Category: MotoGP

2016 Motorsport Calendars

2016’s calendars are now available!

Each year I produce motorsport calendars for use within Google Calendar, iCal, Outlook and many other apps.

I have now added as many 2016 motorsport dates as I can find and they are available to use!

Just go to:   www.toomuchracing.com/calendar

There are a few notes on my methodology followed by a table showing each racing series:  F1, MotoGP, IndyCar, WEC, IMSA, NASCAR, WTCC, BTCC, DTM and many more. Just click the links on the right hand side of the table.

There are a couple of options, try each to find the one that works the way you want it.

If you subscribed to these feeds in 2015, or before, and have not removed them, you do not need to add them again. Just scroll forwards and the dates will be there. This obviously doesn’t apply if you took it as a download!

Thanks everybody for your continued support of this project. Do keep pointing out errors and omissions. And share with anybody who may be interested!

This Blog

A quick note on the blog:  I apologise for not posting more frequently. The last couple of years have been quite tiring. I keep meaning to return with lots of small posts and observations rather than the occasional long-read. I do miss the long posts as well.

I’m also considering a Facebook page. On Twitter I share or retweet lots of stories I think are interesting or funny and it might be useful to have a place on FB to do the same. Let me know your thoughts.

2012 Race Schedules

For the last two seasons I’ve created race schedules for use in Google Calendar, iCal, Outlook and any other compatible diary system. 2012 is no exception and I can now announce the calendars for the year ahead are now, mostly, complete!

IWTMR Motorsport Calendar for May 2012 (click for Large)

If you want to track some of your favourite series and events, just load your selection of racing categories into your calendar so that you can make plans to watch live or set the DVR – and hopefully never miss another race!

Please go to the Calendar page for futher details and updates.

Marco Simoncelli 1987-2011

Marco Simoncelli has passed away today as a result of injuries sustained in a crash on lap 2 of the Malaysian MotoGP at Sepang.

Marco was a champion at 250cc level and a podium finisher this season in MotoGP. He was making a name for himself as a star not just of the future but of today. Sure he had some run-ins and disagreements with some of the others but that was fine, part of the appeal of MotoGP is that it has big characters willing to say and do what they think. There weren’t many with a bigger character than Marco Simoncelli.

You always knew when you were watching Simoncelli, he had a way of riding which was different to everyone else on the grid. Trying different lines through corners, inside the guy in front, outside, this way and that. Sometimes it went too far and he went off. He’d gained a reputation as a bit of a crasher, until recently that is.

After a trying early part of the year with just a few too many fairly minor crashes, he had recovered his form posting a string of 4th-places, and just one week ago he’d recorded his best ever MotoGP finish, 2nd place at Phillip Island in Australia. Everyone thought he’d ironed out the crashing, and perhaps he had. Some tipped him as a World Champion of the future, perhaps even as soon as 2012.

It wasn’t the fall from the bike which cost him his life today, it was the following racers being unable to avoid him. Something will need to be done to prevent accidents such as this and the similar Moto2 accident last year which claimed Shoya Tomizawa.

But that is not how we want to remember either rider. We want to remember how they raced, and their personalities, and their positive effect on the paddock and on MotoGP and racing as a whole.

Here’s Simoncelli’s press conference interview from last week in which he was his normal smiling, bubbly effusive self. Much like Dan Wheldon, you rarely saw Marco Simoncelli without a smile.

Two big losses in the space of a week, the motorsport world is in shock. This off-season cannot come soon enough.

A Promising Season of MotoGP

Today’s MotoGP race at Jerez was the best I’d seen ages. After a year of so-so races which promised much but often failed to deliver, including the wet ones, this race was a return to old form – and dare I say even more dramatic than some Rossi-inspired classics we’ve seen in the past.

The race had everything. A damp slippery track; a legend starting in the middle of the field who immediately set about picking off 3 or 4 rivals per lap; a pair of World Champions riding off into the sunset in the early running, before being pulled in by the rookie on the privateer bike.. who subsequently fell off; the legend coming together with one of the past champs and only one surviving to continue, seemingly at the whim of the local marshals; nobody being able to hold on to 2nd or 3rd without finding some form of drama.

Amazing. You should watch this race. Make it a priority. Even if you aren’t usually a MotoGP fan: Watch This Race.

It is easy to claim the season will be a great one after a race like this when in fact it is an oddity, a one-off, but this time I think it is true. Obviously they won’t all be as dramatic as this one. They won’t be as boring as the races last year, either. We saw the potential in Qatar. Honda are the team to beat but they are beatable, Rossi and Ducati are coming together nicely, the Yamahas have a decent enough pace, and Simoncelli looks likely to mix it with the factory boys often.

We could see plenty of really good battles this season. Could MotoGP regain a lost crown and once more claim to have the best wheel-to-wheel action in the world? I think it can and will.