Customer comments on this selection.
 Brilliant, and getting better every year
A great season review is the closest thing to being at the tracks, and Julian Ryder's annual wrap of the MotoGP year is as good as it gets. Based in the UK, he reports or commentates on all the events, but with the Review he has time at year's end to refine and polish, providing an even more satisfying product than the necessarily deadline-limited reportage in magazines. Racers who want to know, in detail, who won or lost, who succeeded or failed, and the background to the men and machines that made history, will want to get, keep and refer often to this outstanding book, republished in the U.S. by David Bull based on the British edition, and printed in the U.K.
2007 was the year of Casey Stoner, so Ryder turned to 1987 World Champion Wayne Gardner to pen a foreword of unabashed praise for its young champion Stoner. In eight fully illustrated chapters, Ryder covers the Season in an overview, the annual rider-voted `rider of the year' activity (won by Stoner), a technical review that appraises the cutting-edge technology of the MotoGP paddock, details and an excellent side-view photo plus detailed shots of each competing bike (including Roberts' machine), background data on each of the 33 riders who competed in 2007, a race-by-race description of each event, with lap charts, full results, statistics and points data on all three classes (including constructor and team data) and--in what is essentially an appendix--a brief summary of MotoGP's official `Riders for Health' charity work in Africa. What we don't get in the U.S., unfortunately, though shown in the (British) table of contents, is the competition to win a Donnington ride with Randy Mamola on the Ducati two-seat MotoGP machine.
The book is illustrated with scores of great photos, primarily from Andrew Northcutt and Gold & Goose. These insiders can go where others can't, and they deliver the goods. Many of the photos are panoramic, running through the gutter into the facing page, and provide the sense of being there that lesser, smaller photos cannot capture. Unconfined by space-limited magazine reportage and brutal deadlines, Ryder includes photos and brief stories about the key individuals in MotoGP--the managers, engineers and support staff without whom the sport could not occur--`local color' shots of riders on and off the bike, and even (yeh!) umbrella girls. His coverage of Alex Hofmann's accident at Laguna (horrible hand injuries, left at trackside for 20 long minutes before a red flag permitted ambulance access) provides powerful insights and reflects badly on track management.
Reaching forward into publishing's future, knowing that enthusiasts are eager for moving pictures and the stunning aural assault of MotoGP bikes, let's see collaboration between the paper pushers (the book publishers) and the video gang, to arrive at a package that will include a DVD wrapup of the races, plus interviews with all the key people who deliver the events, even factory coverage. Some publishers are already doing this. For enthusiasts, one can never get too much of this fascinating, absorbing and challenging sport.
This book, like its predecessors, keeps getting better every year and belongs on every enthusiast's bookshelf.
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