Austin, Texas USA | MotoGP | 2017 (Spoilers)

My gf was saying how horrible she thought they looked.

 

Does anyone have a feel for attendance figures at this year's COTA event? I don't recall any mention of them on the MotoGP feed; usually they'll announce large numbers, but just sort of fail to mention low attendance figures (e.g. Qatar's dismal 2017 showing). I didn't find anything from this year when I did a quick web search.

Last year's race had decent attendance, IIRC, but the audience shots from this year's race seemed to show a lot of green space and empty seats.

 

ha! i guess we have varying feeling on degrees of the word "legend", and it doesn't matter how you get there i guess... winning is winning. But Rossi only having to get like 8th place and then somehow managing to fall off his bike in the last race on the slowest turn of the track, gifting him that championship... i dunno how legendary that is, and how "holy shit that was lucky" it was. you can make a million arguments for that too... if Rossi did better in a few other rounds and had a 25 point lead instead of an 8 point lead, it wouldn't have mattered, so his bad for not bringing it home... but everything had to go right for Nicky to even have that title, and everything wrong for Rossi. but hey... Pedrosa took out Hayden too so maybe that just evened the playing field and in the end he was still the better man by 5 points or whatever it was. I can accept that position too.

in the end... Lorenzo is a whiner, so i have little sympathy for his plight, is what it boils down to for me. i'm more than content to let the young kids keep trading 1sts and DNFs while Rossi does a whole season of 3rds and finds himself at the top come season's end as an old wise man, but we got a long way to go, so we'll see how it all pans out.

 

It was pretty empty, however it didn't stop long lines for the bathrooms...

 

Im afraid its running into "overload" territory. In the sense that at this point, any non-race face has already been once (I know a few that went to saturday only). And even for some of the race fans (like myself) there isnt enough of a draw to bring me back in the doors. Id much rather watch the races on TV, and wandering around the grounds for 3 days in the texas sun doesnt sound enjoyable unless I can convince friends to go. Same problem F1 was running into until they brought in Taylor Swift last year, and Timberlake this year. They need to figure something out to bring people back.

 

All falls into the "woulda/shoulda/coulda" category, but 2006 started out as the most wide-open championship year ever, and had the potential to make 2016's wild-west feel look like yet another year of just a couple of riders in contention.

There were several serious championship contenders in the first part of 2006; Rossi, Hayden, the much-maligned Marco Melandri (who had more race wins than Hayden, on a satellite bike no less), and Loris Capirossi. Let's not forget that Hayden's only non-Laguna Seca win came because of the injuries sustained by the top riders, and Colin Edwards' epic mistake in the last corner.

Hayden wasn't the only victim of a teammate-caused crash, and his was only a temporary setback. As a hardcore multi-decade follower of 500GP/MotoGP, I am convinced that if Capirossi hadn't been taken out by his teammate at Catalunya, he would have been the 2006 Champion - on the Ducati. That failure, coupled with subsequent personal issues (the birth of his first child during the height of the 2007 season, and major distractions due to harassment from the Italian tax authority) arguably ruined his aspirations in MotoGP. If things had gone better for Capirossi in 2006/2007, we'd maybe be talking about his MotoGP Legend status

Back to the present - yeah, Lorenzo is a whiner, but he's also one of the greatest racers we've ever seen, as shown by his 5 world titles against the best of the best, including Rossi, Marquez, and Beeb Demi-god Stoner. Unlike too many of the BBS jerkwads, I'm not even remotely ready to write him off - he is a hard worker, and hard as nails - anyone who saw him hobble onto the podium with two broken legs, or come back to Assen and race the day after surgery, would know that.

 

havent seen any but a local friend said "reserved" seating enforcement was outrageously strict and overall attendance was "lighter".

 

Indeed. From three races/year down to one poorly attended race. Japan seems to be losing attendees as well. Meanwhile, European tracks continue to set attendance records, and South America is building up to be the Next Big Place for motor sports, after a few decades of hiatus. I hope something changes, or MotoGP will likely go back to being what it was for a while - a Euro-centric race series, with South America and one Asian outlier. Good for me - bad for you guys.

 

just because humanity has been analyzing horses' personalities for longer time, doesn't mean cows don't have any. ask any farmer.
or ducatisto

 

How does she feel about loud generators?

 

If we are talking gifted titles, anyone want to talk about 1993?

 

My toughts exactly. Yet, no one is questionning Schwantz's Moto Gp Legend status. I do love the guy and he was very spectacular to watch...

 

Well, I got 1st place correct

 

you don't feel like Schwantz had a bunch more "juuuuuust missed it" years and races than Hayden did? i see your argument there, but i feel like Hayden had a fairytale year of sorts and then the rest of the time was consistantly in the pack right behind the podium pack every weekend.

personality impact to the sport i'm sure is a bunch of it though when it boils down to it. how many people talk about Kocinski or Creville in your average GP talk? or Mamola? all winners or Champions in their own right with illustrious careers, but still not seen in the same light. or hell even Nieto... dude has more "championships" than DMX has baby-mommas, but never the main show. KRjr. has a title just like Hayden does... only time i ever hear him come up is "yo those awesome Proton 2T bikes are for sale."

i feel like "legend" is more a subjective sort of thing than outright statistical.

 

Hayden had the championship locked up until he was butt-punched by his teamate. The only gift I saw and what many will always suspect is Rossi throwing him a bone in the last race. If thats true that just makes me respect #46 even more. Nicky earned that championship. 1993, that was a gift. I think I still have that VHS year in review...

 

Possibly but with 25 wins and over 50 podiums - over one of the most competitive eras in 500GP racing on a bike that wasn't nearly as good as the Hondas and Yamahas - nothing was gifted to KS.

 

Not sure how Hayden's title was gifted, since the "GOAT" only had to beat him on the final race of the year? And technically, he didn't even have to beat him, staying a place or two behind him would have won him the title. Surely the "GOAT" can manage to beat Nicky Hayden?

 

So you're saying, basically what it is now...but I think Philip Island will almost always have a place in the championship.

 

This is the kind of Hayden leg-humping fantasy bullsh@t that I've learned to love reading on the Beeb

How do you clowns come up with this nonsense?