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Written by:
Dennis Noyes
01/12/2009 - 11:43 AM
Borrego Springs, CA
John Hopkins (Photo: Kawasaki Racing) ยป More Photos
There are few things more difficult in motorsports than trying to get a Japanese factory to do something 'frivolous' that runs against commercial logic in times of crisis. Even more difficult is getting a Japanese factory to change course after a cost-cutting decision has been made internally. And the purpose of Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta’s last-minute trip to Japan to try and persuade Kawasaki Heavy Industries to reverse to continue racing in MotoGP in 2009, a 180-degree turnabout.
Having Kawasaki actually reverse themselves would have been a homerun and having Kawasaki ignore his appeal and pulling the green bikes definitively from the sparse MotoGP grid would be a resounding strikeout. We will soon learn if Ezpeleta was able at least to get on base by successfully finding a compromise solution that would have Kawasaki machines raced out of a private or semi-private structure.
The European motorcycling press, led by Italian journalists, has been quick to brand Ezpeleta's attempt to find a way to keep the two Kawasaki ZX-RRs on the grid as a failure, and much has been read into the mysterious opening sentence of the Kawasaki withdrawal announcement:
“Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd. announced today that it has decided to suspend its factory MotoGP racing activities from 2009 season.”
This certainly reads like a translation from Japanese and, with no further clarification coming out of Akashi, we are left to wonder if this succinct phase means that Kawasaki are withdrawing their ZX-RR 800cc MotoGP prototypes completely or if there is still a window of opportunity for a private team to emerge and take the responsibility and cost for running the bikes, presumably at the back of the short MotoGP pack, during 2009.
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