MotoGP Preview - Grand Pix of Japan at Motegi -ozzy go-motorcycle-usa.com

The boys return to the land of the rising sun for the A-Style Grand
Prix of Japan, the series one and only Japanese round. As you
would probably assume, Japan has a long history of motorcycle
racing. This is the 34th consecutive year of Grand Prix action in
Japan. From 2000 to 2003, the Motegi venue hosted the Pacific GP
while the country's older Suzuka circuit ran the Japanese GP up
until Daijiro Kato's tragic death in 2003. After Kato's death,
Suzuka was deemed too dangerous and stricken off the MotoGP
calendar, thereby making Motegi Japan's sole Grand Prix.

In Portugal last weekend we saw the grand podium return of Fiat
Yamaha's Valentino Rossi. Rossi, who hadn't been on the podium
for four consecutive races, won Estroil by a scant two-tenths of a
second over runner-up Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa. Rossi's win
(his fourth of the season) reduced the point's gap to 76-points
from championship leader Casey Stoner.

Rossi, who currently holds title to the lap record at Motegi, is
going to continue to try and claw his way back from his seemingly
massive championship point's deficit.

"Portugal was a great, great race and it was fantastic to win again
after so long," exclaimed Rossi. "Now we go straight to Motegi
and the motivation and confidence within the team is very high.
We know that our rivals are always very strong in Motegi and we
expect the same from Stoner this year, but I've never won there
with Yamaha so I will be doing my best to change that this week."

Rossi echoed AMA Superbike runner-up Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat
Mladin's championship thoughts which hopefully won't foreshadow
Mladin's 2007 season results.

"We're not thinking of the championship, we know it's probably
out of our reach, but we can do the best we can to try to keep it
open for as long as possible and this will be our goal next week,"
Rossi said.

Honda owns the Twin Ring Motegi facility, which it built in 1997.
The Repsol Honda squad hopes to capitalize on their home field
advantage. Both riders did well in Portugal and look forward to
consecutive top finishes at Honda's track.

"Portugal has given us a boost and so I'm really looking forward
to going straight to Motegi and hopefully picking up where we left
off at Estoril," commented Pedrosa. "Of course tires are going to
be critical to this and Motegi is... click on ozzy go to the full story
pics from ducati.com & worldhonda.com