"Julian Bond" wrote in message
<font color=purple> > <a rel="nofollow" style='text-decoration: none;' href="http://venus.13x.com/roadracingworld/scripts/NewsInsert.asp?insert=7112</font" target="_blank">http://venus.13x.com/roadracingworld/scripts/NewsInsert.asp?insert=7112</font</a>>
>
> Mladin says the 2004 rules are unfair to 4s and they're only changing
> them because one guy (!) is winning. Al Luddington says the 2003 rules
> are unfair to Twins and that the fours handle better anyway.
>
> Same old, same old. Isn't it just that on nearly equal machinery,
> Mladin+team is a better rider than the three+team on Hondas?
Seems like a very odd position for the AMA to take. There has to be an
interest on the twins side that's behind this, but I'm not sure what that
is. Is it Honda, who have been expected to abandon the VTR after this season
and go back to a four? Ducati, who haven't won here since '99, haven't
fielded a true factory team since '00, and have seemed less interested in
the AMA every year? Aprilia, who dropped out of WSB this year and have never
competed here? Is Harley taking the VR1000 out of mothballs? Or is the AMA
just laying bait for manufacturers that are out or headed that way?
Anyway, a bad idea based on very little information. Mladin is the best guy
in the AMA and his team is as good as any. Honda has Bostrom, who hasn't
been able to adjust to the VTR very well and has been out of the series
since '99, Duhamel, who is 35 and hasn't been the same since his broken leg
at Loudon five years ago, and Roberts, who's never won a SB race and remains
a questionable guy overall. Ducati almost didn't show up this year (but
Bussei managed to qualify 3rd today on his first day at VIR). Eric B.
managed to beat the twins regularly on a seven-year-old SB with an added
38cc of displacement. Yates on the 2nd Suzuki has been pretty consistently
within striking range of the others, and qualified behind all the twins
today. So where's the overwhelming evidence for 1000-4 superiority? What
does Eric think with his '04 ZX-10R now out of the bag? Will he be back to
complaining about twins next year?
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