doesnt it kinda feel weird to some of you?

Not having mladin in the field?
Like that 1994 nba season, the first without michael jordan?
Sice I started watching racing, mladin has always been there and has always been the unstopable force in ama superbike.
I mean, just like in 94 when my knicks finally made it to the nba finals, I'm glad that we can see zemke win superbike races, but it just seems like something is missing. And I'm just looking at the results...
Its nice to have uncertanty on who's going to win the superbike race, but there still feels like there's a hole in the padock...

 

Yea Matt and Ben were unstopable for a long time. But the two Daytona races were very good. There were 5 riders fighting for the win, not just Mladin running away with it. I thought Hopkins would had done better, but it's still early. I think we might see some great racing this year.

 

The best part is that now you get to see a whole bunch of bikes in all the camera shots on SPEED, instead of loner shots of Mat leaving everybody behind.

I don't miss his attitude and general lack of manners, but the guy did ride the wheels off that 'zook.

 

Small blip? A major spike on the graph but racing moves on.

 

I missed seeing him - he was the benchmark for a long time, so much so that only one other rider was able to defeat him in the championship over the span of seven years, and he himself was champion seven out of eleven years.

 

Maybe the AMA can "ghost" Matt in the telecasts... like the NFL does for the line of scrimmage and 1st down markers...lol.
Other than that... I enjoyed the races

 

I miss seeing the Kawasaki's and Honda's on the grid.

 

That's a way bigger deal to me.

 

I fell asleep before the races came on. I'm old.

 

Same here.

Yep, me to. Thank goodness for DVR's.

:up:

 

No Mladin, no Spies, no Hacking, no EBoz, no DuHamel...in general the second half of the "factory guys" field are now the first half and guys like Chris Ulrich are now top ten riders.

 

No more weird than the first season after Spencer left or the first season after Schwantz and Rainey left. Or the first season with out Chandler or the first race with out Spies. Etc, etc, etc.

 

Yup. Not really missing the certainty that I already know who the winner will be too.

 

Yeah but, in those days you got your race results from Cyclenews a week or two after the race or maybe a friend would call you and give you the results (with them being right maybe 30% of the time). There was no TV coverage, no intratubes and no RRW.

With the time between races and finding out what actually happened, John Koconski could actually finish cleaning his leathers and they might actually finish a new episode of Ren and Stimpy.

The good old days really blew.

 

It must feel weird to the moderator at the superbike press conference too. He called Aaron Yates "Mat". Guess he just assumed the pole sitter would be named Mat.

 

well, I am going to go out on a limb here and not miss Mat at all. In fact, I didn't miss him the last half of last year either, when other riders were beating him for wins. I think there is more to it then just some missing riders. I think with the parity in tires and parts, Mat and Ben and Miguel and EBoz, etc would not automatically be the top 5. I have heard everybody explain away Mat's losses last year as he stopped trying after he got enough points to coast to another championship. I am not sure I believe it, I believe that Hayes and Pegram, among others, showed that they have what it takes to be winners on equal equipment. The races at Daytona showed that there is some good talent out there thi year and maybe on equal equipment, Chris Ulrich is a top 6 rider. I am looking forward to some good racing this season and won't be missing anybody that isn't there.

Ken

 

Definately miss him not there.

This is just me talking but I feel he definately brought some edgy-ness, definately competition, and something I think the series lacks now is notoriety. He was a name-brand. A multi-time champion, the only person that really gave the current WSBK champion any competition.

Help me for saying so, but even if the DMG works out the kinks this year and it turns out to be a awesomely run series, it doesn't seem THAT much more interesting to me than maybe watching a club race because alot of those familiar big name racers are gone. Its not like the old days when the US series attracted big name champions like Mladin, Hodgson, Corser (and even Foggy when he tried his hand at the 200 that year) to come over here and compete in it because it actually carried some weight with it to be the US Superbike champ.

 

Yeah, being the guy everybody has tried to beat for 10 years to prove themselves is nothing more than a blip.

 

The Superbike races were great! I don't miss him.