No home advantage? Please. If you can't observe it anecdotally then just run the numbers, which are indisputable if you've ever seen them. (or even if you haven't)

For instance, Corser has more WSBK points at PI than any other rider.
He's been on many other WSBK tracks just as often during his WSBK tenure, but his home track is where he really shines. No coincidence that Hayden did especially well at Laguna, but was merely very good and a consistent top 3-10 elsewhere.

No one that follows racing and looks at numbers and doesn't have a bias could possibly think that there is NO home track bias. Purest bunk, and mathematically provable to boot.

agree though that the sand injects some extra randomness into it, and that that could end up swamping the otherwise relatively high neutrality.

So what is worse....racing on a rain soaked track or one covered with a fine layer of sand??

Brock

You are joking, right? I'll take the rain over sand every time.

BTW the sand over there is round. How's a billion little ball bearings strike you as a challenge. Can't use it to make concrete.

I guess a better way of asking the question is.....they race in the rain....what happens if the wind picks up and begins to cover the track with that layer of ball bearings...?

You prolly got a better chance of getting sunburned in your basement than that track getting rained on.:D Rainfall doesn't exceed 200 mm per year.

read news much
http://tinyurl.com/bad9tq

Yup. the words surprise and unexpected kind os jumpoff the page at you, huh.:D That's prolly half the rain they'll get this year. Ever been there? I got a T-shirt.

Military/Intelligence, Jumbo/Shrimp, Rain/North African Desert...anybody catch the similarities? Oxymorons, and no I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh on pain meds.

Funny we're talking about this George. This is an interesting report that shows that the sand and water mix at Losail is a deadly mix.

2009 Qatar Night Test - Rain In The Desert
Submitted by Kropotkin on Sun, 2009-03-01 23:27.

The night test at Qatar got off to a frankly bizarre start on Sunday night. The test, which was due to run from 6pm to midnight local time, got off to a difficult start, after rain in the morning left the track greasy, and then rain at around 7pm called proceedings to a halt for a while, with riders sitting in the pits for an hour or so, before going out again. But it wasn't just rain that was causing the problems: Sand had been blowing onto the track and both reducing grip while paradoxically increasing tire wear, making the whole exercise of rather dubious value.

If Corser is ever going to pull a result off it'll be Valencia!!! must be the home advantage;)

The Rossi-Superbike thing was all about trying to set up a race with Troy Bayliss, but TB wants rather a lot of money to do it. I suspect that he will string it out for a bit but with Rossi, you never know. He may decide he wants to do it just for fun.
Yamaha was initially down on the whole thing but willing to concede to their star rider, but after Spies's debut, why would it bother with two more bikes?
What is still a possibility is a third Aprilia with a GP racer on it. Marco Simoncelli rode an RS4 in testing and was fast, and he still may race one before the start of the GP season.
But, do we really need any more lures to get us to watch SBK this year?