<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MigsAngel @ May 20 2008, 12:29 PM)
<{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>1. Still grumpy....
2. Regarding Mr Hailwood, he was able to
adapt and acheive.... The same could be said of
1. Ok, I'll take that as you unfurling the white flag of "I got nothing." >I accept.
2. I think there is a difference between
"adaptability" and
"versatility". I think you are using these interchangeably. You made a case that if a person can't win on a different engine configuration, then the rider had poor "adapting" ability, therefore, no "talent". I of course disagreed and showed you some examples of men who are clearly "talented" but had difficulty on new engines to defend their titles.
My point about Hailwood is that among the many aspects of talent, one of which was his “versatility”, which you interpret only as “adapting”. Well then if this is your measure of "talent", then you need to do a little homework. I realize you have a hang up about American racers, so you probably did not know that here in the early 80s (79-85) we had a racing event called
"The Superbikers".
It combined all the disciplines of motorcycle racing in the AMA: Flat track, Motor/Supercross,TT, Roadracing. Google it if you must, you will learn something and perhaps this way you can make more informed posts to present your "views". All the greats attended, champs from all these 'motorcycling' disciplines, NOT just ‘roadracing’. (I proposed Mike Hailwood because he cross over many
'pavement surface' racing on various bikes.) But if we are gonna talk about
“versatility” (what you call "adaptability", then you must come to grips that the American motorcycle champions of the late 70s and all of 80s were extremely versatile in
all the motorcycling disciplines). If you can imagine, a course where there was a road section, TT, Flat-track section, MX/SX jumps sections together (if this sounds familiar its because this is where supermoto comes from); then imagine all the champs of the day from MX/SX, Roadracers, and Flat-trackers; racing against eachother. Yes, the likes of King Kenny, Rainey, Lawson, Danny Chandler, Bubba Shobert (heard of him), these names you may not have heard of but are flat-track & MX/SX legend: Broc Glover, Jeff Ward, Rick Johnson, Kent Howerton, Chris Carr, Ricky Graham, Jay Springsteen, TT specialist Alex Jorgensen, and of all these men, perhaps the single most talented and versatile of them all (a name you surely haven't heard of was
Steve Wise.
Steve Wise won in every motorcycling discipline: TT, Roadracing, Dirt-track, and MX/SX. He won this event twice, against the list of the names above (BTW so did Eddie Lawson).
Of all those names, I’d say Steve Wise & Lawson were the most pure “talented”. But perhaps you have never heard of them since they were American (bad).
)
