First week of April

5 YEARS AGO

The MotoGP grid were in Argentina at the Termas De Rio Hondo Circuit for the second round of the MotoGP Championship, March 29-31, 2019. After a highly entertaining beginning to the season at Qatar, that saw Andrea Dovizioso win by .023 of a second from Marc Marquez in a thrilling race under the lights, things were quite different at Argentina.

Marquez scampered off early, leading into turn 1 and never relinquished that lead, winning by a margin of 9.8 seconds to Valentino Rossi. Rossi, had to get through Jack Miller of Pramac Ducati, then Andrea Dovizioso, he finished that early work by the end of the first lap. Maverick Vinales, Yamaha’s teammate to Rossi, started on the front row but wound up in eighth place by the end of the opening lap. Jack Miller fell back from the beginning to fight for fourth place with Franco Morbidelli and Dovizioso’s teammate at Ducati, Danilo Petrucci, then later Suzuki’s Alex Rins.

Rossi and Dovi fought throughout the race, with Dovi leading from lap 14 and holding on going into the last lap. Vale spent enough time diagnosing his move and passed him at turn 7 for second place.

Jack Miller finished fourth, Alex Rins in fifth, Danilo Petrucci in sixth place. On the last lap, Morbidelli and Maverick ran into each other and crashed out of the race. Jorge Lorenzo, in his first year wearing Repsol orange finished in 12th. Francisco Bagnaia, Miller’s teammate at Pramac, finished just inside the points in his first MotoGP season.
Marquez is 1st in the championship with 45 points, Dovi has 41, Rossi has 31, Rins has 24 and Petrux has 20 points.

10 YEARS AGO

Motogp is waiting for their second round of 2014 at COTA. In round 1, at Qatar, Dorna were still tweaking the regulations for ‘factory’ vs. ‘open’ class machines. A story for another time. All the regulations were met by spectacular racing in the desert heat.
Jorge Lorenzo, riding a Yamaha, led to start the race and promptly crashed out. Pramac Ducati’s Andrea Iannone, LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl, Tech 3 Yamaha’s Bradley Smith and Gresini Honda’s Alvaro Bautista all crashed out of the front group by the end of the race.

Marquez and Rossi put on quite the show in front of Pedrosa, passing and re-passing until the second year Honda Repsol rider beat the old guard Yamaha GOAT to the line. Marc led Rossi in the championship after the first round followed by Pedrosa, open class rider Aleix Espargaró, Dovizioso, Crutchlow, Redding, Kentucky Kid, Texas Tornado, and Iannone.

20 YEARS AGO

Yoshimura Suzuki’s Aaron Yates suspended for “one race meet and fined $5,000 by AMA Pro Racing” for attempting to drop kick and then does actually head-butt (helmet-butt?)Anthony Fania after their crash at the 2004 Daytona 200.

The 200 was won handily by Mat Mladin, for his 3rd and last at the banked-speedway based, and totally unique, endurance race. Jake Zemke just beat Miguel Duhamel for second place. Duhamel’s teammate at American Honda, Ben Bostrom, went out; as did Eric Bostrom on the Parts Unlimited Ducati Austin. That’s it for factory bikes in ‘04 Daytona 200 so the rest of the top ten was made up of privateers, of varying laps down.

also of note: Tommy and Roger Hayden became teammates at Kawasaki and had some highly entertaining battles though out the season.

also of note: The BMW Motorrad Boxer Cup race included 2024 Daytona 200 entrant, Englishman Richard Cooper

That’s it for this week!