Motorcycles/Off-Road

Posted by Matt Finley

A friend was recently involved in a motorcycle accident where he was nearly killed. He was on a dirt bike, trying out a helmet light, when an apparent malfunction of the equipment ended in him running in to a wood, galvanized pipe and hog-wire fence.

The impact literally ripped the helmet from his head, breaking C2 and C5 in his neck and tearing all the ligaments in the back of his neck. He was impaled, breaking several ribs and lacerating his liver. His wrist is badly fractured.

It's a wonder he is still alive, but it's a miracle that he can move his fingers and toes. He was wearing all the proper gear at the time. He's a professional, so that's a given. But it just goes to show you that bad things can happen in an instant, no matter how prepared you are.

Posted by Matt Finley

After his win at Misano, and his 8 victories so far this season, Casey Stoner, Marlboro Ducati's 21 year old young gun, is on pace to win the MotoGP World Championship with a nice 85 point lead from Valentino Rossi.

Stoner has already broken a 3 decades old drought of 3 consecutive wins on a European built motorcycle, but he's also on track, with 5 races to go, to tie or break his compatriot's (Michael Doohan) previous 11 win season.

Posted by Matt Finley

I wrote an article recently about a motocross race track here in San Diego that was built in 1973 on an Indian Reservation.

In the last decade or so, a housing community has popped up next to the race track, I mean RIGHT next to the track, called the San Diego Country Estates. It is located in the town of Ramona, a small community in the hills of eastern San Diego County.

As I said, the track has been there since 1973, and now, over 3 decades later, some developer built a bunch of houses there hoping the buyers would be too ignorant to realize that the track might not be the best place to buy a house, unless, of course, you're a racer.

Well the developer was right... the houses sold. And now the residents are ready to sue to get the track removed.

I wonder if I should try to sue to get the damned pesky airport near my house removed? I mean, yeah, I knew it was there. Hell, I heard the planes! But now I don't want them there. Who do I complain to?

Posted by Matt Finley

Tail of the Dragon, in case you haven't heard, is one of the most popular and twisty roads in the US that is populated by thousands of riders every weekend.

Lately, the Highway Patrol has been sinking to new lows when it comes to Deal's Gap. They are reportedly crossing the double yellow line and using their cruisers to stalk people. As one person reported to Deals Gap:

out-and-out stalking with THP repeatedly pulling out behind a car everytime the car would stop at a pull-off and then get back on the road.

Posted by Matt Finley

John Hopkins raced Rizla Suzuki's GSV-R to in superb second position at the Czech Republic Grand Prix.

Looks like he's making good on his commitment to continue to improve this year. Looks like he's also getting married!

Congrats, John!

Posted by Matt Finley

So the wifie's been talking about a new motorcycle for the last year or so. I've been able to talk her out of it so far, but I think I'm about to lose this battle. She's a good rider. She spent years on the back of my bikes, then after a lot of badgering, she convinced me to get her one.

So I put her through the motorcycle safety course, and we went shopping for a bike. For her. (I had a '94GSXR750 at the time). Long story short, I ended up with a TL1000 and she got my GSXR750.

That was a long time ago, and now that her office is moving across town, there's no parking for the truck, (her normal daily driver), without walking for 7 minutes.

So she wants a new bike. And I get to do some more test riding.

Posted by Matt Finley

I DVRed (is that a word?) the MotoGP event from Laguna Seca last weekend. Yeah, I know, for a motorcycle writer I'm a slacker. Truth be told, I've got races from months ago that I haven't had time to watch yet.

I typically leave the race coverage to my colleagues over at the motorcycle racing section of Suite101. Besides, Sunday I was at Crown Point North (San Diego Bay) at 4:30am eating jello-shooters, drinking kamakazi shots from a test-tube, watching the freaks in their under-wear and helping my wife set up her AT&T picnic which started about 7 hours after the first jello-shooter was done. Hey! Cut me some slack... The cooler that had the jello-shooters in it fell over and spilled on the inside of my trailer, what was I supposed to do?

Ok, back to the race. I knew there were a couple of new MotoGP faces, like Roger Hayden on the wild-card riding for Kawasaki. I also knew Wayne Rainey would be there getting inducted into the Hall of Fame. What I didn't know was that every American who's ever won a MotoGP championship was there, including Steady Eddy Lawson, both the Kenny Roberts, Fast Freddy Spencer and Kevin Schwantz (I hope I didn't forget anybody)

Ok, we're back to the race, now back to the reason for this post... I saw Miguel Duhammel there as well. Racing MotoGP.

Huh? Miguel? MotoGP?

My first thought was that he was too old to be starting a career in MotoGP. Then I realized he was filling in for an injured rider. Then I found out he retired from the race without crashing, without injury and without mechanical failure.

When I first heard him say what I interpreted as he basically got scared, I told my wife "I think I just quit supporting him in races". She wisely pointed out (as she often does), that he already wrecked one bike, and he wasn't feeling in "the groove" during the race and didn't want to wad up the other one and get hurt, or hurt someone else. (BTW, I'm STILL mad at Hayden for taking Hopper out!)

I can respect that. Really, I can. But to have a MotoGP bike handed to you and to refuse to ride it just hurts.

I was truly impressed with Roger, too. He got in the top 10 with less than a half a dozen hours on a totally different kind of motorcycle. I don't think Roger will have trouble finding someone on the MotoGP circuit to take him on next year.

Posted by Matt Finley

In a press release, Rizla stated:

Hopkins was one of the hardest working riders on the track today as he completed 66 laps in reference to Friday's practice at Laguna Seca.

Huh? Work?

Who you trying to fool, man? (que Dire Straits) That ain't working.

Posted by Matt Finley

One of my favorite riders is Wayne Rainey. It's good to hear he is being inducted into the Laguna Seca Hall of Fame. He is a true champion.

The first 500cc event I ever went to was Laguna Seca, and I went to see Wayne. As we were packing the van Thursday night after work to go to the race, we heard that Wayne had been in an accident and was paralyzed.

I had previously ordered a lithograph of Wayne, Mick Doohan and Kevin Schwantz, autographed by all three. Only it hadn't been autographed before Wayne's crash. It is autographed now, and hangs in my son's room with several other pictures of Wayne and Kevin.

I regret not having the opportunity to get to Seca to see him again, but here's a great big congrats from San Diego, Wayne!

Posted by Matt Finley

Being the youngest of 5, I can appreciate how well Roger Hayden is doing racing motorcycles. His older brother, Nicky, who is the current MotoGP World Champion, will be in familiar territory racing his brother.

There's something about being the youngest in a competing family that makes you work harder to be better than the others. It will be nice to see how Roger does under pressure.