07-17-2006, 06:51 PM
asteele2 Wrote:You could say that Hopkins is also an exception, also coming from the AMA, but his career has been pretty much a flop thus far.
I'm not so sure.
He joined on with Suzuki after Gibby the clown had been on the 4-stroke bike for a year and had not made any progress at all with it, and for the first year he really was just the 2nd rider. Now that he's the lead rider on the team, he developed the bike with the team over the winter and he has gotten some pretty good results with a 2nd rate bike, and 2nd rate tires. I'm sure that if Rossi had signed on with 'zuki and brought Burgess with him then Suzuki would be winning now instead of Yamaha.
Then again, when your bike has 13 engine failures in one weekend it may chip away at your confidence a bit. Maybe Hopper kicking the bike on TV helped them get their shit together
If he were on a Honda I dont know that his results would be better than Hayden or Melandri, but I think you would see similar performane to where he's at now - just that he wouldnt start going backwards halfway through the race.