Riders anticipate Laguna Seca challenge

There was a distinctly American feel to Thursday´s press conference at Laguna Seca, as Repsol Honda´s Nicky Hayden, Tech 3 Yamaha´s Colin Edwards and Rizla Suzuki wildcard Ben Spies lined up alongside standings leader Valentino Rossi and World Champion Casey Stoner in the Laguna Seca media centre.

All of the riders looked forward to the unique experience of riding at the Californian venue, which was reintroduced to the World Championship calendar in 2005 after a ten year break.

Fiat Yamaha´s five-time premier-class World Champion Rossi commented, `It is not my favourite track and I don´t have many great memories from here. My best result here was on the podium in 2005, I had bad luck in 2006 and last year I had quite a bad race, so my target is to try and improve on my best result at Laguna because it is a great track with a lot of tricky points.´

Meanwhile, last year´s race winner Stoner added, `I love coming to the U.S. It is a great GP, a great atmosphere, and it would be great if we could have a similar result to last year, but it is definitely going to be a lot of hard work.´

Anticipating the massive challenge of his second appearance for Suzuki in MotoGP, this time on home soil after his Donington debut in June, current AMA U.S. champion Spies declared, `I am just glad I get to ride the GP bike on a track I know because against these guys I need it! These guys are the fastest in the world and I am happy to be competing against them. I want to do well for Suzuki, for me, and for America and try to get a decent result.´

For his part, 2005 and 2006 Laguna Seca race-winner Hayden said, `The Laguna track is really special to me. I love this place, I love this atmosphere and everything about Laguna. To me it is about as good as it gets! So hopefully I can come out strong tomorrow morning, put a couple of good days together and get in a position to get us a good result on Sunday.´