Incase anyone didnt watch the 125 GP from Le Mans our very own Bradley Smith came 3rd.
Ive got to say that in the last few races he has really impressed so hopefully HRC will see what a talent he is and breathe all over his bike.

I might be wrong here but isnt Bradley the lad whos family moved to Spain when he was 14 so he could compete in the Spanish 125 GP series the Telefonica Cup??
_________________
Harley Davidson is the worlds most efficient way to turn petrol into noise without the harmful side effect of horsepower.

Yeah great job he did. Although spoiler in the title may be better next time for anyone who hasn't seen it yet!

I thought that was the best 500, sorry MotoGP race for ages too! Break out the water tanks every race I say! Guintoli's running was hilarious. ( I can say that as he was fine)
_________________
NSR300R - Why did i ever have a 250...

A great ride by Bradly! Alberto puig brought him into the series, and he knows a class rider when he sees one.
The MOTO GP race was good, put not a patch on the 500 wet races. The old traction controled bore strokes go forward when you open the throttle, and not sideways

jeff350lc wrote:The old traction controled bore strokes go forward when you open the throttle, and not sideways

Tell that to Guintoli, Barros, Jnr, Nakano, De Puniet, Elias and Chucka!

Also, I thought;

a; Dani couldn't ride in the rain.
b; Someone said it was a Honda/Yamaha championship, they need to tell Stoner, he's around about evens to win the title!!

And as an added bonus if you watched the 250's you saw Luthi seize properly, roll off the throttle into the corner, rear lock and whip in the clutch....
_________________
Please do not PM me technical questions, if you can't find it on the Forum start a thread

Yes, Bradley has really been coming along and is a serious talent for the future I reckon. Unless (and I apologise in advance to the hardcore Honda afficionado's here) Honda have their way and get rid of the 2 stroke classes entirely in the near future (and it looks like they are pushing to do this well before the agreed re-appraisal date of 2011) and replace them with a proddy based 600 fourplodder support class .

As we've seen before, when it comes to MotoGP Honda tend to get what they want, so we may end up seeing the final death of the strokers well before most of us were imagining we might have to say our goodbyes. It would be a very, very sad day if simple commercial pressures were to destroy the best race classes in the world. To their immense credit Aprilia and KTM are fighting Honda over this of course, but will they be able to wrestle with the might of Honda? I really hope so...

Wb

Well if Honda dont want to play in 125's & 250's then they should bugger off ,it was Honda who finnished off the 500's.
I find it funny that Honda pushed for the 800's and their ugly 800cc bike still hasnt won and this weekend got trashed by a Suzuki.
At that rate the Kawasaki will win before Honda do
_________________
Harley Davidson is the worlds most efficient way to turn petrol into noise without the harmful side effect of horsepower.

So Honda pushed for the 800's? Did they push to have the V5's advantage taken away too (when the 800 regs came out the v5 weight limit was moved up into the 6 cylinder catagory) as they realised it was too good?

Also to be fair if Honda didn't play in the 500's there would have been no bikes on the grid, in the final 500GP there were 9 non Honda bikes, only four fast ones and it had been that way for 10 years.

If Honda "bugger off" from the 125's and 250's it'll be the Aprilia Cup with one or two factory KTM's, Derbi's or Gilera's occasionally in the top 10, the manufacturers doing the real damage to the 125 and 250's cause and likelyhood to stay are the other guys (Yam, Suzuki, Kawasaki and maybe even Ducati) who are standing there saying "no, we won't race at all until you go 4 stroke", and of couse Gillera, Derbi and KTM who don't supply customer race bikes full stop.

It really makes me laugh, yes Honda may do many questionable things but they also do something amazing, they field 6 bikes capable of winning in the top class with 6 top riders and let all them race for the title, no team orders or anything else like that, ever, without them MotoGP would be rubbish and the 500's would have died in the 80's.
Yamaha field one fast bike, they give Edwards the fast kit when it suits Vale and give any old rubbish to Tech 3 (Elison stuck with the chatter chassis Vale couldn't get into the top 10 for the entire season last year?)
Suzuki haven't until this year run anything likely to win on a level playing field ever, ditto Kawasaki and only two bikes each, no satalite teams, no customer bikes, nothing.
Ducati are forgiven for (normally) only running one "real" team and one "last years bikes" team as they are small.
_________________
Please do not PM me technical questions, if you can't find it on the Forum start a thread

If you take the Honda equation out you're left with sweet FA... They make up a thrid of the top class, and not only in road racing. If they didn't field a whole raft of V4's and V-Twins in the 500 class there'd have been no bikes on the grid either...

It riles me when you hear those kind of comments. Where are Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha and Ducati in the smaller classes? Where is Ducati's world championship off roader or Dakar bike? How much involvement do all the others combined have in the lesser known 2 wheeled classes compared to Honda?

If it wasn't for them pushing for change, we'd be left with old hinged framed, iron crankcased square fours or something.
_________________
NSR300R - Why did i ever have a 250...

Indeed, I got a little narked a while back on the RGV forum with their continual Honda bashing, read it here
_________________
Please do not PM me technical questions, if you can't find it on the Forum start a thread

I though that the purpose of this topic was to discuss the progress of Bradley Smith, the first Brit to achieve a podium in the 125 class for 18 years, and the only Brit since Jeremy McWilliams to achieve any podium ?

[quote="fontyyy"]

jeff350lc wrote:The old traction controled bore strokes go forward when you open the throttle, and not sideways

Tell that to Guintoli, Barros, Jnr, Nakano, De Puniet, Elias and Chucka! /quote]


The only time i saw most of them proper sideways, was just before they fell off

And well said Yats, lets get back on topic!

Did I hear them say that young Bradley is 16 or something?

I reckon he loks about 7

Fastest bloody 7 year old I ever seen though, I'll grant him that

Won't be long before he's sipping the winner's shampoo.

Yes, sorry if my post steered things off topic a bit. What I was really getting at was that without the small 2 stroke classes it would be very much harder to nurture young bike racing talent like so many of the (especially European) racers that have come to be such masters of the sport.

If the support class to MotoGP was a kind of supersport 600 based class, then the likes of Bradley Smith and young Danny Webb wouldn't get a look in at their age. Some would say that was a good thing of course, but I've really enjoyed watching Bradley mix it with those superfast euro-kids. And it's pretty exciting that we might finally have the possibility of a real (rather than adopted - Rossi, Guintolli, Hopkins etc.) Brit actually doing well in bike racing's premier class.

Cheers

Wb

Lets not forget Eugene Laverty(on an Irish passport)in the quarter litre class,picking up World Championship points on a very over the counter Honda.He can only pedal that thing as fast as it will go,so come on Honda give the boy a few "new" parts,think of the constructors championship!!

Shame there is someone out there on the same spec bike pedaling a damn sight faster eh?
_________________
Please do not PM me technical questions, if you can't find it on the Forum start a thread