2011 ARRC Supersport 600 Champion, Katsuake Fujiwara, meets the fans

In an initiative to draw crowds to the Asia Road Racing Championship (ARRC) opening round at Sepang this coming weekend, the promoter is waiving ticket prices for spectators and car parking. If it works as well as the reduction in prices at Estoril’s MotoGP round last week, where crowd numbers doubled to almost 50,000, the circuit owners will be more than please with the results.

The ARRC has grown progressively in recent years to become the region’s main proving ground for racers with the potential to reach the world stage. One of the sensations of this year’s MotoGP Moto3 championship, Malaysia’s Zulfahmi Khairuddin, 21, is a graduate of ARRC’s Underbone series. His fellow countryman, Hafiz Syharin, 18, moved into the ultra-competitive Supersport 600 championship in 2011, building up his results through the year and winning the final race in Qatar. After being pursued for his signature by a top MotoGP Moto2 team for 2012, he is riding for Petronas Raceline Malaysia in the prestigious CEV Buckler Moto2 championship (Spain’s famous MotoGP world champion ‘production line’), running in the leading group during the first two rounds. It is surely only a matter of time and money before Hafiz steps onto the Moto2 world stage.

Ryuichi Kiyonari will be released from his cage at Sepang this weekend

There is a rich mixture of established international stars and hungry young racers in ARRC Supersport 600. Of the seniors, last year’s champion, Katsuake Fujiwara put down a marker in testing that he will be the man to beat again in 2012 on his Manual-Tech BEET Kawasaki, while three times British Superbike Champion Ryuichi Kiyonari will be spearheading MUSASHi Boon Siew Honda’s stated “All-Kill” assault on all three ARRC classes. The likeable ‘Kiyo’, now 30, will need time to adjust his riding style after a decade on 1000cc superbikes, but there is no doubt that his presence in the championship will set a new internationally recognized benchmark for the series. His three Supersport teammates include last year’s championship runner-up Azlan Shah Kamaruzaman.

Thailand’s AP Honda brings two young guns to the series, with ‘Tingnote’ Thitipong Warakorn, 23, and Ratthapong Wilairot, 19. Tingnote was Thailand’s Superbike champion in 2010 and runner-up in 2011 after injury and mechanical failure foiled his chances of retaining the title. However, he has been in a class of his own in his home country, so moving into ARRC Supersport is a shrewd career move for him. Ratthapong will be the third Wilairot to have competed in the series, after his late father, Christmas and Gresini MotoGP Moto2 rider, Ratthapark. Having finished second in the 2010 Malaysian Super Series, Ratthapong knows Sepang well and is regarded by many insiders as being equally as talented as his older brother, but more aggressive.

‘Tingnote’ Thitpong Warakorn on the AP Honda CBR 600RR

Malaysia’s Petronas Yamaha will be looking for glory after finishing third and fourth in last year’s championship and after sending Hafiz to Europe. They retain Zamri Baba for 2012, who scored five podium finishes on his way to third in last year’s championship and bring in three new riders.

Three out of four Indonesians will be on Yamahas in this year’s Supersport line-up. The popular Doni Tata Pradita is not on the list, but the three new riders include the highly rated underbone star, Sudarmono. The fourth Indonesian racer is Fujiwara’s Kawasaki teammate, Fadli Imannuddin.

Suzuki Pilipinas field the only Suzuki in the 600cc category, for Tadahito ‘Dashi’ Watanabe, who has a Filipina mother and Japanese father. Yoshimura will be on the tools and providing a useful skills transfer for the team’s Filipino mechanics.

Notable absentees from the opening round will be Yamaha Thailand’s dynamic duo of Decha Kraisart and Chalermpol Polamai, who already have three Supersport 600 titles between them and the proven ability to run consistently with and get the better of Fujiwara. The team has decided to follow up its one-two triumph in round one of the All Japan Supersport Championship, by competing in the second round, which clashes with ARRC’s season opener.

As the Blue Riband class in the ARRC series, Supersport 600 has two races at each event. However, two support series can be expected to provide thrilling racing and a cost-effective academy for Asia’s elite junior riders.

The Underbone class is long established, but the large gap between this and the 600s is filled for the first time this year by the Asia Dream Cup, a Honda one-make championship for the CBR 250. The series was effectively pioneered last year by Thailand’s FMSCT and AP Honda in the form of its Moto3 Production class, the rules for which emulate MotoGP Moto3 regulations, but with modifications limited to homologated production components to control costs. The series provided the most exciting racing seen in Thailand in 2011 and AP Honda are fielding two of their young stars in the Asia Dream Cup, including 18 year-old ‘Stamp’ Apiwat Wongthananon, who is also the 2011 Thailand Superbike Champion.

Fans wishing to follow the series can watch it live on TV in most participating countries – Thailand is currently an exception – and can also track the action through live timing on ARRC’s multi-lingual website. Races are also uploaded to YouTube after each event.

Asia Dream Cup 2012 racers at Sepang

Asia Road Racing Championship 2012 Calendar

Round 1 ~ MALAYSIA ~ May 11 to 13

Round 2 ~ INDONESIA ~ June 13 to 17

Round 3 ~ CHINA ~ August 2 to 5

Round 4 ~ JAPAN ~ September 7 to 9

Round 5 ~ TAIWAN ~ October 11 to 14

Round 6 ~ QATAR ~ November 21 to 24

A picture of Casey Stoner doing this would be worth a lot of money

I have just got home from a 10 day trip with my Swiss ‘sister’ Anouk Marchand, which included a mission to the San Marino GP at Misano to follow-up on various emails and Skype calls and find a world class ride for one of Thailand’s most exciting young riders, ‘Stamp’ Apiwath Wongthananon. While the final outcome is yet to be decided, the good news is that we found a lot of enthusiasm for the project and, by race day last Sunday, were beating interested Moto3 teams off with a stick. Only a late piece of chicanery by one of MotoGP’s most unscrupulous team bosses threatens to spoil the party, but hopefully the good guys will prevail and give the lad the chance his talent deserves. If karma shows up to lend a hand the said team boss will get what he deserves too.

While I was there I also settled myself into the media centre and fired off a few articles for FMSCT-Live, StayOnTheBlack and the RideAsia forum. It was great fun and I learned a lot from just wandering around and talking to people, which is always the best way to find out what is really going on.

Nothing impressed me more than the resilience of Valentino Rossi, who, despite a miserable first season with Ducati, appears as cheerful as ever and as willing as ever to spend time being photographed with the huge groups of fans that await him everywhere and signing endless autographs. Alvaro Bautista, Marco Simoncelli and Randy de Puniet were the only other premier class stars who made readily themselves available, while, although not as accessible as the others, Jorge Lorenzo did scoot openly around the paddock and appeared to have shaken off the ‘in the same trousers’ attention of ‘Shrek’ and the rest of the grim team that enveloped him after he won the greatest prize in motorcycle racing. I kept my camera cocked and ready in sports mode to catch anyone else, but actually lowered it when Ben Spies appeared in front of me. The taciturn Texan looked so unhappy as to be almost grief-stricken (could it have been the hot rumour that Andrea Dovisioso will replace him next season at Yamaha?), so I decided to leave him wallowing in the misery of racing motorcycles for a living at the highest level, the poor fellow. The other superstars of MotoGP were invisible throughout the weekend, hiding in their motorhomes or at the back of the plush hospitality suites in the restricted area of the paddock. I covered this topic in more detail in my first post from Misano, last Friday.

It was comments from some of the Italians in the paddock that led me to the headline of this post. There seems to be a growing resentment that Ducati’s developmental shortcomings are compromising the career of the nine times world champion. If it turns into a public backlash it will be an interesting case for marketing geeks, because it would assert Valentino Rossi’s personal brand over Ducati’s, which has for many years been one of the world’s most admired marques. It is an anecdotal observation right now, but if empirical evidence starts to emerge I might just have a crack at turning it into a PhD dissertation so that I can enjoy the irony of using ‘The Doctor’ to become a doctor.

With just three weeks to go until teams have to submit their final rider line-ups to IRTA, finding sponsors was on everyone’s mind. Let’s not forget that MotoGP is a global business and teams are companies who provide bikes, technical, personal and logistical support for their riders, which is paid for by sponsors. They have all been hit by the continuing global economic slowdown and this has hardened the attitude in the paddock. Notwithstanding that getting the best riders is still important, many team bosses are now openly more concerned with gathering cash than collecting trophies. To reduce their financial risk, most teams have registered two or even three riders with IRTA for each slot on the grid, so there will be an unholy scramble between now and the October 2nd deadline when final nominations have to be submitted.

Like the top echelons of any sport, money talks in MotoGP and makes it a harder, more serious business than it was even a decade ago and it puts its performers under far more pressure as a result. For that reason and because I’m an optimist at heart, the final word goes to the sports brightest rising star, Marc Marquez, whose consistently cheerful demeanour reveals his love of motorcycle racing and promises fun for its fans when the Valentino Rossi era eventually draws to a close.

While there is little compromise in all the content I am creating for the friends and colleagues just mentioned (I’m too old and past it to sell my soul to anyone who wants to tell me what to write), this blog will be from here onwards:

1. A place for ideas which may not suit any particular audience
2. A test-bed where I can develop ideas and get live feedback before they reach more respectable outlets
3. A link to articles I am publishing elsewhere

Right now I am pulling together articles, test reports and editorial for the third issue of Wroommm!!, working with three teams for content and insight in the British Superbike paddock and contemplating Valentino Rossi and the current state of MotoGP. US blogger Chris Martin recently posted a thoughtful piece on the nine-times world champion that has caused indignation amongst diehard Rossi fans and has opened an interesting debate. If and when I get around to commenting, I’ll link it to Chris’s original post.

Startline, Isle of Man TT 2011

As a thanks for taking the trouble to click through, here are a couple of goodies. First, my picture of the year, taken by Czech photographer Jana Gio. As it happens it is of another racing friend, Paul ‘Moz’ Owen, on the startline at this year’s Isle of Man TT.

Second is a video clip of a highly controversial Superbike race at the Thailand Circuit, which has had around 115,000 viewings since it was posted, just 10 days ago. It features two mysterious jump starts by Thailand’s most experienced superbike racer, an accidental coming together of the two leaders, a kick as the same two riders peeled into a corner and a post-race scuffle in the paddock. As I said in a post two weeks ago, it is probably the strangest race I have ever seen.

See you again very soon…