Monthly Archives: January 2018

THE AUDACITY TO ORGANISE THE COLLEGE GIRLS SPRING BREAK

This is a message to all those lucky people on the long flight to Sepang for the first MotoGP test of the 2018 season. Back in the day long before official test sessions for all the teams had been dreamed of we were sent to Daytona for the 200 miler event, which many of the top grand prix riders used as a pre-season test.

What a nightmare assignment it was as I’m am sure you can imagine. Two long weeks in the Florida sunshine at the end of February having to watch 750cc missiles race round the most famous piece of banked tarmac in the world. To make matters even worse you had to watch and yes even report on Supercross and short track racing, while witnessing more Harley Davidsons than you’d ever seen in your life parade up and down the Daytona strip every warm evening before enjoying more than one cool beer. Would you believe on a couple of occasions they even had the audacity to organise the college girls spring break at the same time of the races, now just how inconsiderate was that.

One year I even had to share a room with a colleague. The fact that it was enormous and overlooked the massive long beach with the sound of the Atlantic Ocean luring you to sleep each night, or in most cases early morning, was irrelevant. After so much hard work some nights it was difficult to take an early night because the band and particularly the girl lead singer who both looked and sounded like Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac for you youngsters) were too loud. They played in the bar of the hotel five nights a week, not that we went to the bar on that many occasions in those 14 tough days. On another occasion our sleep was interrupted when they launched a moon rocket from nearby Cape Canaveral, just another thing to moan about to my editor on return to a cold wet England in early March.

At the circuit some days you often had to keep out of the sun while watching a young Freddie Spencer in action for the first time on the four-stroke Honda taking on the likes of Kenny Roberts and Graeme Crosby on those frightenly quick 750cc Yamahas that would twitch and wriggle at over 150 mph on the banking.

It was a nightmare and you people on that long flight to Sepang just don’t know how lucky you are!

By |2018-01-25T19:28:17+00:00January 25th, 2018|Nick's Blog|4 Comments

OVER TWO AND A HALF MILLIONS FANS CAN’T BE WRONG

I’m so naive about believing facts and statistics. Like many people I’m happy to use them when they suit my purpose and to hide them when they don’t while not really knowing deep down if to believe them or not. However, I do believe the facts produced by Dorna regarding last year’s MotoGP World Championship because I was there first hand to check. I’m not pretending that I spent every race weekend counting the number of spectators in the grandstands on my fingers but I’m not surprised that the average attendance for each race weekend was just under 150,000 and was in fact 148,100.

It’s a staggering figure which was rarely eclipsed by any other 18 round World Championship in any sport and certainly in any other form of Motorsport. Two million six hundred and sixty five thousand eight hundred and six fans witnessed the action last year despite rain at some stage of the three day race weekend at 11 of the 18 events.

The final showdown of the season in Valencia attracted a sell-out crowd of 110,220 fans on race day and a weekend attendance of 209,707 to witness Marc Marquez capture a memorable championship. The Red Bull Ring in Austria was jam packed with 201,589 MotoGP fans which was around three times bigger than the attendance for their Formula One event. Sepang in Malaysia staged its last Formula One race for the time being while the MotoGP race brought in nearly 100,000 race day fans despite the rain.

Despite all the uncertainty about its future The British Grand Prix at Silverstone still attracted a weekend crowd of over 128,00 which should increase this year with Silverstone endorsing it’s faith in the event. Another venue looking for an increase is the legendary Sachsenring in Germany. Despite a date change which affected the ticket sales nearly 165,000 fans watched their local hero Jonas Folger finish second.

Naïve I may be about attendance statistics but I do understand they are a true indication just what a great show MotoGP produces for the masses. The equally impressive social media figures are more of a grey area for a grey head like me but on good authority, by people considerably younger than myself, I’m told they are equally impressive – I have to believe them.

The official MotoGP web site attracted 70 million visits, 24 million unique users with 208 million pages being visited which sounds like a lot to me. Facebook attracted 12.7 million fans, Instagram 4.9 million followers, Twitter 2.3 million followers and YouTube 1.2 million subscribers. The new MotoGP eSport Championship was a massive success with 25 million video views, 2.8 million engagements and a reach of 75.5 million.

The worldwide success of MotoGP is a clear indication that by producing a spectacle that excites and stimulates the fans whether at the venue, on the television or social media is the key to success. Build the infrastructure round the principle that the product has to be right before you can gain the benefits – Other sports should take notice and follow their example.

By |2018-01-18T13:46:35+00:00January 18th, 2018|News and Events, Nick's Blog|1 Comment

Christmas MotoGP Trivia Quiz – Answers

There are sixteen sets of initials that are shared by two or more world champions. (As an example, “J.M.” for Jorge Martinez and Joan Mir) How many of the other fifteen sets of initials can you come up with?

Here is the full list:

HA – Haruchika Aoki/Hiroshi Aoyama/Hugh Anderson/Hans-Georg Anscheint

KC – Kel Carruthers/Keith Campbell

LC – Loris Capirossi/Luca Cadalora

MD – Mick Doohan/Mike Di Meglio

DK – Danny Kent/Daijiro Kato

MH – Mike Hailwood/Manuel Herreros

ML – Marco Lucchinelli/Mario Lega

EL – Eddie Lawson/Eugenio Lazzarini/Enrico Lorenzetti

AM – Anton Mang/Alex Marquez

JM – Joan Mir/Jorge Martinez

MM -Marc Marquez/Marco Melandri

TP – Tom Phillis/Tarquinio Provini

KR – Kenny Roberts/Kenny Roberts Jr

CS – Casey Stoner/ChristianSarron/Cecil Sandford

JS – Jarno Saarinen/John Surtees/Julian Simon

KS – Kevin Schwantz/Kazuto Sakata

By |2018-01-02T11:03:13+00:00January 2nd, 2018|Martin Raines Blog, News and Events, Uncategorised|1 Comment
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