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shamar1 said:
well therein lies the issue... when you're THAT far off the pace...? (reading between the lines) it's pretty indicative (to me anyway) that there's A LOT more blame to go 'round than just throwing up a "catch all" facade citing "lack of confidence".
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I'm not assigning blame for last year's problems to anything in particular, and certainly not to a lack of confidence on Eric's part. My point is that EBoz is presently suffering a lack of confidence in himself and/or the bike based on the sh*tty season last year. As I said, getting seriously dogged for an entire year--not to mention his season ending injury--can't help but knock anybody back on their heels.
Eric needs confidence now after all the sh*t that happened last year--and it's Medley's job to give it to him, as Gary himself pointed out.
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EBoz started getting whipped, hard AND often
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and this would differ from the resolve he showed for years campaining an outdated, carbureted, underpowered, dinosaur of a green 750 against purportedly more advanced competition how...??? you really don't intend to paint him in the scenario of the "stranger in a strange land" when it's historically old hat...?
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No, it's not old hat. What mirrors his experiences on the Duc and what is old hat is/was his last 1 and 1/2 seasons with Honda. Initial success, major accident/injury on the bike, poor results, and, by his own admission, he just didn't have the necessary confidence in himself and the bike after that.
It took the switch to Kawi, the meticulous bike preparation of Al Luddington, as well as Al's insistence that Eric ride the sh*t out of a ZX-6R on the street to log seat time and build an affinity for the bike, and the fact that they "found something on the Superbike that Eric likes" for EBoz to get his groove back. I remember the Superbike was as simple as that; they hit the set-up, and Eric was all smiles from there on out, saying that the bike would now do whatever he wanted it to, that, unlike the post-crash Honda, he had confidence in the bike.
Now, as for more on the Kawi Superbike:
In the first place, it can be persuasively argued that for much of Eric's time with the bike, it really wasn't all that "inferior" to the competition. The bike was widely held to have excellent balance and very neutral handling characteristics, and while the 800cc incarnation may have lacked some in the hp department (vs. the 1000s), the previous renditions managed to post the highest trap speeds at several tracks (personally, I think that was mainly due to Eric's higher corner speeds leading onto the straights).
More importantly, even if the Kawi was an even bigger turd than believed, as I said, Eric was still competitive on it. He was obviously VERY comfortable on the bike; it certainly suited his riding style; and, regardless of any shortcomings in the machinery, Eric still ran at the front. The guy was all over the thing, jack-rabbit holeshots, unbelievably hard on the front in the turns, backing it in under ANYBODY.
I still remember his pre-race interview at Road Atlanta a few years back: when asked what his race strategy was, in light of the fact that the Kawi appeared to be getting (out)motored, Eric first replied that he'd try to get away right at the start (a proven EBoz move). In response to the follow-up question of "what if that doesn't work?" Eric just smiled and said then he just might have to "pull something big" at the bottom of the hill (which he proceeded to do on each of the last 4-5 laps in the race). Eric ran EVERY race on the Kawi with that attitude; unfortunately, so far on the Duc, I've only seen it at PPIR.
Your argument about the bike(s) works against itself: one minute you say the Duc had issues that prevented Eric from running up front, then you point out that Eric did run up front on the "underpowered dinosaur" Kawasaki. By your argument, both bikes were/are sh*t, EBoz rocked on one and suffered on the other, yet Eric's state of mind in each case has nothing to do with it. /wwwthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif
Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming Eric for his predicament. My point is that while Hodgson "just" has to sort the bike and learn the tracks, Eric has to get the bike to work for him (Medley's job) and then gain confidence in himself and the bike--or in himself on the bike--in order to consistently run at the front again.