DoC Questiontime


Huddle from the rain

Who is that man?

MotoGP Race

Day of Champions
Ride-in from The Victoria Inn at Coalville was a popular event, unfortunately marred by the heavy rain but still great fun. The guest celebrity riders were: Niall McKenzie, Leon Haslam, Gary Mason, Steve Plater and Andi Notman (World Endurance), all answering questions mainly about their predictions for the weekend and whether Steve Plater would "bat for the other side" if a certain yellow liveried rider wanted him to.
The ride-in included 3 laps of Donington circuit, with standing water on the very slippery new surface - not surprising that there were a couple of fallers really.
The paddock entry system of restricting to 1000 punters at a time did work since we were able to chat to and photograph some of the stars. More emerged into the fray than last year - though that's not hard.

The weekend
A typical British race weekend, we had driving rain, a bit of sunshine and very poor facilities. One day the organisers might actually camp themselves and realise where they're going wrong. Standard issue whinge over, the weekend was good fun as camping with a load of mates always is. My recommendation is to take a camper van or caravan with your own facilities, and to plan to stay on until Monday morning rather than joining the 7 hour queue to leave the circuit on Sunday.

The Race
Luckily it didn't rain for the 125, 250 or MotoGP races. Capirossi took the early lead but was soon going backwards with Rossi being chased by Edwards and Gibernau for the majority of the race. It was good to see Colin Edwards getting to the podium in style after previous best of 5th. Troy Bayliss was also doing well but eventually was passed by Nicky Hayden and ended in 5th - including a bit of grass tracking in front of us at the bottom of Craner Curves and managing not to lose a place.
Hodgson was cheered on by his fellow countrymen into 10th place.
It was remarkable to see Biaggi back in 12th after his win last weekend at Sachsenring. Shakey Byrne was starting to reel Biaggi in after stalking Tamada and passing him with a few laps to go, but unfortunately ran out of laps.

Another Rossi victory means that he leads the championship by 22 points on his Yamaha!

Results

1. Rossi
2. Edwards
3. Gibernau
4. Hayden
5. Bayliss
6. Checa
7. Capirossi
8. Hopkins
9. Barros
10. Hodgson

Championship Standings

1. Rossi 164
2. Gibernau 142
3. Biaggi 142
4. Edwards 95
5. Barros 86
6. Hayden 83
7. Checa 72
8. Capirossi 64
9 . Melandri 57
10 . Tamada 56