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| Nothing beats Brands Hatch ![]() Edwards edged out Hodgson and Bayliss
What has got 130,000 heads and the best atmosphere in the world? Brands Hatch on World Superbikes weekend. It is the biggest event on the Superbikes calendar and effectively the largest sporting event in our country.
It was just an honour to be part of it. It was sport at its best - over 130,000 people there and no sign of trouble. But it is like a big sporting secret for some bizarre reason. You do not really see it on the news or on the radio and you hardly read anything in the papers. What irritates me is that Formula One will get double the amount of exposure when: a) Schumacher has already won You would think that for just one event they would go big on it. It is getting better and I have noticed an improvement in the coverage over the past 12 months. I do not mind if it wants to stay special and secret - that is fine by me.
But you do not have to sell it, you just have to see it. You have got overtaking and you have got the speed. It is a sexy sport, it is not just a business. We are getting two million people at times watching on Grandstand. We should be shouting it from the rooftops. As far as the racing is concerned I felt Troy Bayliss really showed why he was the world champion. To have an incident where you come off the bike and break a rib and be completely shaken up - most people would not have got back on their bikes. He was in a situation where he would have been on the second row of the grid anyway. To go through the pain he went through and to be physically lifted onto the bike by his team and make sure the bike was on the front row. That is a world champion. Cashed in The guy could hardly sit down, let alone ride a motorbike at 200mph. After race one when he got second place he was saying in interviews he was happy. But afterwards he went straight to the garage and he was going mad, wanting to know what he could change to improve his position. It is the mindset of a world champion, it is what makes him so different.
You wonder what it takes to stop Bayliss getting on the podium. His rival Colin Edwards had a spectacular weekend and he really cashed in on Troy being under the weather. Although the 39-point difference sounds a lot, there are six races to go but he is still waiting for Troy to make a mistake. Colin is on a bit of a roll now with three wins in a row and he is back in the hunt for the championship - his confidence should be high. He rode a stormer, he was inch-perfect and did not make any mistakes. It really did not look like Neil Hodgson was ever going to get close. But Neil's bike is definitely inferior and I think he did fantastically well. Neil wanted to win desperately, but I think a second and a third was pretty admirable. We have a policy in Britain of liking the underdog and admiring losers, but Neil does not want to be like that. He wants to win and he wants to be world champion. He will not settle for anything else. |
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