It was hot. Not just hot, but hot enough to have 250cc riders pulling out of the race in order to collapse in the comfort of their air-conditioned comfort of their paddock offices. Marco Simoncelli came third, won the world title and was able only to say "I cannot speak ... wonderful" before staggering away. The MotoGP boys were lucky that a bit of cloud started building up before their race but we were dealing with ambient temperatures of over 100 Fahrenheit.
Marco Simoncelli came third, won the world title and was able only to say "I cannot speak ... wonderful" before staggering away. We thought we were going to be dealing with a downpour as well when the white flags went out: indicating that riders could now change to their wet-set-up bikes if they wished. That happened six laps from the flag with Rossi in the lead from early pace setter Pedrosa, and it would have taken the same scale of inundation as we saw on Friday to persuade riders into the pits at that stage of the race. Nevertheless, there were some nervous glances cast to the heavens before the flag came out.
Pedrosa had made his expected lightening start from pole but Andrea Dovizioso went with him and kept Rossi in third for a lap and a half. You might have thought this would let Dani escape, but as he explained later he is still learning about his Bridgestones and he needs race miles to understand them properly.
Rossi stalked him for the first half of the race before passing and pulling away. It wasn't easy, though. He reported that being alone for the last five laps was "and that Dani was fast--especially on the exit from slow corners" That is a weakness in his M1 that Vale has talked about more than once and identified as one of the targets of his winter tests.
Valentino referred back to last winter's tests as the key to today's win. "We did a lot of [race] simulation at this track and we were very fast. "I promise Peter, my tyre man, we win the GP. The track suits my M1, the corners suit my riding style."
Third went to Andrea Dovizioso after a frantic finale with a determined Nicky Hayden. It was the Italian's first rostrum in MotoGP and further evidence of why Repsol Honda have signed him for next year. He was "very afraid" for the last three laps because he didn't know where Nicky would attack him, but Dovi rode a perfect defensive line to keep Nicky off the rostrum.
As Jorge Lorenzo crashed out, Dovizioso still has a chance, albeit a slim one, of being Rookie of the Year. Rossi rode with the usual sticker of Guido, his pet bulldog, on the seat of his Yamaha but now it is a memorial. The old dog shuffled off this mortal coil moments after welcoming his master back home to Tavullia after the Australian GP. The new sticker shows Guido in white robes and sporting a pair of wings. It's so much more interesting talking about Rossi's dog (he's getting another one) than tyres, don't you think?

congrats to vale.. it's just a great race.. must be hard about the heat. I appreciate his guido sticker. and how he hug dani from behind in par-ferme, shows how great this man is.. can't believe the season will soon ever..

Great Race! Great to see that Vale got 9 wins! wow he is some great points for the year 8 podiums in a row!

Pedrossa had nothing all race i knew once Vale had passed him he would get away. Looked so hot was great too see Vale happy after the passing of Guido...

Hopefully he can get the alst win in Valencia Congrats for Marco aswell was really nice to see Vale give him a hug and congratulate him.

So great to watch Vale race at Sepang yesterday...
Everytime he cross line,we shout 'Rossi Rossi Rossi'
at last he win the race,congratulation to him...bcoz
he deserved it ! After race we go back with happy
& enjoy.thanks Vale !

Well done to Vale he rode a great race and Congrats to Dovi for his first podium.

It was very cute when Vale hugged Dani from behind and he turned round with a big smile.

The newest news from MotoGPnews.com :-) Not the best I have to admit... He must be getting tired LOL

MotoGP race review, Sepang
Rossi wins and we have but one to go

(20/10/2008)

If this Malaysia place is so very high tech like everyone keeps telling me then why can't they run their race at a sensible hour? And before one of Yang di-Pertuan Agong's minions chirps up about timezones or lunar bicycles let me remind you all that we're living in the age of microchips, wireless technology and instant gravy. Timezones may have been a reasonable excuse back in the days when Shakespeare's son Christopher Columbus sailed his steamboat to plant the first ever potato and invent America guided only by the sound of the Northern Lights - but this is now - and I, for one, had to get up at the crack of sparrows to watch this race. Greenwich Mean Time anyone? +00.00hours?
We can all overlook the Aussie's having daft timings. As their haircut's suggest they're not long out of the trees and like to do everything upside down - but Malaysia? What's their excuse? Too much coconut husk if you ask me.

Onto the race and the MotoGP of Malaysia will easily go down in history as the second best event of the season. The best one being next week when this sorry year's finally over.
The conspiracy theory is, using the principles of Occam's razor, that by often pairing James Toseland and Dani Pedrosa so close together the famed cytoplasm attacking 'boredom virus' managed to mutate and then spread slowly and uninterestingly around the paddock like a batch of unobtrusive kelp. Eventually all have become consumed turning our once 'blue ribbon' event into the 'brown stained rag' that it sadly is today.
The other theory is, however, that the 800cc Honda rule is utterly crap and has taken all the fun out of the sport and buried it in Masumi Hamaneback's bamboo garden with a sack of posies. You chose.

The race ruining 800cc rules were decided by Honda back in 2006 to assist Dani Pedrosa win the 2007 world title.
The evil HRC had grown little Dani in test tube… but sadly left the cork in the top a touch too long whilst out on a karaoke night. So as the HRC staff belted out 'Moon Wiver' poor Dani was getting tight on space.
The result was a superb rider the size of a chipped pinhead with a flat, expressionless 'pushed up to the glass' face. Technology rocks…and still Malaysia can't sort their timing out. Did I tell you it was dark when I left bed? Even the owls were sleeping.

Anyway, by producing a rulebook that forced teams to produce monkey bikes it meant that the Spaniard was able to touch the floor with one leg without a stack of phonebooks. Furthermore Thumbelina's dreary 'wheels in, excitement out' technique could be capitalised on.
But it wasn't to be. Despite having better odds in his favour than the Harvard Globetrotters gambling ring Dani still managed to lose the 2007 title to Casey 'a very modest fanclub' Stoner.
It then became obvious that Pedrosa, despite HRC's best efforts in micro-organic technology, was wired up wrong. Worse than my Monster M600. Honda, in the style of their own people, had created Pedro's noodle to not respond to emotion meaning that, in theory at least, he could look directly at Alberto Puig's 'hair' and not laugh.
But laughing wasn't to be Dani's problem. After a long night listening once again to Alberto's monotone rendition of the time he levelled the field at San Marino Dani broke his programming and the misery emotion was created.

Imagine a world where your only emotion was utter misery. Imagine waking up each morning after a dismal night's sleep to be greeted by an overcast day you that know will be packed full of disappointment and despondency. Imagine knowing that you're the least popular globule of spewtom floating in the spittoon of life. Easy if you're Scottish I suppose but Pedrosa isn't - he's just sad.
Losing the 2007 title only increased Thumbina's ratchet depression. But 2008, and the heartache it's forced on us all, has left the Spaniard needing a 24 hours minder and is banned from buying rope in all European countries. What he needed in Malaysia was a tidy, lights-to-flag win - and thankfully he didn't get it.

It all started well for Pedrosa. He qualified fastest and, because of negative drag factors, comfortably led the way into turn one - the Spaniard was jumping the fence, hacking off the cuffs and heading deep into 'content country'.
The sheriff was on his tail though and this sheriff, like so many others, secretly enjoyed dressing up in women's clothes. It was, you'll have guessed, the unstoppable Rossi and Pedrosa's short lived de-frown was about to be re-farrowed.
It was all as predictable as Uccio is a fat waster. Champion Rossi stalked the venerable Pedrosa (retracing Alberto's steps) and then made his single decisive move (again retracing the technique of Alberto).

No one ever expected a fight back from Pedrosa. And that's exactly what we got - no fight back. Instead the SSRIs' were remotely pumped in and the race for the lead given up on handing yet another MotoGP victory for Rossi.

But as the two headed off into the distance we were left pondering the fait of Casey Stoner. After entangling his problematic wazzledanger in the tyre warmer in what the Ducati team described afterwards as a 'totally innocent incident' the ex-champion found himself out of sorts and qualifying way down in twelfth position. But we know Casey. We know he's very fast and sulks a lot when he's not winning - a recipe for a charge to the front if ever we heard one. Except this is 2008. A season where gusting foliage or the smell of freshly cut grass can prove the highlight of any race.

Casey never made it to the front. Instead he found himself in a tight pack chasing for the final rostrum position. The pack was led by the new born crybaby on the scene Dovizioso and chased by Hayden, Stoner, Nakano and possibly a few other mid-field chumps that have been washed from my mind by the dishwater of time.
As Dozi was out front Hayden, not spurred on by the fact it wasn't Pedrosa in front of him, was showing less signs of making a move than KRJR after a hearty meal. Meanwhile Stoner was suffering from a poorly hand (not from a 'conversation' with his wife like most Aussie men) and was looking understandably uncomfortable. Finally, and after a career talk with Toni Elias, Shinners Nakano was having a really strong ride but still never looked likely to overtake anyone ever.
So a high speed stalemate? Maybe not…as I on purposely omitted one rider. One rider who's very puggled face can cause sloths to go on the rampage and milk to solidify. One rider who loves to fight with anyone…including himself when left alone for over an hour. One rider who is nothing short of the savoir of MotoGP -Lunatic Lorenzo!
Surely we could count on the Spaniard's solid gold nuggets to mix things up in his usual second half attack? Well no. He fell off. And he didn't even break a bone this time.

The only real excitement was to come from farmboy Nicky 'the fattest nation' Hayden attacking his successor Dovizioso in the final laps. It was quite good. But worth me writing about? Not really - I've done enough.

So that's it. There's now not long left to try to pretend we're all still interested. This stillborn season has really tested our mental powers of the millions of months it's seemingly been lasting…but we're entering the final corner folks and with rookie of the year and second place up for grabs there's a couple of possible overtaking manoeuvres on the horizon. I'm almost looking forward to the next race…

ROTFLMAO
i love this guy
is that lux in disguise?