"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." John Ono Lennon.
"If you have never stared off into the distance then your life is a shame." Counting Crows
"The girls were in tight dresses, just like sweets in cellophane" Joe Jackson
It's OK to disagree with me. I can't force you to be right.
That's not saying anything new. Everyone takes fewer risks as they get older. Even Casey Stoner will be far less inclined to ride on the razors edge at 30+ than he does now. Besides, Rossi has said for ages now that he's not prepared to take the risks Casey did to ride that bike.
One thing that Rossi doesn't have to hold him back is children. The Stoners are going to be parents soon and anyone will tell you that has a profound affect on how you approach things.
Zen wisdom: No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously. - obviously had KB in mind when he came up with that gem
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
Stoner moved to Honda so he wouldn't have to ride on the razors edge!
If Stoner thinks it was hard with his tiredness "illness" he had before, wait until he gets no sleep with a screaming baby in the house!
Its Stoner's year by the look of it, but next year is still anyones guess!
I wouldn't rule out any multiple world champions!
Viva La Figa
sounds like its happening: http://darwinzialcita.wordpress.com/...nths-pregnant/
Viva La Figa
Zen wisdom: No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously. - obviously had KB in mind when he came up with that gem
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
See what Doohan himself thinks. Not like he's a Moto GP dummy eh?!?!
-- Five-time World Champion Mick Doohan says Stoner has mental edge
When you have 54 Grand Prix victories to your credit, not to mention five consecutive world titles in motorcycle racing’s premier class, there’s a strong chance you know what you’re talking about. So when Mick Doohan says Casey Stoner has the edge on his keenest rivals, it’s worth listening.
Eight victories this season – five more than any other rider in the MotoGP class – bear out Stoner’s renewed claim to the #1 status he earned as the 2007 MotoGP World Champion.
Coming to Phillip Island, the Australian holds a 40-point lead in the standings and another win at the Bass Strait circuit he has dominated for the last four years will virtually seal his second crown.
Back in `07 Stoner was a newcomer to Ducati. He won first time out on the Desmosedici in Qatar and went on to win 10 races in that momentous year – nine more than his highly-regarded teammate Loris Capirossi. Small wonder, then, that Doohan sees the Big Red Bike as one of the key factors in the Stoner success story.
“The Ducati was good for him,” said Doohan just days before the Phillip Island rendezvous. “It was the right move when he went over there but I think it even surprised him how quick he was winning on it, how quick the Championship came.”
Compare that with the experience of Valentino Rossi. The Italian used to be the main man at Phillip Island: he won five years running from 2001-2005, three times on a Honda and twice for Yamaha.
When he made his own switch from Honda to Yamaha, Rossi, like Stoner on the Ducati, knew early success – he won first time out on that bike in South Africa in 2004.
Now though, Rossi is a Ducati man. While Stoner has won eight times on his Honda, Valentino has yet to come within cooee of his first Grand Prix victory on the bike that’s the two-wheeled equivalent of a Ferrari.
In fact Rossi has been to the podium only once this year after finishing third behind Stoner and Andrea Dovizioso in France. He languishes in sixth place, 169 points adrift of his Australian rival. So what’s gone wrong?
Doohan says it’s further evidence of Stoner’s supremacy rather than Rossi’s decline. “Casey seemed to be, over the last few years, the only guy who could consistently pull results on that Ducati; it was night and day between him and his teammate and I think that confirms his dominance,” he says. “Even though he hasn’t won the Championship the last few years, it’s been obvious just how strong a rider, he is.
“I think towards the end of his time at Ducati he was riding that thing beyond what it was capable of: he was in no man’s land a lot, which inherently leads to mistakes – which in bike racing is crashing!
“I think it’s the same thing with Rossi – he’s had a few crashes with it and has realised that riding in that position is only going to lead to more crashes so let’s try and fix the bike! Easier said than done, to get it back into a race-winning position...”
So will we see Rossi back at the front again – the position he has occupied no fewer than 79 times in the premier class alone? “It’s hard to say,” Doohan acknowledges, and he clearly feels time is not on the Italian’s side as Rossi heads towards his mid-thirties.
“He’s been around for a long while and I think that’s the key with any sportsman or sportswoman – how long can you remain completely immersed in the sport and forget about any outside influences? Rossi’s been around with the 125’s, 250’s, MotoGP; he’s got a lot of titles and a lot of seasons under his belt.
“It’s not really injuries coming in, I think it’s more just getting tired and not wanting to push yourself, whereas somebody like Casey has still got the desire to push himself and win championship after championship.
“That’s not to say that somebody like Rossi doesn’t want to be number one – but it’s not going to get any easier for him. And the longer it takes for Ducati to get the bike to a position where he feels comfortable on it, I just feel that where he is in his life-cycle, in his career, he’s not prepared to push it the way that Casey or a younger guy would be prepared to push it to gain the results.
“It’s now a Catch-22: there’s those guys who are prepared to push it, Valentino’s got the experience, but he maybe hasn’t got that desire to push himself beyond the limits anymore.”
Contrast that with Stoner, now striding into his mature years – he will turn 26 on race day at Phillip Island – and looking to add to his already outstanding total of 31Grand Prix wins in the top class. Like the move to Ducati, maybe the move from Ducati has put him back in the right place at the right time.
“Time to move on,” Doohan agrees. “I don’t know whether the enthusiasm at Ducati had waned a little bit or whatever, but they lost direction there at some point. Either that or the other guys – Honda, Yamaha – raised the bar and caught up a little.
“But now Casey’s on that Honda and it’s a much more stable platform, a much more consistent platform for somebody like Casey and the team to work with. Hence his results are a lot more consistent – and he’s not falling off as much.”
So what is it that makes Stoner stand out from the rest? Doohan is in little doubt about where the answer lies. “I think it’s his raw talent to feel and understand what the bike’s doing – and his confidence,” he insists.
“Confidence has a lot to do with it in any sport but especially on two wheels, where believing that you can get away with it is half the battle! You see some of these guys fall off and it’s almost a give-up point, whereas somebody like Stoner will ride through it and believe that he’s not going to crash.
“It takes a real big incident for him to actually crash the bike: we saw that in Japan at the last race when the brakes spread – a lesser rider would have panicked, grabbed a lot more front brake when it eventually did come in, lost the front and gone down.
“It’s all got to do with managing what happens, and when something goes wrong, dealing with it correctly: a good rider can get away with it whereas a lesser rider panics a bit more and you end up on your ears! Casey’s been able to ride it a bit better, and also there’s his desire to be the World Champion.
“He wants to prove to himself that he’s better than everybody out there and prove it to everyone that thinks he’s only doing it because he was on a Ducati. I think he’s shown that the Ducati wasn’t the be-all and end-all ...”
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