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Another excellent race for the win until the end when Rossi walked away. That said, the drag race between Melandri and Checa was pretty cool too. An even closer one was between Nakano (Kawi) and Tamada (Honda) with a 0.04second differential tipping in Nakano’s favor. I didn’t even see that one as the cameras were on Rossi.

Well, I think the jury is out. Something hapened at Laguna Seca that lit a fire under Mr. Hayden. Sure he’s not winning, but his finishes have been consistently higher than before Laguna. Heck, he even led for a moment. While its true that it appeared that Rossi had full control of the pace and the victory, no one else was as fast as Hayden.

Biaggi? Edwards?? Gibernau??? Are these going to be names of the past…time will tell.

Speaking of old men, here’s the latest on Capirossi:

Following his discharge from Melbourne’s Cabrini Hospital, Loris Capirossi left Australia and after a flight lasting almost 28 hours, including 24 in the air, with stopovers at Dubai and Rome Fiumicino, finally landed at Rimini airport at 14.45 today, Monday 17 October. The Ducati Marlboro Team rider was immediately transferred to Imola hospital in an ambulance and will be personally assisted by Dr. Claudio Costa.

Clinica Mobile doctors had judged that Loris should return to Italy as soon as possible so that he could be assisted directly by Dr. Costa. However, without a chest drain, the internal bleeding around his right lung, caused in the spectacular crash at the end of Friday’s free practice session, could have prevented him from flying for another 15-20 days. An eventual reopening of the unhealed injury during the flight could have caused the lung to come away from the wall and collapse.

Loris was permitted to return to Italy with a chest drain attached, which would have allowed the lung to remain in position in case of sudden cabin de-pressurization. The courageous Italian rider was accompanied during the return flight by Dr. Massimo Corbascio from the Clinica Mobile, who has been following racing for more than thirty years and who has considerable experience of this type of injury.

Capirossi will remain in Imola Hospital for at least four days, where he will be constantly kept under observation to avoid any complications that might prevent the injury from healing up correctly.

One tough SOB.

Check out this sweet shot. I was amazed by the setting that Phillip Island has…and I thought the race in Germany has an incredible backdrop. Between the elevation changes and the ocean, it makes me want to visit that place. I’ll have to add the land of OZ to my ‘Places I need to visit before I die’ (which currently includes Isle of Mann and Italy).

Can you see a trend amongst those places???