Qatar Spoiler

Once again, the fastest men on two wheels have provided 45 minutes of heart-pounding, twitch-inducing entertainment. Here's your spoiler.... Casey Stoner clinched his first ever MotoGP win on his fresh Ducati rocket. Casey was SOLID throughout the entire race. It was a righteous win, a perfect win, ultimately..... a fair win. Vale took the lead several times, only to be overcome (every time) by the raw power of Stoner's Ducati on the long straight to the finish. In the end, the former World Champ just couldn't pull it out.

Our reigning World Champ, Mr. "Number's Don't L1e" himself, finished toward the back half of the pack in 8th. I don't enjoy seeing someone get their own ass handed to them like that. I couldn't help but feel bad for the young pig farmer. I have nothing personal against Nicky.... really I don't. I'm glad he got to experience the thrill of winning such a prestigious title, even though I strongly feel that he won it by default. I would be the first to say congratulations if I met him face to face. But his fans..... yes, his obnoxious, overbearing fans..... have totally turned me off to him. They have managed to bring a tast of NASCRAP to MotoGP. Apparently there's a law against being a respectful supporter of The Kentucky Kid... instead you must don your wife-beater, crack open a can of Bud and verbally bitch slap anyone who doesn't think Hayden is God.

I digress...

Rizla made a fine showing this morning, with the injured Hopper putting up an excellent fight to land him just off the podium in the 4th place spot.... right behind Dani Pedrosa. The victims of today's race.....Loris Capirossi, Randy DePuniet (dammit Randy!!!) and Carlos Checa, all skittered off the track (on seperate occassions) about mid-way through. Andrew Pitt suffered from mechanical failure on his Ilmor bullet and didn't finish the race.. his teammate, Jeremy McWilliams, wasn't healed up enough from his qualifying crash to start today.

It was indeed an exciting way to kick off the 2007 season. 1 race down, 17 to go!! I wonder what Yamaha's answer to the fierce power of Ducati is going to be? They had better strengthen their pimp hand and smack down some more grunt. If today's race was any indication of the way Casey and his Duc are going to perform on a regular basis, Rossi might just have his hands full!!

Here's the official results of todays race:

Position	Rider	Manufacturer
1	Stoner	Ducati
2	Rossi	Yamaha
3	Pedrosa	Honda
4	Hopkins	Suzuki
5	Melandri	Honda
6	Edwards	Yamaha
7	Vermeulen	Suzuki
8	Hayden	Honda
9	Barros	Ducati
10	Nakano	Honda
11	Hofmann	Ducati
12	Jacque	Kawasaki
13	Roberts, Jr	KR212V
14	Elias	Honda
15	Guintoli	Yamaha
16	Tamada	Honda

Practices for the next race will begin in just under two weeks on March 23rd in Jerez, with the live coverage of the race (on MotoGP.com) beginning at 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning (EST). FRICKIN YIPPEE!!!

Until next time......

Rubb'er Down :)

QP results from Qatar

The 2007 season has FINALLY begun. The boys completed their practices over the past couple of days, and dropped the hammer in qualifying this morning. Rossi, in his irreverent Rossi style, took pole (was there ever any doubt?). He sported a furry 46 on his leathers for the premier event, stating that he had managed to pull a rabbit out of the hat in '04 and '05 to clinch the championship, but the rabbit had died in '06. The rabbit-fur covered 46 was in memory of the aforementioned hat-rabbit.

Rounding out the top three for this weekend's race is Casey Stoner in position #2 (didn't see THAT coming) and Collin Edwards at #3 (Go!!!!!! Yamaha). Toni Elias rolled in to claim position #4 on the grid, followed by Dani Pedrosa, John Hopkins, Loris Capirossi, RANDY DePUNIET!!!, Nicky Hayden and Marco Melandri to seal the top ten.

The race kicks off at 7:00 a.m. our time tomorrow morning, available live online at MotoGP.com, or, if you can wait for it, it will be televised on SpeedTV Sunday night at 6. I personally can't wait for SpeedTV to air it, so I will be here, like a moron at 7 tomorrow morning to catch it live :) If you want a spoiler, check back after the race.... if not, stay away until after Sunday night.

Jeremy McWilliams, who rides for the virgin Ilmor team, suffered another crash in today's QP. There was a concern that he had re-injured himself (re: the crash during winter testing) but X-rays confirmed "no break", so he will grid-up as planned for tomorrow's race.

Okay, I'm off to participate in whatever debauchery I may find for the weekend :) Damn, I love me some debauchery!!!

Until next time......

Rubb'er Down :)