The ZXRs always looked good, really aggressive with that wide vented snout. Shame they never really had the results to back it up, except possibly in endurance racing. I do seem to recall that they dominated the early to mid-nineties WEC.

I think what does surprise me is how little progress they seem to make over the course of a season: they're usually the only manufacturers who seem to go backwards as the year progresses. Perhaps it's just that everyone else's bikes improve a lot more. Also, perhaps, it has something to do with the way they always seem to farm out racing development to private teams rather than having any obvious factory effort going on. You'd have thought, with Japanese honour at stake and all that, they'd do something more vigorous about it, though. 

>> ex silens nox noctis <<

With regard to the Kawasaki GP efforts, I just don't think it's quite so important to them, bikes are such a small part of Kawasaki Heavy industries, it probably makes no difference to the company as a whole whether they are successful or not, it's almost like a token involvement, because they think they should, I bet their funding is woeful compared to Honda etc, and thats why they generally throughout most racing series don't have full factory teams, preferring to support teams run for them and to let those teams do all the development work for them.

There's no doubt the Kawasaki is one of the best looking and sounding GP bikes out there. Perhaps Olivier Jaques should be a permanent rider  and it should rain every race.

Sideways through time

Brno, as noted elsewhere, somehow manages to generate a lot of dull races despite a layout that should really give more excitement than it actually does. MotoGP didn't manage to be an exception.

It all looked a bit sorted from lap 1, when Stoner set off with Rossi in slightly hopeless pursuit and everybody else lagged some considerable distance behind. After Stoner, for no apparent reason, fell off it was a long and tedious cruise home for Rossi, now 50 points clear in the championship. The interest was behind, where Elias appeared from nowhere to put his satellite Ducati on the second step of the podium, with Capirossi's Suzuki third. At 15 and 21 seconds behind Rossi respectively, it wasn't what you might call close racing, though. The team green Kwaks, with West and Hopkins aboard, came in 5th and 11th with all-new chassis and engines that saw them qualify a lot higher (in the wet) than they actually finished: some potential there with the bikes, though.

250s were more entertaining with a race-long battle vetween Simoncelli, Debon, Bautista, Kallio and Barbera. The commentary team were under the impression Debon had team orders to help Simoncelli: and so it looked until the penultimate corner, when Debon stuffed it under Simoncelli so forcefully that Bautista had an easy ride through the gap he left as well. Still, third for Simoncelli was enough to gain points on Kallio, just not as many as he would have liked...

The 125s weren't very interesting.

>> ex silens nox noctis <<

Can't say I can't wait for the next round to be honest.

Sideways through time

There isn't a lot to recommend MotoGP these days, I have to agree. They should've stuck with the more-horsepower-than-you-can-possibly-use 1000s, at least that would've levelled the playing field a bit.

It didn't help at Brno that Michelin couldn't give any of their riders a working tyre - but, really, if I want to see somebody winning every race by a country mile, I'd put on one of the '90s series DVDs and watch Mick Doohan do it. It wasn't interesting racing then either, but I far preferred the 500s and his riding style to the 800s and those planks Rossi and Stoner...

>> ex silens nox noctis <<

Once again the 250s proved pick of the bunch, with Barbera choosing Sunday to go mad-mental-crazy in a full-contact-sport kind of a way. He helped a number of people into the grass, including championship leader Simoncelli, on his way to second just behind Bautista (hooray, we like Bautista) and was entirely unrepentant about it in the post-race interview. Wouldn't surprise me if there was a small queue of racers waiting outside his motorhome to give him a slapping afterwards, though. Mysteriously, considering it's easily the best of the GP offerings at the moment, Dorna still seem set on introducing proddie-type 600s to replace the 250 strokers...maybe they're tired of them showing up the MotoGP class?

>> ex silens nox noctis <<

Is it the lack of sponsorship inhibiting the field, the cost of running a team?

All the riders are fast talented individuals, it's just that Rossi and Stoner are better. Where has Pedrosa gone? Melandri has been rubbish this year, Hopper and Lorenzo been unlucky with injuries, Suzuki have caused very few ripples and are performing how you'd predict they would at the beginning of the season. - last good race was laguna Seca, if you can call a two horse race good.

Sideways through time

But seriously, I guess it is down to cost and competitiveness. Even fairly well-funded operations like Kanemoto's, Team KR and Ilmor in recent years have dropped out of the grid due to prohibitive cost: the likes of Aprilia and Cagiva etc going long before that. It's not worth their while, I guess, to tool around at the back with zero coverage, especially since the bottomless pit of results-tolerant tobacco sponsorship no longer exists. Plus, being a good or brave rider isn't really enough: the option of riding around problems doesn't seem to be there - it's either a spot-on setup, or forget it. That just seems to be the nature of the 800s: they don't really reward anything other than pinpoint corner accuracy. I'd bet that if you put the likes of Schwantz or Gardner on board one, they'd be doing exactly what Melandri et al are up to now - losing a second a lap against the guys with the best pit crews...

Not to malign the riders - Rossi and Stoner are without doubt the best in class right now. And unless somebody comes up with a new way to hustle the bikes around (like McCoy once did with the 16.5" rims and full sideways action in 500s), it looks like their only competition will come from people who currently ride 250s and already have the riding style an 800 needs.

>> ex silens nox noctis <<