The 1in5
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Thoughts on Indianapolis MotoGP
Holy smokes. Racing in a violent thunderstorm. Water pooling on the track. Beer cans flying around. A red flag, and the 250s canceled. Rossi totally blowing off NBC's pimply faced pit lane reporter. (I'm downloading the BBC coverage) And, tragically for some, Rossi didn't make good on his promise to run naked down the front straight if he won.
Local boy (well, Spring, Texas) Ben Spies qualifies 5th in the dry, and finishes 6th in the wet, and is the fastest Suzuki by far, about 10 seconds ahead of the other boys in Rizla blue (one a wet weather specialist). But they have contracts and Ben doesn't, mostly because Ben wants too much money, and no-one want to put up with his pit-mommy. And there are no USA sponsors. And now that US roadracing has pulled a CART/IRL (you can tell because both sides deny that it is ANYTHING like the CART/IRL fiasco), what's a highly leveraged Texas boy to do?
But Nicky is the hero. Driving up from the OWB, to face his obligations with his long time employer after he gave his two-weeks notice. Just hoping they remember to unlock the garage. But Nicky knows the best revenge is putting the bike on the box in front of his hometown crowd, even if it means riding headfirst into a hurricane.
Local boy (well, Spring, Texas) Ben Spies qualifies 5th in the dry, and finishes 6th in the wet, and is the fastest Suzuki by far, about 10 seconds ahead of the other boys in Rizla blue (one a wet weather specialist). But they have contracts and Ben doesn't, mostly because Ben wants too much money, and no-one want to put up with his pit-mommy. And there are no USA sponsors. And now that US roadracing has pulled a CART/IRL (you can tell because both sides deny that it is ANYTHING like the CART/IRL fiasco), what's a highly leveraged Texas boy to do?
But Nicky is the hero. Driving up from the OWB, to face his obligations with his long time employer after he gave his two-weeks notice. Just hoping they remember to unlock the garage. But Nicky knows the best revenge is putting the bike on the box in front of his hometown crowd, even if it means riding headfirst into a hurricane.
Labels: Indianapolis, MotoGP, Nicky Hayden
¶ 6:59 PM 0 Comments
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Nicky Can't Sell Motorcycles
Interesting series of reactions to Honda's apparent cluelessness in using Nicky Hayden to market cycles in the US.
But when marketing to the sport bike crowd, you'd think Honda would expend a little more effort (despite their banking on Dani Pedrosa to be the new RCV messiah). Watching SPEED, you can't help but realize that Ben Spies and Matt Mladin ride GSXRs (one came on as I typed this during a Barrett Jackson auction show) and that the grinning Italian fellow rides a Yamaha. Nicky is a good looking, down home dude. Why not exploit him?
Interesting series of reactions to Honda's apparent cluelessness in using Nicky Hayden to market cycles in the US.
But when marketing to the sport bike crowd, you'd think Honda would expend a little more effort (despite their banking on Dani Pedrosa to be the new RCV messiah). Watching SPEED, you can't help but realize that Ben Spies and Matt Mladin ride GSXRs (one came on as I typed this during a Barrett Jackson auction show) and that the grinning Italian fellow rides a Yamaha. Nicky is a good looking, down home dude. Why not exploit him?
Labels: MotoGP, Nicky Hayden
¶ 5:52 PM 0 Comments
