Scooter sound bites

(Miguel Duhamel)
As this weekend brings a close to the Daytona “Speed Weeks” marathon, with the running of the Daytona 200 Friday evening, live on SPEED, the event will run underneath the lights for the first time. Look for Miguel Duhamel to potentially win his record sixth Daytona 200 race, while James “bubbah” Stewart will look to resume his winning ways in Saturday’s Supercross event, having seen his streak of seven straight victories being snapped last weekend at Indianapolis’s Lucas Oil Dome...

Spies wins in Superbike debut Ben Spies, the reigning three time AMA Superbike Champion, whom after not getting the nod to move into MOTO GP full time this season, has elected to go World Superbike racing for Yamaha instead. Spies showed his potential by taking pole position for his very first heat race at Phillip Isle in Australia, but faltered to 16th place after running off track. In the second heat, spies was a bit more patient, running behind “Nitro” Noriyuki Haga on a Ducatti, who’d won the races first event, and is considered to be the favourite for the World Superbike title this season. Yet, Spies finally decided to flex his Yamaha R1’s muscle and passed “Haga” in the closing stages and then motored away from the Japanese rider and Italian Max Biaggi who took third place aboard his Aprilla, to win the races second heat and his very first World Superbike race...

Schuey injured in crash
Whale, it appears that seven times World Champion Michael Schumacher is human after all, since the F1 Superstar suffered apparent road rash in a recent “Scooter” accident south of the Border...

Schumacher injured in Motorcycle accident


(Desmosedici GP9)

New “Duc” unveiled
With the opening round of the 2009 MOTO GP season just around the corner, look for the “Kentucky Kid,” a.k.a. Nicky Hayden’s return to the forefront of action, now that he’s once again back on competitive equipment, having made the switch to Ducatti and becoming 2007 MOTO GP Champion Casey Stoner’s teammate, as Hayden who won the MOTO GP crown in 2006 along with Stoner will hope to pressure “The Doctor: and defeat reigning MOTO GP Champion Valentino Rossi this season...

New Ducatti unveiled

Stoner beats Massa
In the traditional Ferrari – Ducati winter team ski follies held at Madonna di Campiglio this past January, MOTO GP star Casey Stoner defeated Felipe Massa in a go kart race held on ice, while Nicky Hayden grabbed the final podium spot.

Kimi Raikkonen wasn’t present, as apparently the Finn had a touch of the flu? (Or simply too much Fizzy the evening before...) While Ferrari tester Marc Gene was at an abortive test session at Vairano, which saw the Scuderia offer Felipe’s younger brother Eduardo an opportunity to come and play in the snow.

Thus, by finishing third, Hayden bested Ducati test rider Vittoriano Guareschi, Luca Badoer and Eduardo Massa in the intra-squad karting race...

Spies tests at Indy

At the beginning of July, MOTO GP hopeful Ben Spies, took part in the inaugural “Scooter” testing at Indianapolis in preparations for this year’s upcoming USGP round at the Speedway on September 14th, while the test was not open to any of the currently competing MOTO GP rider’s, Spies, the reigning two time AMA Superbike Champion was allowed to participate, since he’s only contesting the two United States rounds as a wildcard entry.

Spies who will race for Suzuki, took part with other riders as all five manufacturer’s were present at the test; Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha, with Spies making his MOTO GP debut earlier this year, when he was called up to fill in for the injured Loris Capirossi at the British GP at Donnington, qualifying 8th and finishing 14th.

Yet, in the recently concluded Laguna Seca MOTO GP race weekend, Spies qualified 13th, with elder Superbike competitor Jamie Hacking lining up at the rear of the field in 18th, while the top American rider was two time Laguna Seca MOTO GP winner Nicky Hayden, who started on the front row in P3, alongside pole sitter Casey Stoner, with “The Doctor,” a.k.a. Valentino Rossi in the middle of Row 1.

While Stoner and Rossi put on a mammoth Mano E Mano duel ahead of the entire field for the race win, trading the lead back ‘N forth several times... Honda’s Nicky Hayden struggled to retain his 4th place, while Spies (Suzuki) and Hacking (Kawasaki) dueled over 9th place... With Spies finishing 8th with Hacking finishing 11th, while Hayden wound-up 5th and Colin Edwards finished a disappointing 14th.

Meanwhile, at the sharp end of the grid, Rossi won his very first US race after almost throwing it away in The Corkscrew, while Stoner would have to settle for second after having fallen off his Ducati.

Yet Spies, who is currently leading the points in this year’s Superbike championship, hopes to become a full time MOTO GP piloto in 2009, joining the other Americans; 2006 MOTO GP Champion Nicky Hayden, Colin Edwards and John Hopkins, as Spies hopes to emulate Hayden’s success on the Grand Prix Scooters…

For Ben Spies comments about MOTO GP testing at The Speedway, see; Spies on Indy

Update
By sheer accident, while surfin’ le Comca$t cable service, (Sunday) I originally landed upon the 250GP Motorcycle race from the Czech Republic, as I’d thought I’d catch a little MOTO GP action during an off weekend... Yet, I wondered if The Big Boyzs were on? And was quite surprised to tune into the MOTO GP race on CBS, also taking place at the Brno circuit... Of which apparently the riders had qualified in the RAIN!

Interestingly I learned that Nicky Hayden has a broken foot (according to announcer Greg White) and wasn’t competing. Well, actually Nicky injured his heel contesting a Super Moto event during the X-Games and the doctors said he could do further damage by racing this event. Hayden will instead stay home to recoup and plans to come back at the next round in San Marino.

And I also found out why I couldn’t find John Hopkins name on the Laguna Seca results, as he’s just returned to riding after having knee surgery... While Ben Spies has had some surgery of his own, riding in pain in the Mid Ohio Superbike races after having his appendix removed two days after competing at Laguna Seca.

Meanwhile, after current MOTO GP champion Casey Stoner crashed once again, the Aussie now trails The Doctor by 50 points, as Rossi cruised to a 17+ second victory in the Czech event...