How important is Welkom?

Never in the 55-year history of grand prix motorcycle racing has the start of a season been more eagerly anticipated in 2004.

Often such high levels of anticipation end in bitter disappointment, but most believe that won't be the case this season. Also the late start and then a three week gap after the first three races mean it's essential that the championship contenders hit the ground running at Welkom on Sunday.

Winning that first race is a great boost to rider and team moral, but the record books show it does not automatically lead to a World Championship crown seven long months later.

Sure enough, World Champion Valentino Rossi has won the opening races for the last three years but he also won 28 other grands prix in that period of dominance. Also all those opening rounds were held in Honda's backyard at Suzuka. Look back beyond 'the Rossi years' and first race victory does not guarantee Championship success.
Australian Garry McCoy, now a race winner in the World Superbike Championship, took victory the last opening round to be held in Welkom four years ago. American Kenny Roberts went on to win the title for Suzuki after only finishing sixth in that opening race.

A year earlier in 1999 Roberts won the opening round at Sepang in Malaysia while World Champion elect Alex Criville finished on the rostrum in third place.

In 1998 current Camel Honda rider Max Biaggi rocked the established 500cc stars with a stunning performance in the opening race at Suzuka in Japan. Riding in the premier class for the very first time after winning four successive 250cc titles, Biaggi made a memorable debut by winning comfortably from Tadayuki Okada with over five seconds to spare. Australian Mick Doohan retired from the race with a broken crankshaft but that didn't stop him winning his fifth successive World crown.

In his previous four Championship campaigns Doohan won the opening round at Shah Alam in Malaysia in 1997 and at Eastern Creek in Australia a couple of years earlier. Sandwiched between was Luca Cadalora's surprise win at Shah Alam in 1996 where Doohan finished fifth.

Even when Doohan won his first title he had to settle for third place behind the Cagiva of American John Kocinski and Yamaha of Cadalora in front of his home crowd at Eastern Creek in 1994.

The first ever 500cc World Championship race at the 1949 TT races in the Isle of Man was not won by the rider who went on to win the very first World title. In an amazing battle round the infamous 60.721 kms TT circuit, three riders shared the lead after after two laps. Les Graham, Ted Frend and Bob Foster could not be separated on time.

Graham then built up a 90 second advantage but just five kilometres from the finish of the 425.047 kms race his AJS broke down. Typically he pushed it all the way to the finish line to grab tenth place. His efforts were rewarded later in the year when he clinched the first ever World 500cc Championship.

There will be no pushing the last five kilometres to the finish at Welkom on Sunday. Fifty five years on from that Isle of Man marathon, it's a 45 minute explosion of sound and vision with not one second to spare for breakdowns or mistakes.

After a prolonged winter the riders face three grands prix in just four weeks at the very contrasting venues of Welkom, Jerez and Le Mans. The Championship will not be won in such a short space of time but it certainly could be lost.