Bens not gridding up with his own money. He’s hoping someone will fit the bill. The real choice is not whether he wants to go racing or not it’s who’s going to pay for it.
Happened to me yesterday at Buttonwillow. The Great Josh Hayes was in the building and HOLY SHIT he was fast. I was in A group looking like I was standing still with them around.
We're knocking on 2020 here. A healthy Ben Spies was a long damn time ago, and the thought that he can come back now and show much more than Scott Russell's last attempt is laughable. Age, injury and time away from the sport don't lie.
So what happens to MotoA when the factories pull out after this year? Will they even run a Superbike class with less than 10 riders on the grid?
No factories could bring more bikes, you never know. A lot of people don't want to spend money if they don't have a chance to shine. With factories out, maybe more will give it a try. Disclaimer: just brainstorming here, I haven't been following this series and I haven't given it any thought.
I guess they could run some kinda Superbike/Superstock/Stock combined class, similar to what the series started with. Which isn't great, but one race with some 1000s at the front lapping a bunch of others at the back is pretty much how AMA Superbike looked in the good old days.
Good point. I haven’t given it much thought either until I heard the comments about the factories pulling out. Is there really any money to be made running a full Superbike program in MotoA? I’m guessing privateer teams are operating in the red. Damn, if Wayne Rainey can kill pro Superbike racing in the US he’s got one up on Mongo the Sacko.
That's an interesting conundrum. If the last 2 factories go bye-bye, will Cam/Gerloff, and Elias/Herrin go with them? I somehow don't see those guys (all of them former or current SBK champs save for Gerloff), competing in a quasi-SSTK class for no money.
He didn't kill it. He is trying his best to keep a corpse he found on the side of the road on life support. If it dies, I don't believe it's on him. But again, I haven't been following.
It wasn’t a season or so ago that American Honda was dipping their toe back in with Benny Solis. I thought it might be a turning point but nothing more came of it.
They ask him about it, he answers. Quit whining. It's not poaching if you do what you're hired to do and win races/championships.... Ben is a racer, he is not a team owner or sponsor or any of the rest of that. Could he be? Sure, but he doesn't seem to want that, he wants to race, same as he always has.
Where would these factories go? If they go, they just shut their race programs down leaving the riders to fend for themselves. Those 4 riders would be needing to sign contracts right now if they were looking to race in championships in other parts of the world.
And another totally unbiased opinion from Mongo the Sacko who knows everything and everybody else is wrong when they disagree with him.