Hayden 4th, Spies 5th and Edwards 8th in MotoGP Season Opener at Qatar--BRAVO to Team USA and to SpeedTV and Dorna for Excellent HD Coverage!!

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Nicky Hayden on the #69 Team Honda RC51 is shown in the carousel while qualifying for the AMA Superbike Mid Ohio round in the summer of 2000. Hayden rode a masterful race today in the MotoGP race at the Losail circuit in Qatar to just finish off the podium. Looking more like the Nicky of old, the #69 Ducati got a rocket start off the third row in the season opener today. His level of confidence showed while battling on track with Andrea Dovizioso on the Repsol Honda and Jorge Lorenzo on the Fiat Yamaha. Hayden was simply out powered on the long front straight as Dovizioso nipped him at the line by .011 of a second for the final rostrum spot. Nonetheless, Nicky rode the wheels off the Ducati in the turns and showed why he is a former MotoGP champion and also showed that the learning curve on the Ducati has narrowed considerably. Bravo Nicky, bravo! We're looking forward to more top end speed from Ducati to get Nicky on the podium this season.
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Ben 'Elbows' Spies on the #11 Team Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R600 powers up the hill out of turn 10 at Mid Ohio during qualifying for the 600 Supersport race in Lexington, OH. in the summer of 2005. Spies rode the wheels off of his #11 Monster Energy Yamaha YZF-M1 today in Qatar to garner a 5th place finish as well as his best finish of any of the MotoGP rounds he has thusly contested since the 2008 season. Looking like the pro and former multi-time champion he is, Spies put some passes on the #26 Repsol Honda of Dani Pedrosa and the satellite Honda of #14 Randy DePuniet to move him up the field to a fine finish in the 2010 season opener. The coverage was excellent thanks to the great folks at SpeedTV and Dorna for stepping up this year with 'live' and HD viewing. Spies got some good airtime on the tube after a rocket start off row four to 8th on the first lap, actually the first corner or two.
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Thomas Stevens on the Team Yoshimura #11 GSX-R750 leads the Vance and Hines Yamaha YZF-750's of #2 Jamie James and #45 Colin Edwards out of the carousel and onto the front straight early in the running of the AMA Superbike final at Mid Ohio in July of 1994. Edwards went on to win his first AMA Superbike race on this day to propel him onto the world scene of road racing in the last 16 years. Contesting his 7th season in the premier MotoGP class today at Qatar, Colin garnered a hard-earned 8th place finish equaling his qualifying position for the weekend in the middle of the third row. CE didn't see much airtime today on SpeedTV on his #5 Monster Energy Yamaha YZF-M1 but what he did looked great. The new HD coverage by SpeedTV and their partners with the Dorna group was magnificent! Bravo to Speed and Dorna, and to Colin, Nicky and Ben for their fine performances today!!!
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Great racing and great tv coverage of the season opening MotoGP round in Qatar met viewers today as the Americans finished 4th, 5th and 8th, while defending MotoGP and 7-Time premier class champion Valentino Rossi won the battle after early leader Casey Stoner crashed out early in the going.
And a great high def picture and wonderful coverage by the folks at SpeedTV and the television partners through the Dorna folks were just what 'The Doctor' ordered. The new HD picture and camera coverage was superb, and while racing wasn't quite 'live' as was advertised (there was an 8-10 minute delay from 'live' to DirecTV satellite from the MotoGP.com live timing feed) the overall job done by the folks that bring you MotoGP tv was most excellent and very well handled. And for a track that sits in the middle of a desert 20 miles from 'real' civilization, the track looked simply wonderful under the lights and the racing action was some of the best seen in the premier class since the inception of the 800's in the class in 2007. Maybe the six engine sealed rules helped bring this about, but after Rossi inherited the lead from Stoner's crash, 2nd through 4th were covered by only .854 of a second and Ben Spies in 5th less then two seconds back. Good racing to say the least, even some of what you could see further back in the field.
It should be an exciting season, and The Doctor sure looks to have them covered again for 2010, but the racing throughout the field should be much better this year if today was any indication whatsoever.
Again, hats and helmets off to SpeedTV and Dorna people for putting together a better and even more quality program then what we have seen in the past! Great job. Next MotoGP round in Japan April 23-25th.
If you didn't see today's race, the re-air runs on Tuesday April 13th at 4 AM EDT on SpeedTV. Don't miss it or you WILL be sorry on this one.
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Here's the official results in PDF form thanks to the MotoGP.com people:
http://resources.motogp.com/files/results/xx/2010/QAT/MotoGP/RAC/Classification.pdf?v1_6962c5f3
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And you can read a good synopsis of the race and the results here thanks to David Emmett over at his super site MotoMatters.com. Here's the link and while you're over there check out his site and some of the articles, pictures and advertisers he has. David does a great job of keeping the fans on the cutting edge of MotoGP:
http://www.motomatters.com/results/2010/04/11/2010_qatar_motogp_race_result_thrilling_.html

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Another good read on the race comes from the blokes across the pond at Crash.net. To read their version-which is a very lively write up-go here:
http://www.crash.net/motogp/race+report/158651/1/rossi_wins_qatar_thriller_stoner_falls.html

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