JP wrote...
Marc had a hotrod CRF that had several maps that he was choosing from during the heats. a few times he was on the straight reaching over to the right bar with his left hand changing settings on the bike. The commentators on Fanschoice.tv pointed it out a few times, wondering what he was doing, then saying he had multiple engine maps to choose from, and his bike was being worked on by his MotoGP engineers. Brad (if I heard him right while the commentators talked over him)[edit- just read a Crash.net post with him saying that he really messed up tire selection, so yeah, I heard him right] though did mention he missed the tire setup for the last race and had no traction.
Also, the bikes don't look to have the needed wiring for TC to be used. Speed sensors for both wheels would be needed or some other way to judge bike speed vs wheel speed/spin. I'd bet it wasn't the TC that was the advantage, but the engine controls where he had a selection. TC also tends to have a particular sound when on a bike without a fly-by-wire throttle because it isn't able to shut the butterflies, so it uses ignition and dropping spark. But. if you start losing traction, and can select a different ignition and EFI map to soften the engine, et viola. Marc was the only one I saw doing that during a race. Big advantage, anyhow. Elias wasn't on a Honda and was out to lunch until getting setup help from his old MGP mechanic, and Jared Mees via phone calls. So saying him also having TC was because he won Moto2 on a Honda engined is a bit of a reach. I doubt Yoshimira Suzuki or Catalan Suzuki (Who Elias said were all faster than him Thursday) gave him a TC setup from Honda. Did Brad send a bike this time, or was it provided to him?
Lots of good stuff in there. It was me, who made the mistake about Elias being on a Honda. And yes, it is a bit of a reach, but that's why it's a conspiracy theory, not a news story. I'm not sure the sound of well set up traction control would be audible over a TV feed with so much other noise, and bikes geared to hit the rev limiter on the straights, but that's just more conspiracy fuel.
None of the original post was supposed to put any doubts about Marquez being a hell of a rider, Elias too. But who doesn't love a good conspiracy theory? G
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Yeah, and I really don't think that having an ECU you can change while racing is really in the spirit of Flat Track, but I also don't think they'd say no one else could have run it. Any how, if you're a rider like me (old, fat, and slowish), or you miss your tire choice by a mile, (as Brad admits) it ain't gonna do a bit of good either, so. . . My brain defaults to the likely reasons that way from back in my dirt track days (4 wheels). We had a fast little Mustang II, and to hear the reasons we were so fast and won was entertaining. (roller cams, 3 liter strokers, nitrous, etc) When some of those making claims actually came across our engine at the machinist's he said "Wait, That's all?! That's almost stock!" Our car handled the best. simple as that. The guy actually cheating was the guy in 4th place most of the time . . .but he was running a stock Chevette 1.6, so the 20% nitromethane just got him from 9th or 10th to 4th and 5th.
The other thing is, Brad said the tires were horrible and he really messed up . . . and still got third.
oh, and the point about the sound a TC tends to make was, more folks would have heard it there and reported something or complained, but sometimes you can hear them over the TV or in this case, a 'net feed. it's like the rev limiter. especially is there is no shifting involved. "If you hear it at the end of the straight, they missed the gearing, hear it coming out of the corner and he is still accelerating, it is TC" - I forget who it was who said that about telling if someone might be using TC after it was first popping up in road bike racing (er, pun unintentional)
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