early in 2007 - after a history of problems throughout the 2006 season as well - The Doctor engineered a switch to Bridgestones during the latter part of 2007. After a couple of races to get up to speed with the Japanese rubber, Rossi is back on top

the AMA's policy of selling paddock tickets means that for part of the weekend, you stand a chance of actually talking to your heroes. If you're looking for a party, a chance to celebrate the joys of motorcycle racing with like-minded individuals, then you

Of FailureItalian MotoGP racers taking part in their home race at Mugello face all three of these burdens combined. First, there is the baying crowd. In a land where the motorcycle is king, and motorcycle racing vies with soccer as the national sport, nearly

-mortgaging, raiding granny's savings and putting on hold family holidays to afford the £8499 price tag - twice as much as any other mass-produced 750 sportsbike of the day. But nobody cared. It's a genuine piece of motorcycling history. Harriet Ridley25-The sweet

are surrounded by is not the pattern of history, but the strands of the stories we impose upon it, as we have done from the dawn of time.There was no shortage of pompous pronouncements going into the Shanghai round of MotoGP. Every journalist, commentator, fan

to Volvo ownership.To be truthful I'm not sure bike evolution went this way (I have a sneaking suspicion it probably didn't), but I never paid much attention at school, and anyway, 'history of the motorcycle' wasn't on the curriculum... Moving swiftly on

remain locked in ethereal combat on each and every anniversary of that turning point in English history. As we wheel the bikes down the slippery mound and thumb the starter buttons, we realise that these old campaigners aren't ghosts, they're still very

start, while 25 points - or less - at the last race can be the difference between going down in the history books as World Champion and the chump who came up short. Taking these factors into account, you can be pretty sure that someone, somewhere has

, and the final round, of the World Endurance Championship. It has an alluring history and, like Suzuka, draws massive 100,000-plus crowds due to the racing and off-circuit carnival merrymaking - and mindless destruction, unlike Suzuka. It was first held in 1922

happened. And sometimes we reduce the vast complexity of history down to a handful of exchanges between famous individuals, assigning responsibility for events that swept across the world on the actions of a few key players.Usually, such patterns