MOTOGP » Chaz returns to the AMA.

Guys please - like someone said, u get PAID and very well to ride for factory/semi factory teams in AMA. Whereas u usually need to pay for a ride in WSS. How can Chaz s decision be a silly one.
On a diff note, no , Chaz was never a top 250cc rider. Not at all. And moto gp proved too much for him.
I dont see him being Ama ss champ in 08 though. That s a long shot. AMA is a hard series. Tough tracks, top machinery , strong factory efforts, strong riders. Ask Neil Hodgson. The top AMA guys would be right in front in WSBk and WSS

If Chaz was any good he would have been snapped up by a BSS team by now and/or a good 250 team in GP's The mere fact he has to go off to a tin pot championship like the AMA says it all. 3 or 4 good riders with the rest being made up of middle level club racers. Apart from JT your next batch of Brits to get any where near the top MotoGP level racing will be the likes of Sykes, Crutchlow and Rea. If Chaz is doing it for the money at such a young age then you really have to question his desire to succeed!

yamapimp - u obviously have no idea what you re talking about. Nicky got to mgp via AMA, so will do Ben Spies. So did Roger Lee Hayden (who by the way got a 9th at Laguna while Chaz got a 15th).
Tin pot series? Ducati got their *** kicked there. Ask them how "weak" AMA is. The factories spend lot of money there, it s a huge market. Ask James Ellison, Hodgson, Chaz ... Maybe CFhaz is sick of running on underpowered bikes and actually likes to get paid for his work.
mat Mladin is a bigger guy in Suzuki than Hopkins will ever be. get your facts straight sir.
Oh, and all these top factory riders were privateers at some point, dont forget.

I agree with you chu. AMA is a very competitive series. I'm not a Mladin but, if memory serves me correctly, he was the fastest out of all the AMA/WSBK riders at a test in Phillip Island earlier this year. I think he was 1 second or better faster than Biaggi. Chaz has struggled in AMA this past year and he may do a little bit better on the Attack Kawasaki but, he'll have to get by alot of people to win (Hayden/Hayes/Herron). By the way, he's not replacing Roger Lee Hayden. Roger rides for Monster Energy while Steve Rapp and Ben Attard rode for Attack Kawasaki plus, Roger won the title last year so, I don't see him being replaced by anyone next year. I think it's Ben Attard being replaced.

You re right Laterrus; Attack is a semi factory very solid team. Monster is actually Kawasaki Racing.
When Hodgson raced AMA, he said Mladin would be 1,2 or 3 in WSBK from day one

Mladin has a VERY crappy,"I'm a God" attitude and he got what he deserved this past season. He's sooooo ***** and stuck on himself but, dang that guy can ride the wheels off a bike! He ran his mouth all year and rode his heart out only to lose AGAIN to Ben Spies. That shows us all what will/can happen if you let winning increase the size of your ego/head to the point where you think you can't be beat. He's been a very big fish in a little pond for a loooooong time now but, it seems that other fish are starting to grow too! LOL!

Mick - Were you there when the negotiations were going on with Ducati? As with all these posts unless you were there you can't comment but of course you can offer an opinion on what YOU believe. I was at Valencia & I spoke to a journalist who knows Chaz very well & basically he told me that
Chaz has chosen to go to AMA over Ducati because Ducati could only offer around 30 days testing & 1 wildcard & no slot for 2009 (even if he went well) Chaz was keen to take the role but also at 20 yrs old wanted to do some racing. Plans were in place to race a Ducati in America (in between testing) but in the end Ducati Europe decided not to go ahead with this. An idiot? I think not! IMO of course

I don't think Mladin is that good. He might have been fasted when testing at Philip Island but he was not on Pirelli tyres.

For a long time he has been a very big fish in a small pond. He has always had far and away the best bike, except when he had the 750 and then he didn't win (when the ducatis were strong). When Yoshi Suzuki hired a decent team mate, he was beaten, twice (albeit very close this year).

Can't blame him though. I bet he has a nice retirement fund put by now.

Laterrus. Sorry, I didn't read your post before writing mine (I didn't mean to steal your line).

Chu,

Yes, Ducati did get their ***** kicked, that is because the Ducati was made to run a lower state of tuninig that was allowed in WSB and BSB, hence the reason they have pulled out! Roger Lee Hayden got 9th, wippee, on a track that he knows like the back of his hand and which is notoriously hard to learn so he should have been higher to be honest. James Ellison is not really a name you can compare anybody with, BSB privateer champion, doesn't get much better than that does it! And he got his *** kicked on a factory kwak in WSS.