The Ben. Again.

Fogarty won when he had the unobtainium Michelins. Didn't do so great on the Honda with lesser Michelins.

No where near my top 5.

 

Neil Hodgson for instance?

 

I would say Ben was much better than good in those days. He was head and shoulders faster than anyone on a superbike at the time. After kicking MM's ass he went and kicked all of WSBK's ass in the first try on a bike which was arguably slower on tracks he had never seen.

 

Funny you should mention....I did a trackday there over the weekend and the first time I came out of T7 and through that long right hander I noticed there was a big long crack running up the middle of the track and it had a little bit of green growing out of it.

 

I wouldn't call it an ass-kicking by any stretch.

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-In 2006 Ben beat Mladin by only 8 points (649 to 641). 10 race wins to Mladin's 8.

-In 2007 Ben won by a single point (652 to 651), and Mladin had 12 race wins to Spies' 7. The first race of the season at Daytona is what killed the season for Mat, he finished 11th. If Mat finished literally a single position higher at any race the entire year he would have won the title, even if they were tied in points.

-In 2008 you could maybe argue he got his ass kicked as the points were 652 to 557 in Ben's favor......but to put that in context Mat retired from 1 race at Miller and was DQ'd from both races at VIR where he won handily over Spies. So a full 50 points lost @ VIR (actually 60 because Spies was moved up from 2nd to 1st in both races). Also, if not for those 2 DQ's, Mladin would have had 11 race wins in 2008 to Spies' 8


I don't argue that Spies earned the titles, just that he didn't kick Mladin's ass while doing it. Each season was damn close and could have gone way different, it wasn't a Johnny Rea style juggernaut like 2015-2018.

 

It will be interesting to see if the Barber record falls after the repave. IIRC, Spies still holds the record at a 1:23xx from a long time ago. But the pavement has gotten worse every year since then.

 

Perhaps, but that doesn't prove much of anything. He had lots of track experience. What the Ben did was much more impressive. Went into the lion's den, on a new bike, on new to him tracks and won. If Mladin had done something similar then I might be tempted to agree but as it is it's just conjecture.

 

I did the track walk Saturday evening. Turn 7 is far from the only place on that track that has grass growing up through cracked pavement. A winter or two or freeze thaw and that place is going to be a disaster if they don't do something about it. Still I believe they were sold out or at least close to it for both days so it isn't stopping people from going there yet. Really I didn't notice it being that bad when riding except the big spot in turn 10 that you just need to make sure you are inside of.

 

Bitch, you rented Pitt race, stop being a cheap skate and hating on our traffic and F$%^&* rent NJ again,,,PLEASE

 

*feels the need to censor ‘fucking’...but doesn’t hesitate about calling Mongo a bitch.

 

Have to pay the mafia cut somehow ;-)

 

I'm pretty sure that N2's involvement with that weekend is part of the reason that Pitt is even possible.

 

Add to that, Ben won his World Superbike championship by only 6 points. Both Ben and Haga had 4 retirements each. The narrative was always better than the reality when looking at the cold, hard, numbers.

 

THE repave, not A repave? when is it happening?

 

You sure about that?

 

Barber calendar says no events in August due to repaving.

 

Soon, as in any time now. STT has the last event there recently, prior to the track being shutdown for the repave.

 

I liked having him here. If you couldn't beat Mladin, you had zero chance of success over seas. Without Mladin, there would not have been a benchmark in my uninformed opinion