I wish. Strolling into the met lab @ 7am all pie-eyed is so much fun!

Mad, I know exactly what campsite you speak of. I used it several times over the years I lived there.

That was for you, ethin. Isn't that the same thing happening by you?

Been gone for awhile , Your right Hub

He raced all his childhood for sure, I suppose the passion on a bad day is running low and the good days are getting fewer. to many racers to many years, everyone wants in he wants out.

Wish he said he would take a year off or so, and come back he's young enough but !!

Speed and endurance don't last forever.

Here is a surprise. Most of the moms and dads want their kids to quit racing. So far, what these kids have seen while racing is just like if you were in your prime. So far, I've heard one kid died. My rider was friends with him, saw him go down that day. The next kid was one of his team mates hitting my rider's back wheel, high sided and they [bike and rider] took to the air. Came down on the top of his head. They had to cut the top of his skull off so the brain had room to swell. The next kid lost both his big and middle toes in the rear chain. Last week a new kid turned pro in his second or so race. Crashed and another bike ran over his stomach and/or chest? Popped a rib, separated the spine far enough away where he is paralyzed from the waste down.

Now maybe 'Sic' was part of it? Casey only knows all those things he needed to add up to quit. But this carnage goes with the sport, so you shuck that stuff off and play the odds. No, once he comes back after a few years, he will be like the Shoe in formula 1. He will struggle with the faster kids coming up. He will question why he is back. Unless he pays for a ride, who would pick him back up?

If his head is not in it, forget it. He's into fishing. Maybe he'll enter the bass pro fishing contests?

agree, shoe has had a billy cart to race with but I get your point, stones has had his time and if the flame dies down it time to go.

Don't know how you come to terms with the mortality of it all, Just like riding I suppose you think it will never happen to you and are good enough to stay in front of the game.

People smoke, ski, parachute, get fat eat themselves to death, all sorts of shit, in the end to race your heart has to be in it, he looks at a little girl and she fills the void.

Next Batter up, who to follow next, Maverick maybe Paris may no her shit after all.

So true. Look at Kimi 'the iceman' leaving for a year or so, comes back on the podium with his team mate. No soapbox cart for them. Those were front running cars. And in F1 it is all about the car, not the driver. Look at Rossi on ha that shitty skatesa ball.

I think we were robbed, if rossi stayed at Yammy and Stoner on a Honda would of been a great contest, maybe one of the great contests, both with reason to push hard to win, 2 greats but we will never know.

I hope Rossi gets out with all his fingers and toes.

F1, wonder if Honda will return

Hub; " in F1 it is all about the car, not the driver"
To a point. A while back an F1 driver and a Nascar driver swapped. The F1 driver said, That was fun. The Nascar driver said it was the hardest thing he's ever done. Look at Massa. Spring to the head, and he'll never be the same. Alonso is second in the standings, Massa is 11th. Same car? Massa was second in the championship the year before his injury,

"Spring to the head." To a point. Lets say you have a great driver in a low tech FI car. Lets say you place your best driver in a second place car. The first place car, you could throw in your second place driver. Do you let your 1 place driver over extend his level because the second place car is not a first place level, top flight, top shelf type of car?

I would think it is back to the car, no matter how top flight the driver. Back to your point. You take Bubba that has swapped brands and still wins, this is the fastest rider no matter the bike. His dad is everything fast about that kid, so I would not compare the car in F1 as you could motocross or motogp.

That duc should be where? If Stoner was on it, would it be running up front? You could not touch that one car with the exhaust channeling for suction and grip. That was your number one car to have. That diffusion option is out for this year. That was more my point about having the vacuum sucker car; for no driver could touch it cornering wise, right?

I agree. The blown diffuser was a game breaker.

Hub; I'm not saying the car means nothing, but put a second rate driver in the fastest car/bike, and maybe he's off the track every race. Obviously a slower car is a slower car. Plus there are more factors in a top shelf driver like tire wear. Sure some of it is the car, but some drivers like Vettel can consistently run fast laps and save their tires year after year. Where would Sykes be if he could run that fast all race without frying his tires? Can it be ALL the bike's fault? Was Stoner's winning ways all the cassette tranny? We need an allstars race. Shuffle the drivers and cars/bikes, then see who wins.

Shuffle the drivers and cars/bikes, then see who wins.

* Last updated by: dragking on 6/26/2012 @ 12:19 AM *

"Sic" was the Bubba of road racing. Fastest guy on the bike no matter how bad it handled. Ben is back to being the alien. An alien is one of the faster riders that wind up like [the] Spies, Rossi, etc.

Kimi was my rider for years in F1. As soon as I saw Hamilton, did not even know about McLaren contracted the kid at 10yrs old; Here comes Kimi and finally wins a championship. Plus, that charge from the back says it all for Kimi.

What does that say about that [???] car? What does that say about the man? No matter how you look at it... It's the car, right? You can't take that bike to it's limit. That bike takes YOU to YOUR LIMIT!

That bike takes YOU to YOUR LIMIT!

everyone reaches there limit eventually, the bike the car sit there as if why did we stop???
and when you do, someone will always be the fastest of the bunch and believe next time they will be even faster.

Its like a drug , we're all addicts

there's no such thing as equal machinery, people will always look for an edge and take it legal or not.

fastest on the day rules, the rest is opinion.

fastest on the day rules, the rest is opinion.

The head cheeze at the patent office says, 'close the place down, all that was going to be invented has happened' is how shortsighted man is = "Gentleman's Agreement? That is about as lame as someone telling you how to ride your bike and they don't even own one.

So, the other points is that the machine, no matter how advanced in design, look at a Vette today and a model-T back then, it was the machine that made man faster. It does not say the same contraption can send another man even faster than the fastest men = It was still the machine that is limitless against man's ability ~ If speed is relative and a contraption is powered by one wheel, it is still the contraption that exceeds man's limit. Pick the decade. Pick the wheel.

true but I do wonder if you went back and took a classic out of a museum and stuck Rossi or Stoner on it, Kimi or Vettel would these guys go faster than the originals in the past

salts and boards and the 1/4 mile would not change but for body weight perhaps, but what about race tracks with corners these guys push harder than any generation, would they be quicker??. forget tyres for a minute.

I think today's pilots would be faster, not taking anything away from past greats ,
how do you know a machines limit has been reached

machines don't have limits people do, we tend to give in, long before the machine.

If you take Athletes running the 100 meters, drugs aside they are faster today because of there skill and training also the selection process looks for a high performer before you even start.

Same with the riders and drivers, put them on and old machine and they would be faster???

Hub; True, but if that's all it took was a car, we'd all be F1 drivers.

Who wins, skill and technique, or fearlessness and exuberance? I don't care how fast a car is. If the driver can't handle it, he loses. I could never be a racer. Not because of lack of skill or determination, but lack of memory. I would never know what turn is coming up next, what braking point, speed, gear, etc... A fast car can't fix a bad driver. As for people meant to race, why are there different classes for different experience/skills? If it's just the car, send em straight to F1 from Kart.

* Last updated by: alg8er on 6/27/2012 @ 12:55 AM *

machines don't have limits people do, we tend to give in, long before the machine.

For man to excel or reach that limit, they would build faster cars. Try not to bring in the 'everyone graduated high school so all should be moving on to college.' You know some are not college material. You know by your own admission about execution and memory.

I would stick with the racing part of the person that excels, like the Rossi/Hamilton types. Like I said, humans adapt, era is era. You could not bring Fangio back into Hamilton's car at 36 years old? You could take Hamilton or Rossi back and they would clean up on those thin rims.

My point is, the 25/75% respectively is the driver and car. You add Fangio's 5 titles and he is past 40yrs old? Switching things around, sure, that perspective is simple to understand. But to this day, there is still more care left than saving tires or being as fast as Bubba on the berms. There is still more car/bike left, if they are peaking now in or on them.

That is my point.

Hub; " 25/75% respectively is the driver and car"
That I agree with. Fudge the numbers a little depending on the car/driver combo, like 30/70 for some, and 20/80 for others, but yeah.

Having sat and watched the likes of Wayne Rainey on 500cc 2-strokes, I respectfully disagree that current MotorGP riders "push harder".

They might, a little, but because the hardware and technology makes it possible. They survive near lowsides that never could have been survived without traction control, carbon fiber / ceramic brakes, and electronic suspensions.

What I would like to see is a clone of Wayne Rainey in his prime, on a 2012 MotoGP Honda. My guess is he would lay the smack down on everyone. Once he realized how much support the technology was giving him in the corners and braking before entering them.

Conversely, Stoner would not necessarily be able to control a 500cc 2-stroke Yamaha. It might just spit him off on the first lap.

Those were racers hanging off those beasts, but even more so, phenomenal athletes.

What about Kenny Roberts on anything?His TZ750 TZ500.A 750 twostroke in a flat track until Harley got it banned.King Kenny was one bad dude.
Craig

I know what your saying Privateer but would disagree,

Back with 2 strokes in Raineys day, they weighed 115kg and had 175hp they raced during a tyre war that gave them amazing tyres to ride on , they used qualifiers tyres that lasted 1 lap. and raced on rubber that only a tyre war will give you. some good some bad.

Lap records for qualifying from 2008 in some cases still stand they were done on 4 strokes with special fly in tyres made just for that track on that day

2012 Nealy 160kg and nearly 300hp no qualifiers , Today they race on a standard spec tyre that may or may not suit you or your bike and they use race tyres for qualifying. you think they are easy to ride

Most kids today on 600's at top level are as fast or faster than those in the 2 stroke 500 era, the days of middle aged men starting careers in top level racing are gone, "an ex famous racer once said racing is for kids"

there all great, I just think the youth of today 10 feet tall and made of rubber would would be very hard to beat by old men , just ask Rossi.

"There all Great"

Maybe rainey would not be so much better on a modern bike, the modern bike maybe levels out the riders a little, where as rainey could use his skills better on lessr bikes, with lesser technological aids, namely he shone on a bike that had less rider aids,
Current rider aids allow other riders get that bit closer with a touch less ability??

* Last updated by: motero on 6/30/2012 @ 8:18 AM *

The 500 are finicky machines, regardless of the era they're born, some riders can master them while others can't, it is that simple. Now on the question regarding old retired/dead racers v.s new school... no way in hell. The new kids will just punish the older guys. What's was the average speed at the TT 100 years ago give or take 40 mph, I think, lol Meaning: if I took one of those guys and gave him a tour of the course on my 14 he'd probably pass out and I'm not even skilled. So imagine him getting a ride from John.

Like any else adaption to speed comes from both your god given abilities and your environment. Let's say you had two countries: one with a speed limit and the other with no speed limit. Where would the best riders come from? I'm no racer but my Dad drive fast and in high school I was smoking every one in my Audi... I had a girl almost puke in my car lool The ability came from being in the car with my Dad, watching other vehicles go fast and finding that to be "normal speed" which we could also name "era speed" and that girl almost puked because her brain and body were not accustomed to that. 175 hp? I can go buy that at a dealership nowadays, Rainey brain isn't hardwire to process Spies Yam which he said produced around 260hp and that's with or sans rider aid. I should have maybe said somebody older than Rainey because the generation gap between him and Spies isn't that great, nevertheless when you see the SPEED at which technology involves in racing...

That being said we all know that for every rule there is an exception so if a young cloned Ago came and won GP....it would be just that an exception to the rule

Current rider aids allow other riders get that bit closer with a touch less ability??

motero, I think you nailed it on the head, all these gadgets help people that are good but not great close the gap.

The same as ABS TRC CONTROL etc . takes a guy that is a baby boomer that just got here and gives him wings.

In Motogp and so on it helps level the field put on a better show.

Some riders have the skill or nearly have the skill , not all have the balls.

Hub; " 25/75% respectively is the driver and car"

Rossi I think said its 20% bike 80% rider, maybe he meant balls