The last time GP bikes took to the Laguna Seca rollercoaster, the Doohan years were just beginning. Now we are in the fifth season of Rossi domination and the up-coming USGP at the revised and improved Laguna Seca Raceway may offer the best and maybe even the last chance to prevent the 26 year-old Italian superstar from running the MotoGP table.

The Laguna race is supposed to be a Yamaha party, a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the factory, but the factory Honda team would love to spoil the party with what would be the first win by a factory Honda since Valentino’s last Honda win on November 2, 2003.

The first nine years of the eleven year partnership between Repsol YPF, the Spanish-Argentine petroleum company, and Honda HRC went very well, with Mick Doohan (four consecutive 500cc world titles, the first of the Australian’s championships was won in generic Honda colors), Álex Crivillé (one 500 title) and Valentino Rossi (one 500 title and two MotoGP titles) winning eight number one plates in the first nine years.

Amazingly the only wins for Honda over the last two seasons have come from riders on Honda’s satellite teams, Gibernau with Telefónica-Movistar Gresini Honda, and three riders with Sito Pons’ Camel Honda team, Max Biaggi and Makoto Tamada last year and Alex Barros this year.

(this article was taken from speedtv.com and was written by: Dennis Noyes)

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 30th, 2005 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

The last time GP bikes took to the Laguna Seca rollercoaster, the Doohan years were just beginning. Now we are in the fifth season of Rossi domination and the up-coming USGP at the revised and improved Laguna Seca Raceway may offer the best and maybe even the last chance to prevent the 26 year-old Italian superstar from running the MotoGP table.

The Laguna race is supposed to be a Yamaha party, a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the factory, but the factory Honda team would love to spoil the party with what would be the first win by a factory Honda since Valentino’s last Honda win on November 2, 2003.

The first nine years of the eleven year partnership between Repsol YPF, the Spanish-Argentine petroleum company, and Honda HRC went very well, with Mick Doohan (four consecutive 500cc world titles, the first of the Australian’s championships was won in generic Honda colors), Álex Crivillé (one 500 title) and Valentino Rossi (one 500 title and two MotoGP titles) winning eight number one plates in the first nine years.

Amazingly the only wins for Honda over the last two seasons have come from riders on Honda’s satellite teams, Gibernau with Telefónica-Movistar Gresini Honda, and three riders with Sito Pons’ Camel Honda team, Max Biaggi and Makoto Tamada last year and Alex Barros this year.

(this article was taken from speedtv.com and was written by: Dennis Noyes)

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 30th, 2005 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.