Motorcycle racing: For the first time in 30 years...

[MatsP]

... a british rider in the points lead!

http://londonbikers.com/news/11576/supe ... second-win

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Mats

[bigcatsrus]

We watched the qualifying and watched the big boys.

It's good all round for the brits. Jenson Button in the lead on the drivers championship in the F1!

[MatsP]

Yes, whilst I haven't watched the World Super{sports,bikes} yet - it's on the Sky+ box for this evening [and British Superbikes round at Thruxton for tomorrow evening] - before this weekend, there was an English rider, Cal Crutchlow, leading the Supersport (by a fair amount, so , with a Northern Irish rider, Eugene Laverty, in second place.

So there's a few things going well in Motorsport for this country. I think Formula 1 is actually much stronger from a historical perspective than motorcycle racing in Gran Prix class - I don't think anyone has actually won much more than the odd race since Barry Sheene in the 70's/80's.

[And my home-country, Sweden, hasn't succeeded at all in motorcycle racing, if you don't count Stiggy Racing's success as a team].

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Mats

[Carp37]

I've been watching the 125s on BBC's iPlayer for the last 12 months (when they remember to put the link up- the French GP was on lap 6 when BBC remembered, almost half an hour late! )- it's great to see not one but two promising British riders coming through, although I'm not that patriotic regarding riders/drivers I support.

At least you had Ronnie Peterson in F1, Mats, who was my first motorsport hero.

[MatsP]

I watch Eurosport for the 125/250 cc races. Usually record it on the Sky+ box, so that I can watch it when I get the time.

Actually, I still remember the accident where Ronnie died [at Monza, IIRC] - I watched it live on TV when I lived in Sweden, and I felt so gutted that I couldn't eat dinner when it was time for that. But on the (onroad) motorcycle front, Sweden hasn't had much success. Sweden has had a few good competitors (European/World Champions) in Drag Racing (both cars and bikes), Car Rally and Rallycross, Motocross, Enduro, Ice-racing, Speedway, Motorcycle Trials, but never much success in the road-racing scene. And I think Stefan Johanson was doing reasonable in F1 for a while - nowhere near winning, but still in the premier class.

One problem for all of this, I think, is the availability of top-level race-tracks in Sweden, there aren't many.

Johan Stigefelt that runs the Stiggy Motorsports team in WSB/WSS did race in the MotoGP 250 class (and a season in 500 cc in 2001) for some time, but never got anywhere near the top of the points table - best placed was 17th at the end of the season. Johan was born in Anderstorp, which is also the location of the only race-track in Sweden that has had international, top level Motorcycle and Car-racing.

Leon Haslam is racing for Stiggy Motorsports, and as a team they are doing very well.

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Mats