#Motogp

Any parent will tell you watching their children succeed brings a sense of pride that can’t be matched. But when your child is a world champion like Nicky Hayden, that sense of pride goes beyond winning a tee-ball game. Of course, succeeding at the highest level requires talent, dedication and discipline to achieve. And while you can’t teach talent, the other two traits are within the means of parents to instill in their children.

From the inauguration of KTM’s new RC16 MotoGP project the brand made clear it would eventually sell a track-only, customer-spec model somewhere in the six-figure range.

Heading into the finale of the 2016 season, the atmosphere in Valencia was mostly celebratory. The title had been decided, the silly season was well over, and most of the riders were competing for pride alone. The Ricardo Tormo circuit here is one of the top venues in this sport, loved by the Spanish riders and most of the others, too. Bragging rights during the offseason are nice and all, but pale in comparison to a season finale with a title on the line such as we saw in 2013 and last year.

What will people reading this remember about the 2016 MotoGP season?  A Marquez year, his third of many, for sure.  The year Crutchlow won his first two races?  The year Jack Miller, Andrea Iannone and Maverick Vinales each won his first?  The year Suzuki and Ducati and Australia broke their droughts?  The year Yamaha started one of their own?  My fave is the year nine different riders stood on the top step of the podium, some for the first time and some, perhaps, for the last.

The 26th running of the Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix on the newly refurbished Sepang International Circuit went especially well for several combatants, and not so well for a few others. For factory Ducati veteran Andrea Dovizioso, his skills, his bike, the track and the weather came together in the best possible way, allowing him the relief of a second premier class win, his first since 2009’s British Grand Prix. Contenders Cal Crutchlow, Marc Marquez and Andrea Iannone all crashed within a minute of one another mid-race, to the delight of those following them. The denouement of the 2016 season concludes in two weeks at the finale in Valencia.

2016 MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez, he of the “win or bin” countenance, crashed out of the lead in Australia on Lap 10, his testing session cut short by a crash he later graciously conceded as being completely his fault. In the process he handed a big win to Brit Cal Crutchlow, providing yet another example, as if we need it, that in order to finish first one must first finish. Round 17, the Malaysian Grand Prix, offers fans another opportunity to see Marquez climb aboard a $1 million motorcycle on Sunday afternoon and say, “WTF?”

Sunday’s Michelin Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix was about what one would expect from a great track after the championship had been decided. Anointed champion Marc Marquez, on the factory Honda, having given a clinic on Saturday to take pole, obliterated the field early, apparently on his way to an easy win. Until Lap 10, when he apparently lost focus, pushing harder than necessary, folded the front in Turn 4 and handed the win to the ascendant Cal Crutchlow.

Ducatisti are nothing if not a passionate bunch. Ducati lovers worldwide are known for showing their displays of affection for their favorite Italian motorcycle in many ways, but Anton Henggono may have taken the cake with this one. What you see here is a Shoei X-Fourteen helmet Henggono designed to mimic Ducati’s 2016 Desmosedici GP MotoGP racer. And here’s the best part: there’s not a single sticker on the helmet. The entire design was hand painted by Henggono himself.

For the third time in four seasons, Repsol Honda supernova Marc Marquez claimed the MotoGP world championship. He did it by winning the Japanese Grand Prix while the Bruise Brothers of the factory Yamaha team – Jorge Lorenzo and the legend Valentino Rossi – choked on their own bile, both riders crashing out of a race in which neither could afford the slightest error. This unlikely confluence of events is responsible for, among other things, the very pedestrian championship celebration prior to the podium. Nothing like the Bushido spectacle we watched in 2014.

Round 15 of the 2016 MotoGP championship is the first leg of the annual Pacific flyaway, three races in three weeks during which the title will be decided. Unlike 2013 and last year, this year’s finale at Valencia will not be the dramatic season-decider they love hosting in Spain in November. A question gaining traction in the paddock raises the issue of whether it’s the Honda winning the title or the Yamahas losing it. Big Blue hasn’t had a win this year since Valentino Rossi’s win over Marc Marquez at Catalunya back in early June.

Dear MOby,

Repsol Honda’s suddenly cerebral Marc Marquez took a big step toward seizing the 2016 MotoGP title with a formidable win on the Spanish plain. By thumping the factory Yamaha Bruise Brothers, he increased his margin from 43 to 52 points with four rounds left. A mistake on Lap 3 took him from first to fifth, but he remained patient, kept his powder dry, and went through, all stealthy-like, on Andrea Dovizioso, Maverick Vinales, Jorge Lorenzo and, finally, Valentino Rossi on the way to his first win on Spanish soil since 2014.

If Motorland Aragon were located roughly 50 miles west of its current location, it would sit in the exact middle of nowhere. In 2010, the dusty outlier was to be a temporary emergency replacement for the ill-fated Hungarian GP track at Balatonring, which never got finished. It has since become a fixture on the calendar, dreaded by journalists, a fourth Spanish round seeming to be exactly what the sport, with its international ambitions, doesn’t need, what with so many countries and venues banging on the door to get in. Nonetheless, here we, or they, actually, are.

Dear MOby,

Former World Champion Nicky Hayden is returning to MotoGP for at least one more race, riding for the injured Jack Miller for the Team Estrella Galicia Marc VDS team at this weekend’s race at Aragon. Hayden last raced in MotoGP last season before moving over to the Ten Kate  Honda World Superbike team this year. His return, at least for the upcoming round, returns a much-missed American presence to the MotoGP grid.