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Some of you guys thought I forgot about Moto GP that
debuted this weekend in Qatar.
Come on.
OK, you were right.
Somehow I read the schedule and thought the first race was
April 29 in Valencia.
Typical American.
The Middle East doesn't matter.
To us, it's the Pandora of Earth--
Invade, denigrate, harvest the resources.
That's sarcasm, Carmen.
It's just sarcasm.
So today we'll talk Moto GP and the WTF news that's
already out there after race 1.
Plus, get ready for our visit to Long Beach.
Let's finally talk about these new Indy cars.
Also, did you hear?
Actor, driver, team owner Patrick Dempsey is making a
docudrama about his racing at Le Mans this year.
But I've seen his racing already, so I guess it'll be
more in the spirit of Kenny Block, where racing means
build a show versus showing real results.
Typical.
But Audi's doing another Truth in 24--
Truth in 24 II--
blending real movie-making with real performance.
And Drive, we're going to do something around Le Mans 24 in
2012 as well.
And you know, both of us, it'll be real, honest,
authentic racing coverage.
Now, we offered to help Dr. McDreamy with his show, but I
guess he didn't like our ideas on how to
cover his Le Mans racing.
Hey, Patrick, Truth in 24.
Just like that, we need to be real, authentic, and honest.
So the title we picked for your trek to Le Mans--
"Midpack on the Molson?" No?
"Sucking at LeSar?" No?
Motor GP 2012, 1,000cc designs.
Defending champion Casey Stoner in Honda showing P1
pace all through winter testing.
Fewer factory teams, but strong satellite teams, still
with prototype bike tech connections.
And the CRT bikes claiming rule teams, those bikes cost
less, and we'll explain CRT in a bit.
But Jorge Lorenzo, not Stoner, was on pole.
Lorenzo's Yamaha teammate Ben Spies was fourth.
Stoner was second.
Pedrosa, his teammate, was seventh, but not at turn one.
At the race start, Danny was battling for P1 by turn one.
And that set the race-long battle--
Lorenzo, Pedrosa, Stoner.
Now it ain't is the bigger engines that made the
difference in the racing at Qatar nor the electronics that
still manage the bikes with the riders.
As always, in modern racing, it's the tires that determine
the quality of racing, specifically, tire
degradation.
And the news about Bridgestone, like the Pirellis
in F1 and the Firestones with Indy car, are trying a design
that degrades grip more rapidly to improve the racing,
the passing, and in theory, put the racing back in the
wrists of the riders and the hands of the drivers.
But degradation rewards smoothness and race
management, making me think Lorenzo is Alonso, Stoner is
Hamilton, and you know what else?
You guys pick up the rest of his Moto GP to F1 analogies.
When Lorenzo lost the lead and Stoner pulled it out of gap,
there was no panic.
Jorge waited until the final laps to push on the tires that
he controlled, that he managed to have the grip left at the
end, and took back the lead.
Stoner looked like he had the race.
But maybe his race pace let his tires go off by the end,
costing him not just P1, but P2, as teammate Pedrosa got
back by Stoner on the last laps as well.
Stoner said it was his arm tiring, but maybe he was
masking his race craft malpractice.
P4 and 5 finishers were the satellite Yamahas of tech-free
racing, putting three Yamas in the top five
versus the two Honda.
Now, the first CRT bike was Colin Edwards in
P11 on the BMW Suter.
CRT, simply stated, are production-based motors in
prototype frames, which allows BMW and Aprilia to enter the
Moto GP frame.
It adds nine bikes to the show, maybe entices a
manufacturer or two to step up to real Moto GP bike and
engine building.
But the best CRT qualifier was Colin Edwards, and he was
three seconds back.
I'm giving you a link to the CRT teams and all the riders.
And then there's Valentino Rossi and Ducati.
This is turning into an Italian opera, much drama, and
there will be pain.
Valentino qualified only 12th, two seconds off Lorenzo's
pole, while Rossi's teammate Nicky Hayden, he did Q5 in
qualifying, but he was still one second off.
The race went no better for Rossi, P10, just
ahead of the CRT field.
To continue the F1 analogy, Rossi maybe is the two-wheeled
Michael Schumacher.
Does the racing equipment need to exactly fit his style of
driving and riding?
Is the fire to race hard and push, is it lost?
Or is this a Ferrari team thing?
You know, Ducati may be trying too many
things in their design.
The Ducati team is not in harmony.
The operation is not clicking, and all in all, it just looks
bad, and I feel sad for the whole thing.
So is it the doctore, not the patient, that needs the
sympathy prayers and the worry?
We're going to find out.
We'll know more soon because, remember, according to me, the
2012 Moto GP season starts in Spain, April 29th.
Not really.
It'll be Race 2.
And who wants to bet that Lorenzo leaves this home race
with a two-race win lead in the championship.
OK, I don't want to go too long today.
And since we're in the spirit of bikes, I want to give Wes
Siler and his friends their Ride Apart
show debut some room.
It's coming up on Drive right after us.
So good luck and go Wes, John, and Grant.
OK to end Shakedown, let's put a picture of that new Indy car
up on the screen.
Oh, there it is.
We're going to go to Long Beach.
Indy car has had two road races already, and they tested
at Indy this past weekend.
I want your opinion about this car, because I'm hoping we're
looking at one-year ugly issue that will be corrected with
the new body kits that are supposed to
be allowed by 2013.
And honestly, ugly, it could be worse.
It was in the old days.
Now here are some new Indy car facts.
The new car was supposed to show Indy car moving forward
as an advanced racing series.
Delta may be too radical for these cats, but fat and heavy
looking is not the best answer, in my opinion.
And it's slower than the old car.
At Indy, in its high-speed Indy 500 configuration, the
target was 220 to 225 miles an hour.
They only got up to 218, and that was with a huge draft.
So no more track records.
And the PR spinning is already beginning.
Indy won't be about speed anymore.
It's about the close racing.
BS--
racing is speed.
Indy is speed.
The NASCAR Brickyard 500, that's the close racing, but
it's BS to Indy tradition.
And Helio Castroneves says the new car blows.
Well, what he really meant was it blows such a big hole in
the air that you can't get close to another car to make a
pass or to race close the way they want to promote.
Cost control was built into the new car for the teams, but
it's costing more to run right now.
Build quality is not great.
Driving dynamics are still needing improvement.
Now, it's good to have new engine manufacturers, Chevy
and Lotus, joining Honda in Indy car, but Lotus is a joke.
And balancing the performance is either another joke to the
purity of racing, or if you don't do it, it just negates
the competitiveness of half the field.
But everyone respects Indy car CEO Randy Bernard.
And I hope to speak with him and Bo Barfield, the other guy
in the picture, the new Indy car race director.
Both bring sanity and opportunity to this series.
And racer guys like Penske, Gnassi and
Rahal aren't idiots.
They're not going to let Indy car fail, well, again.
And don't get me started on the US TV broadcast.
I swear there's an '80s disco ball hanging in the
announcer's booth.
The race coverage feel so old and dated.
So we're going to Long Beach and see it all for ourselves,
and for you.
Now, some racing quick shifts to end the show.
A V8 Mustang won in Formula drift in Long Beach.
Justin *** got the job done.
That 1,000 horsepower Toyota Soarer did not, but
it did finish P3.
Another Audi R8 won in GT1.
Another Audi R8 won?
Jesus Christ, it was one, two, actually.
Come on, Porsche, time to sell more race cars.
Audi's getting your git done
And Skoda won the IRC Rally in Ireland, one, two as well,
which, if my Italian mother was still watching--
and she stopped after the Rossi story--
I'd get a call from her about why I talking about the Irish?
It's an Old World thing.
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