Casey and Ducati Testing

Earlier this month the Ducati MotoGP team completed two days testing at the Valencia track on the brand new Desmosedici GP7 800cc bikes. Both riders, Aussie Casey Stoner and italian Loris Caparossi put in some solid practice.

On the final day Casey completed 68 laps and Loris 75 laps. Some good news for Casey fans (such as myself and my 3yr old son), Casey posted a faster best lap time than Loris on the final day. Casey’s best time was 1 minute 32.940 secs, compared to Loris’s 1 minute 33.011 secs. Sure it is only a matter of 7 hundreths of a second, but in racing you will take that.

By all accounts the Ducati 800’s will really suit Casey’s (and Honda rider Dani Pedrosa) style. Casye was quoted to say ” The 800 seems similar to the 250s in rideability, allowing for quicker cornering speeds”.

The final round of testing is at Jerez, then the team will have a break over the Xmas period, to resume early in 2007. The season only ended a few weeks ago and I am already salivating at 2007s prospects…

Thanks to Justin for his comment on my last Casey Stoner post, and as requested Justin here is a photo of Casey from the Valencia testing.

V8 SuperCars – Symmons Plains Wrap Up

Well, how easily your world can turn upside down. This weekends racing saw Craig Lowndes slender 30 point lead turned into a 73 point deficit.

To be fair to Craig, it was not of his own doing. The first race saw him caught up in a fracas after team mate Jamie Whincup was hit from behind and unfortunately he spun off the track. The resulting unplanned pit stop saw him go two laps behind the others. This was all in the first lap.

Craig should not have been in that position, but unfortunately qualified outside the top ten, which meant he was further, back in the pack. The accident pretty much signalled the end of Craig’s chances of putting in a podium finish, however he didn’t give up and was able to fight his way to 7th position in race 3 and 12th overall to pick up some minor points.

With the major incident that occurred on lap one of race one, I thought it was grossly unfair that the race stewards didn’t restart the race. Not just fro Craig sake, but for all the other drivers caught up in the incident.

Anyway with two rounds to go once again it sees the V8 championship going to be decided at Phillip Island and once again it sees Craig Lowndes with a great chance to take the #1 plate.  Even after this week’s race, I truly believe that he can do it, although with a competitor like Rick Kelly now leading it will be tough going.

Go Ford, Go Lowndesie!!

Cheers

Dave

V8 SuperCars – Symmons Plains

At the time of me writing this, the V8 will be starting their first practice session.

This round sees Craig Lowndes (CL) go in with a 30 point lead over his nearest rival Rick Kelly.

CL had a scare this week when he faced the prospect of losing points after being called in for ‘bringing the sport into disrepute’ over comments to a Melbourne newspaper regarding the race penalties dished out over the Surfers Paradise round. Luckily he only received a financial penalty and can now focus on the task at hand.

This race will be tough for anyone who doesn’t qualify at the front of the grid. The track is short, and will take the drivers approximately 52 seconds to complete a lap of the 2.4 kilometre track. Passing opportunities around the Tasmanian track are as rare as hens’ teeth and it has a nasty hairpin turn, which is always a good spot for fans to see panels get rubbed or worse. This will put pressure on qualifying and extra pressure on pit stops.  This race will be won or lost on these two factors of the race weekend.

As a blatant Ford and Craig Lowndes fan, I hope that CL and his brand new BA Falcon can take out the round and take some valuable points away from Rick Kelly, who is always a threat. The biggest threat however will come from Todd Kelly (Rick’s older brother) whom has the current lap record and will be backing up from his win at Surfers.

Other rivals to watch out for are; Mark Winterbottom, Steven Richards, Jason Bright and long shot Jason Richards (who has driven quite well at time in this years series)

I will have a full report on the results come Monday,

Cheers

Dave

Mini Reunion

Unless you live under a rock, you would know that yesterday (7th November) saw the Melbourne Cup being run here in Australia. The Melbourne Cup is described as the race that stops a nation. Whilst I wouldn’t call myself a race fan, it is hard not to have a bet, plus the day is a public holiday if you live in Melbourne.

Last October (2005) my year 10 class had a 20 year reunion. So the family and I travelled up to my home town and spent a couple of days there. The reunion itself was fantastic.  Up until that point I hadn’t kept in touch with these guys. After that night I realised what great friends I had in school. I found out that a couple of them also lived very near to me in Melbourne.

Since then we have caught up with each other every month. Unfortunately two other close mates hadn’t been able to make it. So after help from another school friend I found them, one lives in Singapore and the other lives just out of Melbourne.

So with the public holiday, we took the opportunity to have a mini-reunion. We had a great day. I hadn’t seen Greg since his 21st birthday. It was great to catch-up with him and his family and we all slipped into the comfort zone that good friends do very quickly. The other guys bought their families and we had a BBQ in the backyard.

We shared a meal, shared a drink or two (I can still taste the chilli flavoured tequila) ,reminisced, told our respective stories about the last 15 years and generally joked with each other for the afternoon. A highlight for me was seeing all of our kids playing and mucking about in the backyard.

Overall it was a great day; with many more to be enjoyed I’m sure. So a big thanks to everyone for turning up, my wife for helping with the set up and foods, plus Mel, Claire and Becki for their delightful dishes that complimented the BBQ meats perfectly!!

Now all we need to do is get Simon over here or organise a visit to Singapore!!

TSoS – Finally admits he has a problem

In today’s Australian newspapers (3rd November 2006) it was reported that Stuart MacGill – aka The Sheik of Straight (TSoS), finally admits he has a problem.

Unfortunately he believes it is his anger that is affecting his ability to play cricket and get selected for the Australian team.

I would say the biggest reason is his gross inability to actually turn the ball when bowling. For years he has been going on about ‘Warnie isn’t that much better than me really’, ‘The selectors are biased’ etc, rather than actually doing some practice in the nets to try and get some spin on the ball.

Here is a free tip TSoS, with Glenn ‘Pigeon’ McGrath getting on, and the fact that you should be relatively fresh (due to you lack of international cricket), maybe you should make use of your inability to turn the ball and become a pace bowler. Yeah sure my nanna could probably bowl faster than you, but at least you bowl them straight!!

That’s some free advice MacGill, I reckon you should take it

Cheers

Dave