Yamaha strategy, post-Lorenzo crash

Lorenzo's crash and broken collarbone, early in the Assen weekend (which begins extra-early at Assen, so that the racing can be over before Sunday's mass at a nearby cathedral) threatens to derail #99's effort to repeat as champion this season.


His injury -- broken collarbone -- is relatively minor. It's something almost every motorcycle racer deals with, often more than once, in a career. And he's only 7 points behind Pedrosa. And there are still a dozen races to go. So, mathematically, Yamaha's a long way from admitting defeat.

But.

There've been questions about Yamaha engine longevity, haven't there? And while Lorenzo may only miss one race -- that oddball Assen schedule actually buys him one more precious day of recovery time between races -- there's a real chance that he'll be sore and weak for the next couple of races. By the time Lorenzo is back up to full fitness and speed, Pedrosa could have 25 points in hand, and Yamaha will have lost the title.

That would suck for me because I like Lorenzo and dislike Pedrosa. Now is when Yamaha would love to have a #2 rider capable of winning, in order to deny Pedrosa full points. I mean, if it had been Pedrosa who'd crashed, Honda could quite realistically have hoped Marquez would step up and defend P1 from Lorenzo.

Unfortunately for Yamaha, they've got Valentino Rossi on the distaff side of the garage. I suppose they can pray for rain; Rossi's always been fast in the wet, and he's been ahead of Pedrosa in wet sessions at Assen this weekend. But if it's dry, Cal Crutchlow's faster than Rossi.

Which begs the question, how much of an advantage could Yamaha give Cal, with full factory support, for the next few races? There's lots of reasons those tuning forkers might not want to support Cal. First of all, he's been a vocal critic of the bike he has been riding, even though it is probably the fifth-best bike on the grid. He's bitterly complained that Yamaha aren't showing him the respect he deserves. If Yamaha does throw some extra support his way -- by, for example, allowing Tech 3 to slot a motor from Cal's allotment into a full-factory rolling chassis -- they might in fact give Cal the tools he needs to win, effectively handing valuable points to Lorenzo in the larger title chase. But if Cal could win on a 'factory' bike, it would make all of his whingeing seem justified, and it would make Yamaha seem like pikers.

I still think they should do it.

There's also stuff they could do to Rossi's engine management system, to give him a tiny edge in the next race or three; things that would expose Rossi to risk, vis-a-vis engine longevity, later in the season. What it they upped his rev limit a little (I'm perhaps oversimplifying, but you get the idea)?

With a tiny edge, Rossi  might be capable of winning, which would do him a world of good. He's second right now, behind Marquez, in a dry session, so he's close; Assen, seems to agree with the aging ex-champion.

Rossi's not a championship contender, so who cares if, later in the season, he needs a seventh engine and has to start from pit lane?

The wild card in this mix is Marquez. While I wrote, above, that if it had been Pedrosa who'd broken his collarbone, Honda could reasonably hope Marky Marq would win, the truth is that Marquez may win anyway. He won't listen to team orders. And judging from the way Pedrosa and Marquez seem to relate to each other on track, there's a real possibility they'll both end any race in a gravel trap, beating on each other.

Still, if I ran Yamaha's race effort, I'd bring in the crew chiefs. They should do anything they can to make Crutchlow and Rossi faster this Sunday, and at the next couple of races. Even if it means losing face by proving Crutchlow right, or using up Rossi's motor allotment later in the season. Because if Pedrosa can win at Assen, where Jorge will score no points (then pad his lead over the next couple of races while Jorge recovers) all bets are off.

Sid Biberman Nov. 24, 1930-June 22, 2013

"Big Sid" Biberman, a legendary drag racer and Vincent tuner, passed away in Louisville, KY on Saturday, June 22.

Sid first came to attention as the creator of "The Rattler", one of the fastest drag bikes of its day, in the Mid-Atlantic region. Later, Sid owned a motorcycle repair shop in Virginia; it was the kind of place where, when you walked in, there was always something interesting in a state of disassembly. It'd be a Vincent, or a Brough, or a Laverda... Sid was a magnet for the rare and exotic.

Sid's son Matthew is an English prof and writer. He wrote a book about his relationship with his father -- a relationship that was resurrected as, together, they created a 'Vincati'. 

Sid, Matthew, and their creation -- a tuned, '50s-vintage Vincent motor set in a '70s-era Ducati frame -- are featured in this video from Jay Leno's web site.

Seen at the TT: Fairy Bridge

Tom Guttry is the film producer who I spent the fortnight guiding around the Isle of Man. He's the 'hands-on' guy for the four(!!!!) production companies involved in the development of Riding Man as a feature film. Over the two+ weeks, I tried to check as many boxes as possible for him, showing him a selection of different-character spots on the TT course, and introducing him to a selection of the characters I met when I lived here. Some of them are, ah, 'different' too, to say the least.

One must-see spot was the Fairy Bridge. To be honest, it's not one of the nicer or more scenic bridges-over-streams on the Isle of Man. And there are days when the trees over the stream, and crevices in the rockwork, festooned with souvenirs and notes, strike me as that much litter. Still, I try to remember to bid the fairies 'hello' every time I cross.

On the Thursday of race week, quite a few bikers stopped by. One foreign guy asked me, in heavily accented and broken English, who'd died there. That's an honest mistake, as anyone who's lapped the TT course is so used to makeshift memorials that look similar. I don't think he understood me when I explained that no one had died here, it was a place people came to leave notes and little presents for the Manx fairies, and to ask for good luck.

Tom made a wish. I warned him not to tell me what it was, or to ask for too much and anger the fairies with greed or hubris. (Those, I admit, are not official rules for communicating with fairies. I told him that only because to me, that's a common courtesy.) Presumably, he wished for success in his effort to turn Riding Man into a feature film, so rather than bore the fairies with a similar wish, I asked for a different favor.

I placed my own wish, written on a tiny scrap of paper torn from my Moleskine (I know, what a snob, eh?) in a tiny snail shell, the snail long dead and his shell stuck to the wall by a thick impasto of white paint. Some Isle of Man public employee had painted the stones of the bridge as part of the general pre-TT beautification program, I guess.

In hindsight, I suppose that I put my note in the empty home of a slow guy. I hope the fairies have a suitable sense of irony.

Seen at the TT: Dogs

I've been on the Isle of Man for the whole of this year's TT fortnight. So I apologize for not posting a whole bunch of stuff. I've barely had time to get a couple of columns written for MotorcycleUSA (the first of which is found here.) My excuse is... Well, forget it. I'll catch you up later.

The TT paddock is its own little community really. A town of a few hundred people camped out between the Grandstand and 'downtown' Douglas, on the sporting fields of Nobles Park. Since most of those people are on the Island for over two weeks, they bring the whole household, including kids and dogs. Dogs are great stress relievers, and I can easily see how it would be nice to have one around in the hours before setting out onto the Mountain Course.

Over the next few days, I'll try to back-post some more observations from this trip. And watch for more 'Manx Postcard' Backmarker columns on Motorcycle-USA.com, with the next one coming this Thursday...

Roger Willis' tales of TT trophies

This morning, I rode down to the Crab Shack, on the breakwater at Peel on the west coast of the Isle of Man. Roger Willis rocked up -- he's the author of 'The Nazi TT'; the story of the Nazi's determination to win the Senior TT in 1939. Over a kipper bap and tea, Roger told me two equally amazing stories about how the Senior, and Junior TT trophies survived the war. The Senior trophy was won by Georg Meier on the indomitable BMW Kompressor, of course; the Junior trophy spent the war in Italy, after being won by a Benelli rider. I'll try to schedule a formal interview with Roger sometime in the next few weeks. Until then, a teaser: JUnior silverwork spent the war buried in Mr. Benelli's garden. The Senior one -- the most sought after award in motorcycling -- was, luckily, transferred out of bomber range. It ended up in Vienna. After the war, an RAF officer tracked the trophy down, but was dismayed to find that it was in the Russian sector. Through channels, the British prevailed on the Russians to liberate the trophy and repatriate it.

Tour de Media: Ups and downs

Honda takes on title sponsorship of Pikes Peak hillclimb

I see that American Honda will become the official sponsor of Pikes Peak, entering a bunch of cars, bikes, and a quad. The entries include an electric car but no electric motorcycle. (I guess they couldn't arrange to borrow the Mugen bike that will race again at the TT in June.)

The driving/riding duties seem to be handled by a Honda's American R&D staff. Jeff Tigert, a 'known fast guy' on the West Coast, will be riding a CBR600 in the 750 class.

I didn't see a Honda motorcycle entry in the big bike class, so I guess we won't see a Honda-Ducati showdown for the outright course record. I have to wonder, though, what this means for Ducati. For the last few years, they've done a great guerrilla marketing job at Pikes Peak. They've been the de facto title sponsor, without paying for official status, just on the strength of a well-managed PR program. They may not manage to 'own' the event this summer, if -- as I expect -- Honda backs its title sponsorship with a soup-to-nuts PR program.

I think that my friends at Faulkner-Livingston Racing did too good a job managing the Ducati Pikes Peak program; they proved that racing there could generate great exposure for a relatively small investment.

Barring a high-profile PR disaster (read: fatality on the all-paved, fast, and as a consequence more dangerous course) Honda's involvement signals a quantum jump for the hillclimb, in terms of returning it to past glory as one of America's highest-profile motorsports events.

Fisker proves Christensen's theory again

I've written before about the way disruptive change comes up from the bottom of the market, not down from the top. And now, I read that Fisker -- the high-dollar electric sports car -- is about to fold. I suppose the guys who now run Mission Motors are looking at Fisker and thinking, at least we didn't do that.

Every now then I try to arrange an interview with the people at Vectrix, who have partnered with Daimler's Smart unit, and are developing a cheap & cheerful low performance electric scooter. That's where I expect real success for an EV two-wheeler. (But somehow, Vectrix senior management seems to be avoiding me. I guess I've got a reputation as a bushwhacker.) If I ever get them to return my calls, you'll hear about it here first.

AMA Pro Racing finds its long-lost Superbike TV deal

Last but no means least, AMA Pro Racing just breathlessly announced that the rest of this season, and all of next season's Superbike and DSB-class road races will be broadcast on the CBS Sports cable network.

That's a lot better than no TV deal, and most of the series' stakeholders are probably eager to trumpet it to existing and potential sponsors. But don't kid yourself; the racing's not on CBS, it's on CBS Sports, a cable channel that is, like, Channel 521 out there in far reaches of obscure cabledom.

Actual audience figures for CBS Sports are hard (read: impossible) to come by. The channel is not a Nielsen subscriber, so I could not get an independent estimate of viewership. The network coyly says that it is "available to over 100 million households" [my italics].  That does not, however, mean it's available in 100 million households. It means that it's carried by cable providers that serve that number of homes. A better guess is that about half that number of homes actually subscribe to a package (i.e., a 'sports tier') that includes CBS Sports.

If you want a working figure, you can say that somewhere between a third and half of American homes currently subscribe to a cable package (or something like the Dish Network) that gives them access to CBS Sports network, although most American households could get access to the network if they were willing to spend an extra few bucks a month.

That's a lot of potential viewers, but it hasn't translated into many viewers for most of the content carried on the channel. I've read estimates in the advertising trades (the ad industry, of course, makes audience estimates its business) suggesting that even popular CBS Sports shows measure their audience in the tens of thousands. This is not a return to the days when motorcycle racing occasionally showed up on Wide World of Sports and was exposed to millions of people who weren't even looking for it. No broadcast of this year's AMA Superbike series will even be seen in 0.1% of American households.

I don't want to be a 'Morose Mark' on this topic. Like I said, this deal's a lot better than no TV deal. But my message to AMA Pro Racing is: You can not -- and must not -- assume people will find, and watch, the Superbike series now that it's 'on TV'. It's available to a wide audience. Now you have to convince that wide audience to watch it.

What I mean is, now that people can watch it, we need to tell them where they can find it, and why they should go to the trouble. AMA Pro Racing needs to develop a social media campaign that leverages everything all the many stakeholders, especially riders and sponsors, are already doing on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. They should be advertising online, where a lot of the young action-sports enthusiasts they could capture already spend a lot of time. There should be beer coasters in sports bars, telling patrons to ask bartenders to switch one of the televisions to our network. There should be ads at every AMA race and handbills in every motorcycle dealership, telling people in that particular market what channel number they need to program into their remote. Because the only way we'll build an audience is by telling people how to watch us, and why they should bother.

We've got a TV deal. Big whoop. Now, let the audience outreach begin.

Notes from the Blue Groove: It's twins!

I think that the newly announced Basic Twins class for 'Pro' riders is, basically, a good idea.

Under the current class structure, Grand National Experts race twins on half-miles and miles, and race 450cc stock-framed, motocross-based machines on short tracks and TTs. In the only support class, up-and-coming Pros race on the MX-based bikes on all tracks. When this format was introduced a few years ago, many people decried the loss of the 'framers' on short tracks. There were also complaints that the 450s would be far too slow for the Mile races.

'Too slow' is arguable, but the singles races on Mile tracks turned out to be thrilling drafting battles in which -- even by flat track standards -- the racing was a little too close for comfort. It would be a little different, maybe, if the tracks themselves were old-school, deep cushion deals... but they're not; nowadays, they mostly groove up into one-line affairs.

Jesse Phibbs, 21, died a month after crashing in the 2010 Indy Mile. And while I think he was the single class fatality, there have been a few too many close calls. I think twins will prove safer on the Mile tracks -- spreading riders out a little and allowing for slightly different corner lines, even if they're marginally faster. After all, the idea is to bring up promising young riders, not maim or kill them off.

It remains to be seen how the rules will shake out in detail. I presume the new twins will replace singles at all Mile tracks, but what about half-miles? Will some of those be designated 'Twins' tracks and others 'Singles'?

I know it won't make me popular, but I think some consideration should be given to making the Basic Twins class a 'stock frame' class. Go ahead, roll your eyes, but hear me out: When the 450 MX-based bikes came in, people bitterly complained that they were, basically, pieces of shit compared to real 'framers'. But the fact is that while they are slower, cruder bikes, the racing hasn't suffered. More grassroots sponsors -- dealers who sell 450 motocross bikes -- were brought into the sport. And the cost of fielding a competitive machine fell at least a little. Remember the old 883 Sportster class? Those stock-frame bikes were pigs, but the racing was great.

I think the same thing could happen with a Basic Twins class that specified stock frames. Bikes would cost less to build; they'd look more like street bikes and be more attractive to dealer sponsors; they'd look visibly different than the Experts' bikes, which would reduce the prestige erosion at the very top.

I'm just sayin'...