probably following their Nitro Circus Live tour which is about to commence.

Click here for the full news story and calendar.

AMERICAN MOTOCROSS
Racer X Online posted images of Grant Langston onboard a factory Monster Energy Kawasaki testing this morning, although it’s not quite clear what the deal is at this stage.

We’re certain that Aussie Chad Reed will be defending his number one plate in the Nationals, but a huge question mark remains as to when Ryan Villopoto will be back to 100 percent and on the bike again.

Former factory rider and a guy who deputised for Reed while he was out earlier in the Supercross season, Nick Wey, was also spotted testing with Team Green.

AUSTRALIAN SUPERBIKE
It’s been so quiet on the ASBK front that we’ve been searching for news of late, with everybody seemingly working away preparing for the upcoming Queensland Raceway test in just over a week’s time.

What we have heard though is that there may be live television featured for the Superbikes when they line up alongside the V8 Supercars for the final two rounds of the season at Phillip Island and Symmons Plains respectively.

It’s just a rumour that we’ve heard for now, although it would be exceptional to see our guys live to round out the season.

For now though, I guess International Entertainment Group will have to work hard on figuring out exactly when the upcoming rounds will be televised so we can all catch it!

Speaking of the Tasmanian round, I’m anxious to see how they are going to operate the chicane section that makes up the first few corners of the course because the bikes actually use a tighter version of that section of race track, as well as what they are going to do to utilise airfence in the hairpin. We’ll see what we can find out…

MOTOGP
Spanish MotoGP hero Jorge Lorenzo’s maiden premier class victory at home during Sunday’s grand prix at Jerez has boosted the Fiat Yamaha star’s hopes of claiming a first MotoGP world title in 2010.

Lorenzo made an incredible fight back from a slow start just like he did at the season opener in Qatar last month, this time racing to victory before leaping into the circuit’s lake on the cool-down lap – complete with his entire riding suit!

It was early in the weekend that he had planned to jump into the lake, although it wasn’t without its own surprises as he struggled to climb out much to the amusement of over 120,000 onlookers at the circuit.

“I saw the lake on Thursday and thought it would be funny to jump in and I think the fans liked it, but I didn’t really think about how heavy I’d be with wet leathers and for a minute I thought I wasn’t going to get out!” he laughed later.

The result puts Lorenzo, who turned 23 on Tuesday, at the top of the world championship standings on 45 points, four ahead of teammate Valentino Rossi and setting up a massive fight for the title.

You have to give Nicky Hayden the thumbs up for his recent form, even upstaging Ducati Marlboro teammate Casey Stoner at Jerez for his second fourth place in a row.

MOTO2
How good has Moto2 been this year? Usually when friends give me a buzz on the Monday following the race they speak about the big boys of the premier class, but lately the hype has been all about the Moto2.

The thing is, racing is only going to get better from this point as they iron out any slight kinks that may be rising, and that multi-rider crash during the opening laps of the Spanish GP was one that had even more talking about it post-race.

Bring on round three at Le Mans!

That’s all for now, thanks for reading once again.

The race is on between Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi for MotoGP 2010.

The race is on between Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi for MotoGP 2010.

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