The 100 Million Dollar Man

So much has happened since the last report. Australia has a new World Champion in Casey Stoner and isn’t life great! The Australian GP is up next and they are predicting a huge crowd to follow Casey and the other Aussie riders on the grid, Chris Vermeulen and Westy.

But it’s the news of Casey winning a world championship that has really caught the imagination of the mainstream media. My general rule of thumb is if a reporter asks celebrity whore agent Max Markson a question on the potential value of a person than the story must be pretty big news.

Well sure enough a reporter did ask Max Markson some questions this week. I have this funny feeling though Max didn’t really know who Casey Stoner was until a few days ago because when he was asked questions about his potential for sponsorships for his career he gave this very generic response.

"The sky is the limit,"

“He's young, marketable and there will be some fantastic opportunities available to him."

“He could do television commercials here with, say, an oil company or a car company or someone like that which could run for several years provided he stays at the top of his game.”

"He is only 21 so he would be an attraction for a soft drink company or to promote something like milk.”

Asked whether Stoner's career could be worth as much as $50 million over the next 10 years, Markson said: "You can double that."

Now I swear I haven’t made any of those quotes up. Another sign that your star is on the rice in Australia is if Sixty Minutes come a knockin’. Yep, Casey was on Sixty Minutes and my only regret is that Dick Carlton died last year. I would have loved to see Dick ask Casey some serious questions about, well anything… maybe his run-in with Carlos Checa in Japan… just anything so we could see that famous Dick Carlton look of total disdain if his subject gave a answer not to his liking. You know the look, the one where he sarcastically turns and looks at the camera whilst chewing on his glasses. RIP Dicky.

Back to MotoGP and the Japan race was a total lottery with the rain coming and going. At first Westy was leading the race and looking good but he had to do a pit stop penalty for jump-starting. I watched the Channel Ten coverage whilst already knowing the result so I was keen to see how Greg Rust and Daryl Beattie would handle the whole Casey thang. Greg was getting quite excited mid race and making all sorts of bold claims like "Mick Doohan will be watching this coverage" (arhh, don’t think Mick would be watching a delayed coverage Rusty + he was in Japan to watch the race).

While I’m on the subject of Mick Doohan, Dreamworld have just opened what looks like a very cool roller coaster ride which is a simulation of a MotoGP race. Mick has put his name to it and I’m predicting it will be a winner. You can check out more here. One point I’d like to raise though is the media releases have been saying this roller coaster is a world first. Garbage! Randy de Puniet opened the exact same roller coaster at Euro Disney earlier this year. Just like Mick did for Dreamworld, Randy helped the designer’s model the roller coaster based on his feedback about what it like to ride a MotoGP bike. Anyway, if you don’t believe me here is the footage from Euro Disney

So now the world title has been won we can look forward to who wins the underSteer MotoGP title. Fine Cotton continues to look good especially after getting very lucky at Japan. Realistically he should go on and take the title now.

Well as we know Phillip Island is on in the next few weeks so don't forget to put your tips in and cheer on the Aussies.