You know, I have recently moved up to Minnesota from St Louis, and have therefore been introduced to a whole new group of riders and have started going to forums and what-not to see who is in the area. What I have found is that people have some thought that you cant possibly go fast without the 'go fast' parts. Let me just say, I could take a decent AMA racer with his fully prepped bike, give him a stock one, and he would only be about a second off his normal pace.

While those parts are the necessary bits if you are a professional roadracer, such as an exhaust, aftermarket forks, braided brake lines, etc., you dont NEED them to run trackdays, or even to start racing. The whole purpose of braided lines is to cut down on the amount the lines expand when you hammer them at the end of the straightaway and to give you a consistent feel that you can count on. Can you race without them, yes, but you wont be able to run as deep consistently, and you may experience brake fade. Forks are needed to give you more feel, extended range of adjustment, and to make certain that the wheel keeps contact with the track as much as possible. Again, these are not absolutely necessary, we raced professionally for years with factory forks that have reworked internals, and this setup took one of our riders to a top 10 finish at Mid-Ohio. Would a set of unobtanium Ohlins forks have helped? Hell yes, but he would also have needed the Ohlins tech to go with them.

What I am getting at is this, buy a bike, take it to the track, ride it. Once you start finding that the brakes are not the same every time you get to the end of the straight, its time to get some lines. Are the lines going to make you faster? No. Are they going to allow you to ride better and faster, yes.

The point of this whole thing is to rebuff the myth that you have to have all of these goodies on your bike before you go to the track. Just get on it and ride. When you need those parts, you will know it, and by that time, you will also know what you are going to get by installing them. Its like going to the track the first time and using tire warmers, its overkill, and its not doing you any favors.

So, here's to saving your 'mods' money and spending it on the things that are important, like tires and entry fees!

Wow. Qatar was a boring race. Unfortunately for Rossi, Ducati brought their A-game and Yamaha was outclassed. While it is evident that the Yamaha is, as always, the best handling bike on the grid, the Duc is just a beast on the straights. It looked like Casey was on a 990 and Rossi was on a factory 600 the way he would bast past him. From the coverage on MotoGP.com, you could only really watch the Stoner/Rossi "battle" that never really was. Rossi didn't ever really have a chance because of the motor that Duc brought and the one Yamaha didn't. He would have had to pull out over .5 seconds on the twisty bits to even have a chance of staying in front of Stoner on the front straight. Luckily enough for Stoner he was sufficiently hast to keep that from happening.

Poor ol' Nicky still hasn't felt the love from the 800 that he wants, and so was never a factor over the course of the weekend. Pedrosa looked like he might have something to bring, but quickly faded back into mitts of the injured Hopper. Speaking of which, Hopper had an incredible race, I can't imagine the pain of riding one of those bike with the carbon brakes with a broken hand. When my hand was broken I shied away from shaking hands from anyone, I imagine that it felt like shaking hands with Mr Hand Crusher for about 45 minutes straight. A true demonstration of grit, Hopper has earned some serious points in my book. Too bad Vermuelen hasn't show the same kind of form as he did in the Superbikes, but hopefully we will get to see him really turn it on this year and win one. I would love to see the perennial backmarker that is Suzuki take the championship this year.

I think Rossi is an incredible racer, but I think the world has talked him up too much to be this unbeatable rider, which he isn't. He is REALLY good, but he can be beat, and I would love to see it happen in a season where the Yamaha is competitive the whole season through. All the naysayers would have to really start thinking then. Without Formula 1 to blame for his, 'lack of focus' I dont know what they would say.