Woke up at 5:30 am this morning and tried to sneak in a year end ride, geared up and left the house at 6:00 am. Hardly any traffic at all considering it was a Monday. Guess it helped that it was December 26, the Monday after Christmas or as they call it in Britain "Boxing Day". My plan was to head to Marilaque, weather down in Pasig and Antipolo was perfect. I started the ascent with a grin on my face and was a bit disappointed half way up. The roads where wet and it started drizzling, had to no choice but to abandon the ride and headed back down. Did see quite few under bones and a few liter bikes on the way up, did not have the heart to inform them that the roads where wet.
Since I did not get my year end fix today, will try again tomorrow. I might as well do my Year End Result of WSBK.
Winner of the 2011 WSBK championship is Carlos " Charlie" Checa. Born October 15, 1972 in Barcelona, Spain. Life truly begins at 40 for King Carlos as he is fondly called in WSBK. Carlos Checa has had an up and down career in Motogp and has raced mostly Yamaha's and Honda's during the 500cc era. From 2002 to 2007, he moved from Yamaha to Ducati then to Honda and on his last year in MotoGP was riding for Pramac Ducati.
Trying to revive his career, he moved to WSBK in 2008 with Ten Kate Honda using the CBR 1000RR until 2009. Carlos then switched to Althea Racing team using the 1098 R for the 2010 season and his fortunes started to change, he scored Althea's first WSBK victory in Philip Island in the opening round. He was leading both races in Millersport USA when his Ducati had technical problems which both resulted in DNF's. He redeemed himself with an Italian win in Imola and finished 3rd place in 2010. Max Biaggi eventually won the 2010 Championship.
Ducati Corse announced a pullout of their Factory Team for the 2011 WSBK season and many (including myself) were shocked of Ducati's decision. The rumor mill was on full acceleration and blaming Ducati's signing of Rossi as the reason for the pull out. Little knew that it was due to technical issues with Rules concerning the V-twins against the V and inline fours.
Althea Racing did the next best thing, they bought the bikes and spares of the 2010 Ducati Corse Team. Competing with the 2010 bike against the newly crowned RSV APRC Factory and the ever improving BMW S1000 RR for the 2011 season. Nobody taught that Ducati Althea had a chance of winning the 2011 WSBK championship with a 39 year old pilot riding it. Carlos Checa proved everybody wrong and dominated the opening round of Philip Island winning both races on board a Ducati 1098R and 12 more races to be crowned WSBK Champion for 2011.
Congratulations to Carlos Checa for winning the 2011 WSBK Championship.
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