It Never Has To Happen ...

Finally, it looked like it was going to happen. Race Two of the Superbike World Championship event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca was all going Davide Giugliano's way. The longtime and loyal Ducati factory pilot had pushed his way past the dominant Kawasaki Racing Team ZX-10Rs of Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes, and was starting to pull a gap when the red flag came out.

On the restart, Giugliano got into the lead again, but this time wasn't able to drop Sykes, who came past after three laps. Sykes is a master at late-braking and awesome corner exits, and that skill set allows you to hold off faster competitors at Laguna. Giugliano spent the last half of the race fending off teammate Chaz Davies while still trying to hunt down Sykes. In the end, Giugliano came in second, yet came up 0.209 seconds short of the win.



The race pretty much illustrated Giugliano's career in a nutshell. Undoubtedly fast, loyal and brave, Giugliano never managed to put the Ducati on top of the podium.

Fast is beyond a doubt. The 27-year-old Roman won the Superstock 1000 championship in 2011 and moved up to Superbike the next season. In 113 starts since, Giugliano earned five pole positions, eight fastest laps and 14 podium finishes. Nine times he finished second.

It is all the more impressive when you realize that when Giugliano started riding the Ducati, it was during the Bologna factory's darkest days in World Superbike. Giugliano was there during the company's longest winless drought in the series that it once owned. First he raced the 1098R during a period when it was hopelessly outgunned by the horsepower of the Aprilias and Kawasakis. Then he helped develop the Panigale through its teething phase, pushing the bike past its limits over and over in an attempt to put it on the box.

Let no one doubt Giugliano's bravery. He has missed several races due to back injuries. Potentially crippling back injuries. The kind of injury that makes racers shudder, the one thing that they keep locked in the deepest recesses of their minds, because if that thought escapes that little mental prison it is locked in, the racer's speed is gone. Racers commit suicide because of paralysis from racing injuries. Giugliano came back from back injuries - multiple times. 

That desperate battle at Laguna took place one year after he crashed there and suffered a potentially career-ending back injury. Racers do things that leave mere mortals just slack-jawed. In many ways, they go places non-racers simply cannot even imagine.

But bravery and determination only go so far. Factories want results. Giugliano didn't deliver them. When he crashed at a sodden Lausitzring, his Panigale kept running for a bit while on its side. Then, Terminator 2-style, the tail light, required by the rain, blinks out. At that moment, Giugliano's World Superbike career was over.

He's got a new gig in British Superbike. Giugliano will be putting everything he has into it, putting his life on the line for a win. But it never has to happen.

Farewell To A Racing Boss

Shuhei Nakamoto joined HRC's MotoGP program at a time when neither he nor Honda were on a winning streak. In MotoGP, although Honda had taken the rider championship with Nicky Hayden in 2006, the company had been schooled by Yamaha for several seasons, first with Valentino Rossi, then with Jorge Lorenzo. 

While wins came Honda's way every season, and podium positions were frequent, it had been a long time since HRC looked like its rider would end the season atop the points. Hayden's championship, which came as a result of solid finishes, not domination, was the first since Rossi left, and in the seasons to follow, the handful of victories was not what the company wanted. Corporations go racing to demonstrate their superiority, and superiority wasn't being reflected in the results table or in the headlines.




It was worse - way worse - in Formula One. In 2006, Nakamoto was named Senior Technical Director for the company's Formula One program. According to various reports at the time, Nakamoto inherited a car that was marginally capable, with one win in 18 starts, and a wind tunnel that was broken. 2007 saw Honda score no podiums in F1 competition, and 2008 saw only one.

It was the nadir of Nakamoto's career with Honda. He'd been with the company since his late 20s, and had devoted his professional life to Honda and motorcycle road racing. He joined the company in 1983, and was quickly assigned to the RS125 and RS250 GP bike projects. During his tenure, the Honda became a consistent race winner, a bike that was always a threat to win a World Championship. From 1984 to 1996, Honda won 11 125cc and 250cc GP World Championships.

In 1997, he was named Large Project Leader for Honda's World Superbike competitor, the RVF750, which immediately took John Kocinski to the title and Honda to the manufacturer championship. It was the first Superbike championship for Honda since the formative years of the series and Fred Merkel's back-to-back titles on an RC30. Annoyed by a rules structure that many felt favored Ducati's V-twins, in 2000 Honda put Nakamoto in charge of a V-twin project of its own, the VTR1000SP, better known as the RC51. It won the title the first time out with Colin Edwards aboard, and won again in 2002.

Nakamoto was not a man who took losing well, and he knew how to go hunting for titles at the highest levels of motorcycle road racing. 2009, Nakamoto's first season at the helm, was all about Yamaha. In 2010, longtime HRC MotoGP soldier Dani Pedrosa suddenly doubled the number of wins from the previous season. The next year, Honda poached Casey Stoner from Ducati and immediately won the MotoGP title. With Stoner injured for much of 2012, Pedrosa came within a tire warmer malfunction of winning the championship. These were the performances that made a manufacturer look good. Honda's machinery was so good that fans of the sport wailed like infants that the racing was boring because of the amazing job HRC had done with its bike and its team.

For the whiners, it got worse. 

Stoner retired, but Honda had laid claim to one Marc Marquez, who proceeded to then take three of the next four MotoGP titles, and the one he didn't win he finished with the second-highest number of wins. Nakamoto knew that it was the combination of machine and man that won titles, and Marquez could help an under-performing machine look better than it was.

Nakamoto is leaving HRC, retiring due to his age. HRC has named three people to do his job. It is a testament to his leadership, and a loss to the sport to have such a single-minded individual leave the paddock. When Nakamoto showed up, it was to kick ass, make Honda look good and chew bubble gum, and someone invariably forgot the bubble gum.

Two comments from Nakamoto illustrate why he deserves the title of Racing Boss: 

Back when the whining about "boring" racing was reaching a fevered pitch in 2012, Nakamoto was asked about the entertainment MotoGP provided. His comment was simple: This was of no concern to Honda. Winning was what mattered, not bread and circuses for the minions.

When Rossi left Honda and won titles with Yamaha, he was famously quoted as saying that the rider mattered more than the machine. When Rossi fell flat on his face at Ducati, Nakamoto took the opportunity to kick him when he was down. "After he (Rossi) left Honda, has written a book, saying that the driver has more of the bike. Now it has to prove it," Nakamoto told GPOne.

The joy of sport is that it is unfettered competition where the goal is to prove that you are the best. Under Nakamoto's reign, Honda was so dominant that many claimed the company would destroy MotoGP. It's perhaps the highest praise you can offer Nakamoto for a lifetime of service to his company and his dedication to racing's highest ideal - winning.

The 2016 WERA West Yearbook Now Available

The 2016 WERA West Yearbook, featuring more than 130 full-color images, race reports, results and complete class championship standings from the 2016 WERA West season, now is available. Images and words by motojournalist Michael Gougis, 62 pages, soft bound. Retail cost is $29.95 plus shipping and handling. Order from Lulu.com at:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/michael-gougis/the-2016-wera-west-yearbook/paperback/product-22937345.html

Or order directly from the author at morbidelli17@yahoo.com, 626.221.7466. Please allow four weeks for delivery.

Thanks to the supporters who made this project possible:

Friction Racing Products: http://frictionracingproducts.com/

A.G. Assanti & Associates: http://www.bike911.com/

M Racing Performance: http://www.mracingperformance.com/

R.Tillery Powersports: http://rtillery.com/

Tony Serra

Images From The WERA West Season Finale, Part One

Images From The WERA West season finale at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Release of the 2016 WERA West Yearbook should be this week. Stay tuned ...

Sidecars from SRA-West raced both days in their own penultimate round of 2016.

Brad Saenz set out to win a championship on his Triumph 675, and sealed the B Superbike title.

Matt Warnert showed up for his first race weekend on a nearly-vintage Honda CBR600RR, struggled on Saturday and came back to take trophies in both of his races on Sunday.

The lightweight battles were awesome, as always. Erick Vizcaino (63) leads Jack Baker (27) through the final turn, with Toby Khamsouk behind.

Curtis Biegel (848) and Steve Zoumaras.

Start of one of the mediumweight races, with Mookie Wilkerson (136) leading Anas Sorhmat (117), David Guerrero (20, yellow plate), Edgar Zaragoza (20) and Vincent Mendez (hidden). On a clear day, the mountains surrounding the track always take my breath away.

 

Second Thoughts

The problem with signing riders before the season is over is that the new team has half a year or more to worry about whether it made the right choice. Signing a rider is always a stab in the dark, a bet on the future, and having time to wonder about whether you've made the right choice isn't always a good thing.


Last weekend's International-level races likely have allowed a few teams to sleep more comfortably, more confident that they have made the right choices. A few have got to be worried about their decisions. And one or two have got to be waking up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m., calling their lawyers to see exactly how iron-clad those contracts with the new riders actually are ...

Among those sleeping well likely are the Ten Kate squad that runs the Honda World Superbike Team. Nicky Hayden managed to squeeze one more front-row qualifying slot out of the aging CBR1000RR platform before it gets put out to pasture. Hayden is the only rider other than Chaz Davies on the factory Ducati and the two factory Kawaski riders to win in World Superbike this season, and he's made his teammate, the highly-acclaimed Michael van der Mark, look slow and inconsistent. 

Hayden will be back for another season, alongside Stefan Bradl, a Moto2 World Champion and a guy who is overlooked mostly because he had the misfortune of competing against one Marc Marquez. With an all-new bike on the way and these two riders in their stable, Ten Kate has got to be comfortable looking forward to 2017. Taking the fight to the Ducati and Kawasaki teams is going to be hard, but it's difficult to think of two better riders that Ten Kate could have signed to head the charge.

Ducati's got to be thinking it made all the right choices. On the MotoGP side, signing Jorge Lorenzo was a no-brainer, and he's going to be motivated to make Yamaha look bad. Andrea Dovisioso's win in Sepang last weekend validates the company's choice to keep an experienced hand, skilled in tricky conditions, on board. On the World Superbike side, Chaz Davies and the Panigale look unstoppable. That means that week-in, week-out, Ducati will have a shot at the wins, whichever Marco Melandri - the crazy-fast or the just-crazy - shows up for work on Friday morning for Free Practice 1.

Suzuki's GP squad has got to be a bit worried. Andrea Iannone keeps falling off the bike, as he did again last weekend. (An aside: I am glad that Iannone won in Austria, because I honestly think it will be his only MotoGP win, and I wish that every rider who has the courage to grid up for a MotoGP race could experience winning at least once. Call me a hopeless romantic.) Alex Rins' performances in Moto2 have not been anything to write about of late. Yes, he's been injured. But playing hurt is part of this game. Suzuki has got to be wondering which Rins is going to show up in 2017; the one from the first half of 2016 or the second half.

Yamaha, interestingly, is the factory that has got to be losing the most sleep and spending the most time pouring over escape clauses in rider contracts. Valentino Rossi is still fast, but is making more mistakes than ever before to ride at that pace, and he seems to be struggling to find the magic he could pull out of a hat a decade ago. It's hard to see Rossi losing a race like Sepang if you wound the clock back a decade. And Maverick Vinales is fast but inconsistent, and Yamaha has to wonder if it's the Suzuki that Maverick rides or ... Maverick.

Yamaha's World Superbike team has to be even more worried than its MotoGP team. Alex Lowes has defined under-performing this season. When teammate Sylvain Guintoli has been fit, he has been Lowes' equal at worst and thoroughly thrashed him at best. After Guintoli came back from missing half a season due to injury, matched his teammate straight away and put the YZF-R1 on the box in Qatar last weekend, Yamaha had got to be wondering if keeping Lowes and letting Guintoli go was the right call. And who is taking Guintoli's seat next season? van der Mark, whose picture is next to Lowes' mugshot in the dictionary next to "under-performing."

By the time Phillip Island rolls around, every one of these observations may be proven to be incorrect. But that's a long way away, a lot of rest for some teams, and a lot of sleepless nights filled with cold sweats for others.