Just been on a 2 day course with the mighty one himself as the guest instructor.
I managed to keep him in sight for about 3 corners before he left me laughing inside my helmet at the fact that I'd just been done up the inside into Ritches by a 5 time World Champ...
The guy really is amazing. He hadn't ridden since last year apparently and lapped Snetterton, a track which he'd never seen, perfectly. He was following James from Fast Bikes, who was riding one of the Sabre V4 500s (with slicks) for a few laps. Mick was on a bog standard 2004 Blade with soggy standard suspension and normal road tyres, but was able to just sit 2 bike lengths behind him, playing with him as the journo tried his best to get away!
What was more of an eye opener was after the session that I did with him, he knew pretty much every inch of the track, but not even the names of any of the corners. He was explaining how the undualtions and camber were effecting his style at certain points and how he tarmac changed etc... Said it takes him just 2 laps to learn a track.
Another thing was his dismissal of slipper clutches. Someone asked how to control the bike the (diesels though, I was the only 2-stroke!!) when the back end started to slide when changing down under hard braking. He mentioned the slipper clutches in MotoGP but then said he found that the best thing he had to control it was his left hand on the clutch lever... He said he doesnt like relying on technology when you can do it better manually... Obviously on a different planet!
Another thing was his view on Rossi which was quite surprising... Although he rates him very highly, he believes his current form is down to Burgess' technical know how. Apparently Rossi was never going to go to Yamaha without Burgess, as that crew would have automatically gone to Hayden, who Mick believes would be now top 3 consistantly had that happened. He said Rossi has the ability to do what he's done but it would have been another 1-2 years to get there...
Anyway - I have a couple of pics if you wanna view...
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/mlargos
Cheers - Maxim
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NSR300R - Why did i ever have a 250...