Lagune Seca ... Hayden cleaned up |
So we're in Las Vegas a couple of days after Laguna Seca and we're all completely wasted in a super-stretched Hummer which seats about 20 people. Me, Pete my motorhome driver, some girls from the team, Alyssia and Valentino and some of his guys are all there having fun. Out in the Vegas bars, this is cool. I know a few people here, so we're getting the VIP treatment, you know: the bouncers are letting us have a few drinks near the dance floor and they're not fucking with us! It's awesome!
Best of all Rossi's loving it. Now, I won't say I'm tight with money, but if I'm charged $5 for a Bud Light I think someone's screwing with me, but I'm so pissed I don't care that we're being charged $375 for a bottle of Vodka (minimum purchase two bottles) despite the fact that one bottle should cost $65! I'm saying to people, 'Shit! Let's drink!' At one nightspot alone we stack up a $1400 bill and that's on top of a $1200 restaurant bill, then at Studio 54 we've spent another $6-700. We're spending money like water. Best of all, Valentino - the guy who gets shit for free most places in Europe - is just another motherfucker-Vegas-visiting-high-rolling bastard, who has to pay up like the rest of us. Hey, this is Vegas after all. We're celebrating the double podium at Laguna Seca - me second and Vale third - and I've become one of only three people to beat Vale this year, which is neat. We were in the Yamaha North American Yellow, which was awesome. All my heroes rode in that colour.
Hats off to Nicky Hayden, though. The guy was on fire all weekend from the first session to the last. It was a fairytale weekend for him. People ask if I'm jealous, but I'm not. I got to the stage with Troy Bayliss in 2002 that he beat me in the first six or somethin' races of the year in World Superbike but I realised that I couldn't have done any more, so why be pissed? As long as I'd given my all, I was happy.
So, did you see the pass? I put it onto Valentino going into the Corkscrew. It was beautiful. It was something I never did with the WSB guys, as they knew the place, but for new-comers the Corkscrew is daunting. To be honest, everybody knows there's a few tricks to Laguna, some of which you keep learning. The way we have the bike now it's so stable and perfect, I was able to make most of my passes there.
Since Assen - where we scored third behind Vale and Marco Melandri - we've sussed out what the problem was before. If you look at me and Valentino, I'm over the front more, while Rossi is more centralised over the bike. I've struggled to get weight over the rear and get traction coming out of corners. It's no wonder I was trying his settings and getting nowhere. I'm not telling you what we did, but we got more weight over the rear and when we back-to-back tested at Assen, I was half a second quicker. I now feel like an extension of the bike.
Hats off to my team for that, especially my crew-chief Daniele Romagnoli. He wanted to do it earlier, back in Mugello, but practice time is so tight we had to test a bunch of tyres or something. It was only at Assen that we got the chance to try these things out. So now the bike's sorted out, I feel confident. I think at the moment a race win is coming, 100%. The only person I think can beat me on a good day is Valentino. It's the way I felt back in 2002 with Troy and it's good to feel that way again.
Marco and some others have said that Valentino will only be your friend until you're winning or beating him, and I kind of agree. It's fun to be mates on and off track, but look at it from Valentino's position. He's Number One. For sure if someone threatens him he's going to think differently about that person. We all would. We're all racers. It's a race thing, but when people beat you, you have to think, 'Okay, you won this time. But you got lucky.'
