MotoGP | 2024 | Silly Season

Crafar talked about it in the last 30 minutes or so. Also, last year how Martin was distracted with the wimmins and partying and someone had to have the talk to like get with it or this won't end well.

 

Yeah, these guys brought up in the Spanish ladder programs are probably learning bike engineering when they're 5 years old. I can't fathom that he wouldn't know these bikes inside and out.

 

I mentioned his trip to DR.. definitely not a public display of focus for sure…

I’ve worked with smart racers and uh…. Seat of the pants only racers… while I think it takes a good balance like we see Pecco struggle with at times…. And I’ll take the more complex ones every time if I have the choice… you can teach them to shut off the overthinking easier than trying to get one to understand complexities of man and machine in unison

 

it’s been years but I watched some stuff on the MotoGP academy and it was amazing from tire changers to software masters to everything… cool program

 

Apparently Mike Hailwood wasn't very good when it came to explaining what the bike was doing and how he wanted it changed, throwing shocks in a lake being the exception.

 

John Hopkins was self-admittedly very limited on tech stuff as a factory MotoGP racer.

 

I tuned in for a minute this morning and heard that section. I was really surprised by that.

@27 Lenny was great. I was impressed with how well he could tune, even just over the phone? He said part of it was because he knew Tyler could give him good feedback.

 

From what I heard Gigi said the 24' is a bigger step in performance than the 23' was. Albeit Ducati isn't going to show the full bike until the final test.

 

I recall Kurtis Roberts in the booth during a race and the commentators asked him something about bike setup or suspension changes, and he basically said "I don't really know about that stuff."

 

Lenny….it’s about the people for sure… he talked me into going with him in the first semi truck year to Race Tech… I was already getting free suspension from one of the best but I trusted his track support more as he’d build me anything I wanted for all 8 sets…

at Fontana when Rapp was filling in for me after I got hurt we listened to him and looked at each other like “WTF?!?” We rode the scooters out to a few places to watch and decided what to do… we were right… he went faster and thought we did what he asked for which was impossible as the RT stuff didn’t have a mid valve or top out spring… it wasn’t worth explaining to him

 

Aaron Yates has the most precise exact description of what is happening and what he wants of any rider I’ve ever been around…

Doug Polen rode my superbike at RA and didn’t change one click of anything! Nothing! Only thing he asked for was more soft tires to which I said “No way man, you just smoked that one in 7 laps!”

 

Polen was a tire savant. Could feel a kg either way and if the tire tech at the factory drank too much the night before.
He also would find a shock and forks he liked . . .

 

I worked at Hewlett Packard with Aarons sister. Big blonde thing.. Super sweet. In Cali. She couldnt believe that I knew who her brother was (Kelly) I think her name was. I was floored when she told me. I was club racing and it was when Aaron was in his prime. Was the coolest thing for me. She was sweet girl.

 

If I remember correctly Aaron Yates had a sister who raced with WERA many moons ago.

 

this is interesting for sure. Looks like MotoGP got caught with their in the cookie jar.

Crypto bike has all kinds of things happening with Razan leaving, MotoGP leaving. We all await the off-season drama

 

either my bike was perfect or he didn’t care he was 49 and it was his last Superbike race… it was fun… he slept with my two 130lb malamutes in the RV like a privateer and raced the crew on WSBK PlayStation

he even placed well and we all had a blast

 

It's not a battle dorna will lose though

 

If I remember right, he didn’t care. He’d get it close enough and just go.

I think it was Michelin that he tested tires for at Daytona and he was the one who suggested that he test the tires on the banking that the AMA didn’t use to “just see” what would happen. Everyone had been afraid of doing what he suggested because of risk of tires coming apart.

 

He also played the “what happened to my toes?!?” Trick on the umbrella girls

I came back to the semi and everyone was gone… everything was done, didn’t matter… so I go to my RV and it’s PlayStation battle the entire crew packed into the diesel pusher… he made a bet that if one of the umbrella girls beat him on the WSBK game (that he was involved in making) that he’d dress up in their outfits with them for the 600 race…

I had lots of guest riders over the years but I’d never even met Doug but he was a real surprise as a racers racer who just wanted to be at the track enjoying one of the best things in life… great memories