Dude, that's old news. Eric had season ending surgery after his crash at Laguna. They left his bikes in CA and just brought Tommy and Tony's stuff to VIR. He'll be back with a vengeance next year on the new Zed-X-10.
When I saw the pictures of him doing the Superman over his bike with the back of his fancy new leathers showing all I could think of was the sound of the General Lee's horn blowing right before it took off over a big jump.
I know about Eric. just wonder why they dont give bike to somebody to ride instead of just packing it up.
they dont have to worry about that,considering good job they doing in moto gp. they should have Tony riding it or some other young guy.that way they can blame it on rider.
Getting a bike to the Moto GP stage is half the battle. Once you are there the bike will get developed. I still have NO idea how Ducati managed to put their bike up front so fast, but I'm sure Suzuki, Kawa, Yama, and Aprilia are looking at what they are doing very closely. This coming weekend Troy and Cap have new Ohlins forks which they like better than before to match their new chassis. When you talk Moto GP you have to understand that every single part on the bike is made to fit just that bike. They have to tool each part up from scratch to use it, and if it breaks they go back two steps. Just look into the Proton team to see how hard it is to run a GP bike. It is so much R&D money most people can't begin to understand. I'm trying to defend Kawasaki because I love their products, and I hope they can compete closer to the front soon. Look at what Sete has done this year on a good bike. Where was he on the Suzuki? It all comes down to silly amounts of cash to run up front.
silly amount of cash is right. some said the four strokes wouldnt be much more than the 500's. i miss the smokers.
I agree with you completely Dennis. However... Kawasaki has handicapped themselves by running Dunlops. The Michelins have a clear advantage due to years of development in 500s. Also, Kawasaki and Suzuki seem to be using different development idealogies. They appear to be using MotoGP as a test bed for new technologies. I.E. Suzuki's fly by wire throttle. Yamaha is also following this path, to a lesser extent with the anti-chatter chasis (seen earlier in the year). Ducati's focus, conversely, is to win races here and now. That is there focus. And it is embarassing that Chris Walker outqualified the Kawi MotoGP bike on the zx-7rr wsbk bike from 2002 last year. Sometimes, it's tough to be a fan of green bikes... That's why I like orange 10r
Good points Chris. You would think it impossible to run quicker on the 7RR than the GP bike. I still can't deside between the Orange or the Black 10R, but almost sure that one of them will be parking in my garage soon.
