Too good an opportunity to miss…MotoGP testing at Eastern Creek…took off from work and went out to watch for a couple of hours

Able to view three bikes in action…the Movistar Suzuki squad of Kenny, Sete and at least one test rider…I know Garry Taylor was in attendance as he came out personally to gate 7 to pick up a Japanese journo that arrived to do his stuff

Viewing had to be done from the track perimeter, as the place was locked down with security people at all gates and patrolling around

From gate 7 you can view turns 3 (as it comes over the rise and into turn 4), 4 and 5

The bikes sounded great…this season will be worth it even for the sounds that’ll come from three, four and five cylinder machines…at low rpm’s the Suzuki’s sound very similar to a VFR Honda with a good pipe…at high rpm’s they sound like unmuffled Ducati’s…horn stuff!!

I was timing them at consistent 1:33’s and 1:32’s…although this was with my wristwatch from the distance of gate 7…the security guy at the gate was a bike rider and a decent bloke so he turned up his two way radio and let me listen to the running comments of the other security staff…they were saying times were in the 1:31’s, which is a damned good time around the Creek…check out the track record for GP bikes from 1996 and you’ll see that there on the pace of the boys back then…not bad for a bike in it’s early stages of development…and also not bad for guys that wouldn’t have ridden at the Creek before yesterday, and yesterday it was raining!

Eastern Creek is a relatively technical track, fairly tight, although flowing through turns 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 10 and 12…some of those corners allow heaps of controlled open throttle and hence, wheel spin…watching the bikes come out of turn 5 was great…wheel spin and power slides…and even though you couldn’t see the exit to turn 9 (from gate 7), you could hear it well enough…again, plenty of wheel spin

Turn 5 is a tricky corner…a lot of guys push the front end coming into the corner (seen a lot of front end loses here), also there’s lots of positive camber and it encourages riders to accelerate hard mid corner and through the exit…trouble is, as you come out of the corner, it transitions into a negative camber and it’s very easy to tail slide (actually it’s lots of fun if done with control) trouble is, it also results in a number of high-sides…one of the Suzuki riders seemed to be having exactly that sort of problem, pushing the front into turn 5 and getting way out of control coming out…while I was there, there was very nearly a high-side…back stepped right out!!

Also heard news over the two-way that one of the riders hit a bird going through turn 1…that’d be a lot of fun!!…turn 1 on these bikes is circa 240/245k…needless to say he came over turn 3 and took the short track back to the pits