What is every road racers dream? I reckon someone strolling into your pit tent saying "How's about racing my MotoGP bike this weekend?" would have to be a common cause of nocturnal emissions.

Well, that is exactly what has happened to young Chaz Davies at Laguna Seca this weekend after regular rider Alex Hoffman got tee-boned and a spare seat became available.

This is from Julian Ryder via www.superbikeplanet.com:

"Sylvain Guintoli is not a rider with a reputation for being wild, but his move at the top of the Corkscrew this morning has had serious repercussions for Alex Hofmann. Guintoli got in too hot and centre-punched the luckless German who collected a nasty break to a metatarsal in his left hand to match the one he got just over a week ago in his right hand. He went straight o the operating theatre.

As you are allowed to replace a MotoGP rider at up to midday on Saturday Pramac Ducati team manager Luis d'Antin cast around for a replacement. His first thought was Ben Bostrom - a man with experience of the track and big four-strokes. A second thought suggested that Yamaha probably wouldn't like the idea. Then the name Chaz Davies came up. OK, said Luis, he has a bit of four-stroke experience and he's young, why not?

So Chaz duct-taped up Alex's name on the leathers, sat on the bike and was pushed off down pit lane. He didn't even have time to adjust the riding position. An hour later he was still the slowest of the twenty men out there - what else did you expect? - but a mere three-quarters of a second slower than Miguel DuHamel. He impressed everyone with the way he worked and improved his times lap by lap. 'To be honest,' said Luis d'Antin, a man who is not easy to pleasse, 'he was better than I hoped.'"

What an opportunity....but imagine the challenge of jumping off a 600 onto a MotoGP bike.......