World Superbikes 2010 Season Preview Video

With just over two weeks to go until the 2010 World Superbikes season kicks off at Phillip Island in Australia, the ever-assiduous staff at World Superbike headquarters have put together a video preview of the season to whet your appetite for the racing - as if that was necessary after a long cold winter. The video features a rundown of the teams and riders participating in the upcoming season, interviews with most of the protagonists, and highlights of the fantastic racing that made up the 2009 season.

So pour yourself a fresh beverage, pull up a chair and enjoy 25 minutes of World Superbike action. It's very nearly time to go racing again. 

You can also watch this video in high resolution on the World Superbike Youtube channel.

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as us poor slobs in the US have to put up with occasional coverage through the lamest motor-sports network in the world, known as SPEED channel. They still think NASCAR is skilled racing!. To top it off, the wizards at WSBK still do not offer a "pay-for" viewing option like . It's blocked in the US. All that option would do is generate revenue,, how silly, right?
We, real 2 wheel race fans gave up on AMA/DMG years ago. I used to watch it religiously up until about 5 years ago.
For now we just have to surf the torrents and proxy feeds from our generous fan/friends from around the world,, And we greatly appreciate it.
I can't wait for the new season,, even in VGA resolution.

1st Rea
2nd Haga
3rd Crutchlow

If NASCAR is so easy and so unskilled please go sign up. The lowest paid driver in last years Daytona 500 made over $250,000. Thats a pretty penny for such "unskilled drivers." And thats only 1 race. There are 35 more to go. Im sure you can make a million easy since its so "unskilled." You just have to finish all the races! Its easy right?

Yeah and Hulk Hogan averaged $10 million a year so that makes Pro Wrasslin' much more skilled than collegiate and olympic wrestling I suppose...

Pro Wrasslin and NASCAR are about entertainment... period. The same kind of people who buy into Pro Wrasslin buy into NASCAR.

DMG tried to turn AMA racing into the same pony show and the fans, who appreciate real racing, didn't fall for it...and you can see the results.

I find it hard to believe that if you had the skill to do it, you wouldnt race the 500 for $250,000 or take 300 days on the road as a wrestler for 10 mil a year, just once. Thats why I say go do it. Go be a NASCAR driver for a day. Go be a pro wrestler for a day. I tired this one. Its really hard. It was the most physically demanding sport or activity Ive ever participated in. Football, hockey, soccer, racing, and skiing. I trained for 2 weeks in pro wrestling and I said "No mas!!!" You may not like what they do, you may not enjoy their form of entertainment, but you certainly will have an appreciation for what they do. You dont have to like it, just quit ragging on it every chance you get. This was originally the last paragraph. I found it to be the most important, so I moved it to the front. I rambled after this one. You can skip it or read the rest. It includes: sports and entertainment, just how good are F1 drivers vs NASCAR, MLB, Pro wrestling, whats wrong with the DMG, what Rossi should do to have some more fun for a season, why all of your comparisons are wrong and probably a bunch of other stuff I forgot.

Yes. Pro wrestlers are FAR more skilled than collegiate and olympic wrestlers. Pro wrestlers take bumps, have to have the ability to tell a story while working, they have to incorporate some of the olympic style holds as well. They have to protect themselves and the guy they are working with in the ring. Trying to pass it off as "fake" or "unskilled" because the outcomes are predetermined shows your ignorance of the art. Yes, pro wresting is an art. Its story telling Either way, this is a poor comparison. Greco-Roman Wrestling is about the pureness of the sport. Its in the Olympics and the olympics arent trying to spice up the entertainment value of greco-roman wrestling. There is no promotion, no promos. Its pure. Wrasslin as you put it, has always been, since its inception, about entertainment, with over the top characters and promos. The Million Dollar Man? The Junk Yard Dog? The British Bulldog, The Nature Boy Buddy Rogers? All over the top. AC Slater... Not so much. Well that mullet was a little crazy but I digress. That being said, I still think pro wrestlers are far more skilled than your average pro athlete. Wrestling is like a dance. Most people consider dancers to be the best pure athletes out there. A former pro-football player turned wrestler ended the career(literally, not kayfabe) of one of my favorite wrestlers.

I must have forgot that F1 and MotoGP are all about the pureness of the sport and nothing more than who can go faster than the other guys. They have NOTHING to do with entertaining the people who watch it. That must be why F1 banned traction control and why MotoGP is going back to 1000s? Why does Rossi play mind games? Why have a points system? Just keep track of wins and only wins. Its the best for racing, which is just cover for saying its more entertaining. Any professional sport from baseball to hockey, to racing is all about entertainment. If it wasnt, no one wouldnt care who won the race and by how much. You could look up the results and see who won no big deal. If it was about the pureness of the sport, they wouldnt care about advertisers, sponsors, TV deals and promotions. At the end of the day, EVERY professional league is about entertainment. Its the athlete's responsibility to do their job and to provide the show. Thats what they sell, thats how they put asses in the seats. No one would care about Rossi if MotoGP wasnt marketed. He himself even called it "The Spectacle." Spectacles are entertaining. Yankees/Red Sox. Whether or not you like baseball, its a ratings winner every time. Its because there is a story, a history, characters, events unfold. Its a spectacle, its a show, its entertaining. If you like baseball. If everything was taken away and it was just a New York team playing a Boston team, it wouldnt be anything. You think that Dorna cares who wins the Championship? So long as the racing is exciting and the races attract viewers by being entertaining thats all they care about. They dont want Rossi to win every race by a minute and half everytime. They wouldnt care if he won every race, so long as it was a battle for each of those wins. There needs to be a story because thats what draws people's attention.

You act like there is something wrong with being an entertainer. I guess you like watching poor actors, racers, sportsmen of kind. So long as they are competing or acting you are ok with it? I think not. You want to see movies like Godfather Part II with Pacino and DeNiro, The Departed with a huge ensemble cast and superstar director. You dont want to see some POS like Not Another Teen Movie starring who knows who and directed by the guy that did some crappy music video last year. To dismiss the entertainment factor in pro sports these days is shortsighted.

AMA was in dire straits before the DMG got its hands on anything. DMG tried to strong arm a bunch of tracks into millions of dollars worth of upgrades that the tracks didnt have. They tried to reestablish the hierarchy of a racing league. DMG also has no network coverage and no advertising. The AMA is no worse off than it was before the DMG messed with anything. If anything the racing in Superbike is actually better than it was when it was the Mladin/Spies show. Yea that sure was real racing. At least 3 different riders on 3 different teams won races in 2009. As opposed to 2 racers on 1 team doing all the winning in 2008. Very good "real" racing. There were only 8 racers who made 14 or more races in 2008. There were 18 racers that competed in 14 or more races in 2009. DMG is smart enough to realize that Superbikes are "The Show" and that 600s are the JV league for up and comers. They learned it last year. Also lets not forget that the riders in AMA have ZERO personality and no chance to showcase it if they do. I said it before, but Rossi wouldnt be Rossi without his personality and his press AND track battles with guys like Biaggi. How much less news would we have had all winter if contracts werent up and Rossi and Lorenzo werent using the press to stroke egos and stoke fires? Thats why no one cares about AMA. Whenever someone started to show a flicker of personality, they were suspended. Stupid move there. People come for the racing, they stay for the personality. Sometimes they come for the personality and stay for the racing. The point is that you want them to come and stay. Look at what happened to Johnny Rock Page. First off he has an awesome name. Total rock star. DMG had a chance to put a face on a racer and they blew it by making him just another guy. Smacked him down and made him apologize.

MLB, NASCAR, WSBK, F1, MotoGP all have a cast of characters competing for the same title. Max Mosley, that guy is literally a wrestling character. You may hate him, but he kept F1 in the news when the racing stunk. He gave you a reason to talk and care about the future of F1. There are historic races like the Daytona 500 and the Monaco GP. Historic huge spectacles. Rossi is a pro wrestler off the track. He is an over the top guy who spends time thinking of wacky things to do when he wins championships. In fact, its one of the reasons why people like him. He has fun. He is entertaining and over the top. He mimics pro wrestling. The only part that is different is the predetermined outcome. But the press releases, aka the promo, is still written and planed out. Id think it would be hilarious if Rossi got a Championship Belt and carried it around with him to pre and post race press conferences. Could you see him walking out to the grid with the belt on his waist? Im chuckling just thinking about it. The only real difference is that sports has to wait for its Cinderella stories. Wrestling can write them.

The only reason I bring it up is that Im sick and tired of people saying that NASCAR drivers arent talented or unskilled. You dont like the show they put on, thats fine you dont have to watch it or support it. But dont say that the drivers are unskilled because you dont like what they do. Its petty and ignorant and probably a bit of anti-southern(redneck) bigotry as well. In all fairness it makes you look like a jealous hater. "Yea they arent skilled anyone can do it!!" "Then why dont you? Paycheck is pretty good." "I dont want to! Im a REAL racer and thats not real racing!" Thats why I said go ahead and do it if its so unskilled, aka easy do it. Its an easy payday.

Also, lets not forget that in 2001, Earnhardt Sr and Jr were half a 4 man team in the Rolex 24 Hours and finished 2nd in class 4th overall. If they had no skill, they certainly couldnt have done that. Tony Stewart has won Indy races, midget and sprint races and championships. USF1 was looking at Kyle Busch to drive this year for them. If he was so unskilled why even waste the time looking? Jeff Gordon ran just 1.3 seconds off Montoya's best lap of the day at USGP practice back in 2003. This was the race that Montoya was running at the front of the race til he was penalized for a racing incident. Gordon only got 7 hot laps in Montoya's car and turned that one on his second lap. Very unskilled wouldnt you say? And what happened with all the F1 rejects in NASCAR? They stink. Montoya, Allmendinger, Franchitti, Villenueve, Hornish Jr., should be running circles around the "unskilled good ole boys." If NASCAR is unskilled, what does that say about F1 drivers? Even less than skilled than NASCAR. They won F1 races, but lost to unskilled NASCAR drivers.

The Hogan comparison is also poor. Hogan was one of, if not THE biggest draw in wrestling history. $256,735 was the LAST place finisher in the 2008 Daytona 500. Hogan wasnt last place. The winner made $1,506,040. For 5 hours worth of work. Brother!