Rain is the ultimate equalizer...

But wow, 5 seconds ahead of Spies and even further ahead of most!

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=46567

 

He was the only one on slicks.

 

Does anyone who really races think that rain is the "great equalizer"? I have heard that phrase a lot but it seems silly to me.

 

Having not raced in the rain, I may be ignorant on this. I have always thought it takes the bike out of the equation and makes it as close to a racers race is can be.

 

well Kevin Schwantz thinks that, thats good enough for me...

 

yes

 

+Eleventy Billion.

 

Well lets see I am around 290 and finish around 10th to 15th in a bigger 600 grid but in the rain usually run up front, so yeah I would say rain helps make things even

 

jon jon if you lay off the rolls from the steakhouse, you could be a slim 230 like me.

 

yes ask chip

 

No.. that is absurd. Rain is just a different condition to race in that most racers prepare for a whole lot less than dry. Just because someone does well in the wet doesn't mean they should be considered "better" than the riders who regularly beat them in the dry.

Mind you, I raced in the wet once and I won two races and took 2nd by a few hundredths in the third. I beat guys that were usually faster than me (by a few seconds) on the same track. I'm not "better" than them suddenly because I did well in the wet. I just took more chances and it paid off.

 

I have to agree. He who has the biggest balls or the most rain experience wins.

 

I do....absolutely :up:

You can only hook up so much power in the wet at any given time, so the 'underpowered' bikes are, at worst, at much less of a disadvantage.

I am one of those sick puppies who actually likes to race in the rain.

 

Which would make you better in the rain correct

 

This is what I think. I have raced in the rain many times. It seems to me that it rewards people who take big chances. They either win or crash. The more experienced racers seem to finish a few places back from normal but they all finish the race.

Didn't Rossi answer the question by saying something like "unfortunately for them most of the races are held in dry conditions" or something like that?

 

Right better in the rain but how is that an equalizer? Say you have two riders on identical bikes who run within a second of one another at a given track. They would be considered equals right? Then it rains and one is now three seconds faster than the other. Are they now unequal or is one just more experienced for the conditions? I just don't see equalizer. Unless you mean it makes the fast guys slow down so you can ride with more abandon and now keep up or beat them. Is that an equalizer? Maybe the fast guy just has a stronger self preservation instinct.

 

I think this might be true, but also the faster more experienced guys are often the ones chasing championships. They have more to lose from a crash.

 

I usually finish 7th-13th in the dry. In the wet I have finished 5th in every race. I would also bet that my self preservation instincts are higher than most out there.

IMO, riders that can learn tracks quickly are the same ones that go quick in the rain.

 

First i gotta say that i have never raced in the rain, not once. I have done several TD sessions in the rain. But simply by chance, never had to race in the rain.

With that being said, I gotta agree with Luke and Steve on this one, rain doesn't equalize anything nor prove who is the better rider/racer. It simply proves who is willing to take more silly chances, or who has the strongest self-preservation instinct, or who is on a tighter budget and simply wants to remove crashing from the equation, or who wants to just finish on two wheels.

Look at how many racers on the World level have won or finished on a podium in the rain...but have never came close in the dry. Does that mean they are better racers/riders than the ones who normally win in the dry? No, it means they either took more chances or simply got lucky. If they are racing in the rain and Stoner, Rossi, Spies, Hayden, Lorenzo, Edwards, Dovi etc etc all fall down and Elias wins the race, does that mean that Elias is suddenly a better rider/racer than those guys? No. In that situation, nothing was "equalized", Elias simply got lucky.

While i agree there is a certain skillset to riding fast in the rain, i do not feel that particular skillset defines someone as a better rider/racer in general.

 

I've often thought about the rain like this, and maybe I'm wrong, but I would think that the normally mid pack to backmarkers are usually riding around at almost the absolute limit, if not the limit of what their machines can do in the dry trying to hang with the better factory machines.

When you add rain to the mix, they're still riding their bikes to the limit, while the factory guys tend to back it off a few notches, whether it be because they're not used to pushing their bikes quite as much, or they're just not comfortable in the wet.

I guess if you look at it this way, it still comes down to who has the most balls, only in the dry, the guys in the back still have the balls, just not the equipment/support of those factory guys. (No pun intended)

Just look at guys like Bautista who ride the wheels off of their bikes. They're either going to place just behind the factory men, or crash out trying. When you add the rain to the mix, they just ride like they always do, (at the limit) while the others back off a bit.

Not that it bears any similarity, but when I used to autocross my times in the wet were nearly identical in the dry due to the fact I spent no money setting up my car. I could often win an event in the wet! When it dried out though, the other guys would run away with the show.