Test times Australia

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (BigAl @ Nov 29 2008, 01:57 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>if the tests havent gone too well for suzook, then i am quite glad. it means they will hopefully be doing some hard work over the testing ban instead of sitting around with their thumbs in each others butt.
if what vermeulen says is true, it seems they have taken a small step forward, instead of the massive leap that they need...


Suzuki is ..........2008/2009 same ........

The gay Phillip Island test seems to have gone well. Too bad they canceled some of the off season testing they need all they can get.

WHy kid yourselves? Suckzooki isn't going to do ..... IF they do anything it will be to keep telling the guys that the parts are new when actally they are old ... parts that they had in the wharehouse sitting there just waiting to be used. Na just kidding Suzuki is going to win the WC this year. LOL!!!!

It is winter time. Why not be optimistic? Reality will hit soon enough. Besides, there is no room left on the Rossi/Stoner bandwagon. People are hanging off the bumpers and I don't like crowds.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gsfan @ Nov 28 2008, 12:29 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>It is winter time. Why not be optimistic? Reality will hit soon enough. Besides, there is no room left on the Rossi/Stoner bandwagon. People are hanging off the bumpers and I don't like crowds.

news flash....SUZUKI have sucked in Moto GP FOREVER.

By the way i'm sure there's space on the Stoner wagon...he lost the championship you know

They don't even have the 2009 bike bolted together yet they were just testing from a pile of parts. At least know what they don't want. It's what they have.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gsfan @ Nov 28 2008, 03:02 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Mladin could have gone to MotoGP with one phone call. He's the one who failed to step up. Now he'll be sitting in the stands all next year with no ride. He would have been fantastic in MotoGP.
Mladin did go to GPs, and he dropped out due to lack of results.....his bike/team did suck, but if he was/is as great as his six AMA titles seem to suggest then he should have been able to over come those issues and gotten a decent ride with a better team.......alas he failed and went to AMA....

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MigsAngel @ Nov 29 2008, 08:00 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Mladin did go to GPs, and he dropped out due to lack of results.....his bike/team did suck, but if he was/is as great as his six AMA titles seem to suggest then he should have been able to over come those issues and gotten a decent ride with a better team.......alas he failed and went to AMA....

Mat's MotoGP window of opportunity was slammed shut quite a few years ago. He is just physically too big to compete on the micro machines.

I was at Road Atlanta back in 1999 or 2000....He was standing with Kurtis Roberts and John Kocinski. They looked like midgets next to him! Mat and Aaron Yates were both 5foot10 ish, 180+lbs....definitely not fat ....., just big dudes.

Mat is now closer to 165-170lbs (super lean to the point of looking 'sick') , but he is still too big to compete in Munchkin-Land where Nicky Hayden is one of the bigger riders, and he's around 150lbs!!

Oh, jeez....this is so off-topic....but, I will bring it back to the issue at hand The real reason he never went to GPs with Suzuki?? They never had a competetive bike to offer him After all, he is no dummy.

Here is another thought: Why has Suzuki never entertained the idea of having Yoshimura run the MotoGP team???

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (tlrwinder @ Nov 29 2008, 12:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I was at Road Atlanta back in 1999 or 2000....He was standing with Kurtis Roberts and John Kocinski. They looked like midgets next to him! Mat and Aaron Yates were both 5foot10 ish, 180+lbs....definitely not fat ....., just big dudes.

Mat is now closer to 165-170lbs (super lean to the point of looking 'sick') , but he is still too big to compete in Munchkin-Land where Nicky Hayden is one of the bigger riders, and he's around 150lbs!!
dude rossi is 5'11"..... you need to come up with something else.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (MigsAngel @ Nov 29 2008, 02:00 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>Mladin did go to GPs, and he dropped out due to lack of results.....his bike/team did suck, but if he was/is as great as his six AMA titles seem to suggest then he should have been able to over come those issues and gotten a decent ride with a better team.......alas he failed and went to AMA....

To be fair Migs, Mladin was screwed over by Cagiva for the time he was there particularly when the factory then bought little John into the picture (as were others screwed by factories around that time). Additionally he was plucked from nowhere by the factory in the hope that he could replicate the results of Gardner/Doohan for Cagiva who really were grasping at straws with everything they did at the time (even if their bike remains IMO the best looking 500cc GP bike of all time).

Once he left 500cc and returned to the Superbike classes the doors just did not open and personally I do not think results were the problem but moreso the fact that Mladin is never backwards in coming forwards with opinions. Basically, he pissed people off because he spoke up about what he perceived as the injustices put upon him.

But, then he ended in the US and eventually met/married so his who focus changed as he now had a family to support and did not want the nomadic lifestyle of the GrandsPrix rider.

Personally I do feel that Mladin was good enough to have made a success of teh GrandsPrix era (not win the WC, nor likely a race but be as competitive as some contempories of the day) but we will never know.

But I doubt that he has regrets as he is financially more secure due to the AMA and the rewards that it offers.

Nor does the 'failure' of him or anyone else to make a go/effort in MotoGP aas it is now lessen the fact that the guy is a damn good rider within the niche in which he chose to specialise.







Garry

I'm sure if he pushed it he could have gone when CV was hired and then the size wasn't an issue because it would have been on the 990. He was offered the GSVR to test but declined. He certainly would have been a top 5 rider given the bike was up to it. I think he didn't want to be an also ran. Also, he got more support from the factory in AMA since it directly affected the GSXR sales and MotoGP was almost unknown in the US at that time.

I for one don't think Mat the gnat would do that well in GP. He may have but I just think that GP is to deep for him to be that successful in it. I would bet he could win a race or two but never dominate like ROssi.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ROCKGOD01 @ Dec 1 2008, 09:18 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I for one don't think Mat the gnat would do that well in GP. He may have but I just think that GP is to deep for him to be that successful in it. I would bet he could win a race or two but never dominate like ROssi.

LOL, did you just say that all riders in motoGP are failures (not doing that well), with the single exception of Rossi?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gsfan @ Dec 2 2008, 01:13 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I'm sure if he pushed it he could have gone when CV was hired...and MotoGP was almost unknown in the US at that time.

I don't know about that gsfan, being North American and having many american friend of about the same age who were/are bike racing nuts - I believe the WC made its first and biggest inroads in the US around the Eddie Lawson era of early/mid 1980s. To say that it was virtually unknown until almost twenty years later is a bit of a stretch!

I'm in Canada and it is largely unknown here right now. I suspect in the US it is still largely unknown considering the percentage of population who watch out of 350 million.

Plus, Matt will get paid for not doing anything this year.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (gsfan @ Dec 3 2008, 12:00 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I'm in Canada and it is largely unknown here right now. I suspect in the US it is still largely unknown considering the percentage of population who watch out of 350 million.

Percentage-wise I can't see bike racing ever being a big thing, but amongst bikers/racers I think most people are tuned in. Even most F1 fans I know back home recognize WSBK & MotoGP and the names of the biggest "players".

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Mick D @ Dec 2 2008, 08:14 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}><div class='quotemain'>I don't know about that gsfan, being North American and having many american friend of about the same age who were/are bike racing nuts - I believe the WC made its first and biggest inroads in the US around the Eddie Lawson era of early/mid 1980s. To say that it was virtually unknown until almost twenty years later is a bit of a stretch!
Just as a reminder to some of you who may not know. Superbike was invented in the United States back in the early 80's.