Haga Bridesmaid Again!
Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 7:02 am by rhino
Despite a double win in the final round of the World Superbike Championship, Noriuki still came up just 2 points short. Even some pretty mediocre finishes by series leader James Toseland couldn’t change the Sultan of Slide’s luck. The perennial tuning fork pilot has finished second in the WSBK series once before (2000) and has finished 3rd or better for the last 5 years! So Haga appears to be the next Randy Mamola (take that, short-time race fans).
I had to wait until last night, Tuesday, to see Sunday’s finale from Magny-Cour, France. In it’s infinite wisdom and concern for it’s paying viewers, Speed decided a motorcycle World Championship series, where the outcome would most likely be decided in the final race, didn’t see the need to air it on the day it happened. Even though, throughout the year, the races have been broadcast on the days they happened. But leave it to the “NASCAR Channel” to leave us hanging and avoiding the internet for several days (for fear of discovering the results) 
Like AngryBob, I’ve been wishing Nitro Nori and Yamaha would take the title this year. In his early years, he made passes that seemed physically impossible, taking lines no one else seemed to know existed. More recently he’s been more of a thinking man’s racer, winning when he can and keeping it on two-wheels when he couldn’t. Of course, he still makes his share of mistakes (opps, sorry Yukio!) and has had some bad luck (hey, what’s up Max?).
Haga-san has been in the series forever (8 out of the last 10 years, with 2 unsuccessful forays into MotoGP) and this year seemed his best chance to finally take a Championship. Haga did everything right this year, but Toseland’s early season dominance just couldn’t be overcome by the consistently fast Japanese rider. At least the flamed helmet wonder will give it a go again next year, and we are the beneficiaries.
Congratulations to James Toselend and Ten Kate Honda, despite some pretty marginal luck at the end of the year, they perservered and pulled it off. That’s as close to a choke as you ever want to get. Have fun gettin’ your ass kicked in MotoGP next year.
So what does all this mean? If you miss next year’s combined AMA/World Superbike weekend at Miller Motorsports Park just a hip, skip and jump from Salt Lake City, Utah, you’re blowing your chance to see one of the most hotly contested, talent ridden series in the whole world, MotoGP included!
See you there,
Rhino
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AB,
I gotta eat some crow here. I was reading one of my previous comments at the beginning of the season about Haga. I said something to the effect of he’ll never win the championship and won’t even have a factory ride next year. He didn’t win the championship (but got damn close) and his Italian Yamaha team has renewed his contract (along with teammate Troy Corser) for next year. Here’s to hopin’ Nitro Nori gets the chips to fall his way next year. And it’ll be nice to see him in the flesh at Miller!
Rhino