well half of all the baseball players were not allowed to play either, so there's that complication too
In twenty years we will all be saying the internal combustion era was the greatest while watching electric motorcycles race in the premier class with Marquez battling for second since GOAT 3.0 sailed away by 12 seconds because he knows how to conserve the battery life the best.
Honest question...in the context in which you used it, what's the difference between an educated opinion and a plain old generic opinion?
Generic: Somebody else’s opinion that confirms your own bias. Educated: your own opinion that confirms your own bias.
A "mid packer" that Rainey only beat by 4 points in 1992, when Doohan missed 4 races due to the smashed leg in Assen.
Probably not, pitching is totally different. the game has changed, and evolved to a whole nother level. All sports have. Professional athletes are so refined now and the level is so high it's unbelievable. For somebody to come along and stand out on a level like that again would be impressive. But they do every once in a while, and then the game evolves again to catch up. And so on and so forth. Same thing with Gretzky. He played in a time where the game was different, goalies were different, everything was different. He's admitted many times that he wouldn't stand out like he did in today's game. Yet the number don't lie, and he put up a ton. Untouchable records. Ago, same way. He didn't race against what Rossi had to, nor what Marc now has to. With the equipment they have now. The competition and sport is much more refined now. Guys now because of fitness conditioning and training can push %100 from lights out to checkers completely error free. It's pretty damn impressive. But in his day and age, he put up the #'s. I think we were prematurely robbed of watching the Stoner and Marc show though. There's no doubt the 2 of them would have put on a spectacular show. Both have unbelievable natural talents on a motorcycle, but I think Marc takes the training and discipline bar to the next level, and is forcing everybody to play catch up. While I miss Stoner, to go out on your terms, while you're still young and healthy and go raise a family and live your life is awesome. Put me in the same spot, and I'd make the same choice. Like winning the lottery. He had nothing left to prove to anybody but to stick around and put up numbers. Racing motorcycles and the GP circus stopped being fun, so he left. I can't fault him for that. See, I enjoy batting stats around a bit too lol. It just becomes a bit of a pointless excessive trying to definitively prove things by numbers without taking in context. It's literally the saaaaammmmme aaaaarguments oooover and oooover again. Which brings me back to the STFU and just watch the damn race.
Ahhh...got it. Similar to the saying 'if the facts don't support your opinion, find different facts'.
An educated one uses one's own research as well as the opinions of experts.....pros from the paddock (riders, managers, etc.)
Maybe you should read 'Pushing the Limits' before you judge the guy for struggling with adversity. Marc didn't exactly thrive on adversity. He is a loose cannon; you'd think someone with his experience and titles would refrain from blatantly barging into other racers with absolutely zero respect. Stoner on the other side raced and respected the other riders around him. The perfect example would be Simoncelli, he was aggressive but he knew where the line was after a few transgressions. Marc however........never did and never will.
The way i see it, is stoner rode with such a skilll that every bend or shape his bike took it was done with intent, he could manipulate the bike in many ways and make it look like he was just dancing with it. marquez on the other had, has the uncanny skill of gathering everything up in real time, all the time. imo, ultimately stoner would be faster because he could set the bike up on track to maximise the grip available(i also beleive if everything is right, lorenzo is faster then MM93 for the same reason). Stoner also had the ability to read a track and understand exactly where the speed was, hence why he could smash lap record pace within 2-3 laps everywhere he went. Part of stoners dominance of his rivals in his championship years was the fact he was that fkn fast and his rivals couldnt work out how/why. marquez makes a far better racer, he can throw a bike in there and disrupt his rivals, gather it up and get it done. part of his ongoing dominance is the fact he can ride over the limit consistantly, this plays on the mind of other racers in bar to bar racing, especially in this super tight shitty tyre conservation era we currently have. I honestly think dovi has come to term with this and as a result can play marquez' antics to his strengths too both very different, but equally as fast imo. now, the question is, how many more poles, wins and lap records would stoner have if he spent his entire motoGP career on a repsol honda?
I think your memory is failing you old man! Tell the truth. You were just trying to troll people with something sillier than "Maverick sux" The only year that he was mid pack was his first year on 500's. That year was not great. But after that he finished 3rd, 2nd twice and 4th before stringing together 5 in a row. I had to look back for specifics but in 1992 he won 5 of the first 7 races, came in 2nd in the other 2, sat out 4 races with his legs stitched together to try to get shit to heal and managed to get points in one of the last 2 races by essentially having people lift him on to the motorcycle. He lost the title to Rainey but still managed to come in 2nd against hacks like Lawson, Schwantz, Gardner, Chandler and Mamola. To me that is not mid pack performance...