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Motorsports |OT| of Endurance Racing, Nascar, Rally, Sportscars, MotoGP, etc

nny

Member
WRC heads-up: ~15 minutes to go for the Power Stage of Rally Argentina. The Power Stage is usually the only stage broadcast live, so those interested may be able to catch it on TV.
 

nny

Member
Mikkelson fiished but his Alternator warning light went on during the interview. OH OH.

Fortunately he managed to get to the rally headquarters. VW gets its 9th win in a row, breaking Citröen's record.

Lovely photo:

2706_latvala-argentina-condor-2014_756_944x531.jpg

So many rocks; one mistake and you're done.

Case in point, there is a road in the middle of all these rocks?

 

B.K.

Member
Tonight is the first half of the Sprint Cup All Star Race. They've split it into two nights, this year. Tonight is the Showdown, so three more drivers can qualify for the All Star Race.
 
Marquez is just slaying it, on this form he's winning every single race this season easy.

Code:
Pos  Rider             Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 1m32.042s
 2.  Pol Espargaro     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m32.734s  +0.692s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                1m32.755s  +0.713s
 4.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             1m32.846s  +0.804s
 5.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                1m32.873s  +0.831s
 6.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                1m32.899s  +0.857s
 7.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         1m33.006s  +0.964s
 8.  Aleix Espargaro   Forward Yamaha        1m33.015s  +0.973s
 9.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 1m33.023s  +0.981s
10.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m33.058s  +1.016s

He's also signed a new two-year deal to stay at Honda, now I just hope Honda do the right thing with Pedrosa and dump him.
 
Yeah Marquez is a freak.

Great ride from Jack Miller in Moto3 as well. His final pass was a little rough, but he copped one of those from Fenati in Argentina, all's far and all that!
 

LeBoef

Member
Marquez is just slaying it, on this form he's winning every single race this season easy.

Code:
Pos  Rider             Team/Bike             Time       Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez      Honda                 1m32.042s
 2.  Pol Espargaro     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m32.734s  +0.692s
 3.  Andrea Dovizioso  Ducati                1m32.755s  +0.713s
 4.  Stefan Bradl      LCR Honda             1m32.846s  +0.804s
 5.  Valentino Rossi   Yamaha                1m32.873s  +0.831s
 6.  Jorge Lorenzo     Yamaha                1m32.899s  +0.857s
 7.  Alvaro Bautista   Gresini Honda         1m33.006s  +0.964s
 8.  Aleix Espargaro   Forward Yamaha        1m33.015s  +0.973s
 9.  Dani Pedrosa      Honda                 1m33.023s  +0.981s
10.  Bradley Smith     Tech 3 Yamaha         1m33.058s  +1.016s

He's also signed a new two-year deal to stay at Honda, now I just hope Honda do the right thing with Pedrosa and dump him.

why the hell should they do that? he is 2nd in the championship and this year not doing any trouble in the team?!
get lorenzo and have two mad men killing each other, gaining nothing?

/edit
the only reason would be to market honda better. have a young japanese driver. but two guys at the age of marquez? thats possible in a few years, if someone from japan is around and marquez regarded as experienced.

its like mercedes kicking rosberg next year in f1.
 

thefro

Member
Indy 500 pole qualifying is on now on ABC. Glad they finally put this on network TV because the format is pretty fun (with the fastest 9 running again for pole).
 

modulaire

Member
The first big international road race of the season - the North West 200 - took place this weekend. Great racing!

You can watch the highlights-shows on the BBC iPlayer (with an browser extension like Hola if you are not from the UK)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b043nncd/bikes-2014-1-cookstown-100 (Cookstown 100 road race)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b043nvpx/bikes-2014-episode-2 (North West 200 Part 1)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0444yp6/bikes-2014-episode-3 (North West 200 Part 2)

Get well soon, Simon Andrews. Horrible crash.

saturday-superbike-20yajkd.jpg
 

Business

Member
Yeah Marquez is a freak.

Great ride from Jack Miller in Moto3 as well. His final pass was a little rough, but he copped one of those from Fenati in Argentina, all's far and all that!

At least yesterday he had a bad start and we got to see some action. A shame Rossi did that mistake, he definietly had less pace than Marquez but it could have been a nice fight.


Get well soon, Simon Andrews. Horrible crash.

Amazing that he is alive, I hope he can pull through.

Here's a slowmo gif of the accident, http://i.imgur.com/M6fdZ3Z.gif click at your own risk, not that there's gore or anything but it's a sickening crash.
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
Another year, another 24 Hours.

URbwlUc.jpg



I'll be resuming the OT duties for 2014 after missing last year's thread due to my hiatus, if no one minds.
 

Shaneus

Member
Ah man, that sucks about Andrews :( Is it safe to say that as far as motorsports go, the motorcycle road races (a la Isle of Man etc.) are the most dangerous? It seems like every year there are a number of riders who die while competing in them :(
 
At least yesterday he had a bad start and we got to see some action. A shame Rossi did that mistake, he definietly had less pace than Marquez but it could have been a nice fight.

Yeah it was good but never in doubt. The guy just looks a class above everyone else. Its almost like he did it on purpose just to have some fun. Those passing moves at that first chicane, just legendary. So much to like about MM. I love his demeanor before the race, just intense focus but after the race its all about being happy. He just has a mass of positive energy, hope someone can challenge him soon though.

The best race (as it often is) was Moto3. Jack Miller rode a beautiful race after his mistake that cost him a lot of place. Man do these guys race hard! So awesome to watch.

I have been watching this on MotoGP.com as I bought the season pass. I now get all the coverage including post race interviews and has anybody else noticed how Jack Miller sometimes speaks in "Spanish-English"? Now I have heard him speak and clearly has an Australian accent, so when I seen this, it seems really weird like its clearly being put on..I would link it but its behind a paywall, will check YouTube. Its really funny, anyone else seen what Im talking about?

Another edit- just checked Youtube and they only give the interview in Parc Ferme and this is the English guy. It seems he only does the Spanish thing when the interviewer is European. Must be so they can understand him. It is funny to see though.




Amazing that he is alive, I hope he can pull through.

Here's a slowmo gif of the accident, http://i.imgur.com/M6fdZ3Z.gif click at your own risk, not that there's gore or anything but it's a sickening crash.

Man that is why road racing is just on a whole other planet of danger compared to track racing. Just obstacles like gutters can make crashes so much worse. From that gif though it does seem like he was out before he made impact with the gutter. He must have hit the road hard!

Damn. RIP.

Definitely an unfortunate and all too common part of road racing. I am actually surprised there isn't way more. Absolutely zero margin for error. These guys have balls of steel and as crazy as it sounds, all of these guys have accepted death is a strong possibility and don't fear it. He died doing his passion RIP
 

modulaire

Member
Ah man, that sucks about Andrews :( Is it safe to say that as far as motorsports go, the motorcycle road races (a la Isle of Man etc.) are the most dangerous? It seems like every year there are a number of riders who die while competing in them :(

There are incidents at every event. I would say on average there is fatal accident at every second road racing event. This year: No deaths at Oliver's Mount, no deaths at Cookstown, one rider died at Tandragee, one rider died at the North West 200 (another one is in critical condition), a rider is in critical condition following a crash at the Horice road races in the Czech Republic this weekend.

I'm a bit worried about the future of road racing. More and more crashes will be fimed by spectators. That will be make it much easier for the health-and-safety brigades to criticize the sport.
 

Business

Member
Man that is why road racing is just on a whole other planet of danger compared to track racing. Just obstacles like gutters can make crashes so much worse. From that gif though it does seem like he was out before he made impact with the gutter. He must have hit the road hard!

Road racing seems something straight out from decades ago, it's like seeing Jim Clark going around the old Nürburgring, the risk is just ridiculous and while over the years in automobile racing it has been judged this risk was unacceptable, in motorbikes you still have guys nowadays willing to take it for their passion. You watch them go around the Isle of Man TT or in Macau and it's just unbelievable. Massive respect for them. RIP.
 
There are incidents at every event. I would say on average there is fatal accident at every second road racing event. This year: No deaths at Oliver's Mount, no deaths at Cookstown, one rider died at Tandragee, one rider died at the North West 200 (another one is in critical condition), a rider is in critical condition following a crash at the Horice road races in the Czech Republic this weekend.

I'm a bit worried about the future of road racing. More and more crashes will be fimed by spectators. That will be make it much easier for the health-and-safety brigades to criticize the sport.

Wow those numbers are high but not surprising. I have only seen a couple of the Irish road races and it was scary to watch. Even though in the Isle of Man the riders still have to occasionally ride with and pass other riders, for the most part they are racing alone against the clock. Pack racing at high speed on public roads ups the danger level even more.

The fact people can now see some of these accidents will make this more prone for the safety police to call for a ban to it but I think these people have been making calls for road racing for a long time.

Road racing seems something straight out from decades ago, it's like seeing Jim Clark going around the old Nürburgring, the risk is just ridiculous and while over the years in automobile racing it has been judged this risk was unacceptable, in motorbikes you still have guys nowadays willing to take it for their passion. You watch them go around the Isle of Man TT or in Macau and it's just unbelievable. Massive respect for them. RIP.

Yeah it does have that feel of out of the 'old timey' era. Its because we are so safety obsessed that its almost unbelievable that its allowed to happen anywhere. Seeing old motor races, where trees lined the tracks, spectators stood at the side of the track. I seen one race from the 60's where the winner crossed the finished line, stopped while his crew ran out onto the track, while cars where still racing behind. Not a word was said about it as he gets out of his car and his crew gives him a cigarette. Could you imagine if this happened in this day and age?

Not saying this is a good thing btw, no one wants to see the death of drivers or riders but the fact that in the old days of racing no one apparently seems concerned with safety at all and now safety is seen as very important. Isle of Man TT and Road racing seems to go against all this as its also quite dangerous for spectators as well.
 

Shaneus

Member
Yeah it does have that feel of out of the 'old timey' era. Its because we are so safety obsessed that its almost unbelievable that its allowed to happen anywhere. Seeing old motor races, where trees lined the tracks, spectators stood at the side of the track. I seen one race from the 60's where the winner crossed the finished line, stopped while his crew ran out onto the track, while cars where still racing behind. Not a word was said about it as he gets out of his car and his crew gives him a cigarette. Could you imagine if this happened in this day and age?

Not saying this is a good thing btw, no one wants to see the death of drivers or riders but the fact that in the old days of racing no one apparently seems concerned with safety at all and now safety is seen as very important. Isle of Man TT and Road racing seems to go against all this as its also quite dangerous for spectators as well.
Yeah, agreed. And that off-hand statistic is scary to think about.

On the idea of "old timey" motorsports, I think WRC still has a sliver of that about it too, especially compared to most others. Spectators putting themselves at risk to spectate, driving inches from cliff faces, other than the shape (and power, obv) of the cars there's not much that's changed in it over the last 30 years.
 
Yeah, agreed. And that off-hand statistic is scary to think about.

On the idea of "old timey" motorsports, I think WRC still has a sliver of that about it too, especially compared to most others. Spectators putting themselves at risk to spectate, driving inches from cliff faces, other than the shape (and power, obv) of the cars there's not much that's changed in it over the last 30 years.

Oh yeah, rally is definitely in that category. I can't believe how close the spectators are at times, considered how on the edge the drivers are. Again I am surprised that more accidents don't happen. Testament to the skills of the drivers I guess. Also a very hard sport to make safe, unless they want no spectators at all. Couldn't really fence off hundreds of kms of track.

I just found a 4 minute highlight vid on last years North West 200..Holy shit, lightpoles, gutters, fences of all types, trees and a very bumpy road, all at over 300km/h in some parts, while racing other bikes. Just unbelievable
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m3mXlqBo5U
 

modulaire

Member
^ That's an old race from a couple of years ago.

They changed the track a bit since then and added another chicane at Mathers Cross (one of the high-speed corners) to slow the riders down. The corner at 2:02 min.

Most riders don't like these changes. They much prefer the faster circuits (average speed) like the TT and the Ulster GP because of the fast flowing sweeps you'll find there.

The Ulster GP is probably the favourite circuit of most riders.
 

Edmond Dantès

Dantès the White
The more competition the merrier.

Just three weeks until the grand event. If all goes according to plan, I should be providing images from the open pit line and drivers' parade in the city centre which both take place on Friday. And of the race itself.
 

B.K.

Member
Jeff Gordon is having problems with his back this weekend. He sat out of practice today and Regan Smith is going to be on standby tomorrow, in the event he can't make it through the race. Gordon's career is almost over. His back is going to force him to retire early.
 
Jeff Gordon is having problems with his back this weekend. He sat out of practice today and Regan Smith is going to be on standby tomorrow, in the event he can't make it through the race. Gordon's career is almost over. His back is going to force him to retire early.
That'd be a serious bummer. Hated him when he burst on the scene and starting winning everything, but he's grown on me a lot in recent years.
 
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