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MotoGPMatters.com is once again fortunate to have Scott Jones live at Laguna Seca, shooting some more of his superb photos. The first of his shots come from Thursday's Day of Stars Superkart challenge, where champions young and old took each other on around Laguna Seca, in anticipation of this year's Red Bull US Grand Prix.

Right helmet, wrong suit.

Fast Eddie's hat

The Doctor asks Fast Eddie the quick way round Laguna 

King Kenny, on four wheels

"And here's where you stuff it up the inside of Lawson, and line up behind Rainey..."

Yamaha-to-Honda vs Honda-to-Yamaha

Rossi, Lawson, Rainey, Roberts

Casey Stoner, Chaz Davies and their respective partners look on.

Sete Gibernau considers a new career

Honda history on a laptop.

Will Valentino Rossi be seeing much of this on Sunday?

Or will he be watching his team mate instead?

We also have a couple of video clips of the event. First, a local news channel shows a brief preview of the event, featuring a vox populi with MotoGPOD presenter and friend of MotoGPMatters.com, Jules Cisek (he's the cool looking dude with the goatee).

And a fan video of the racing on track:

The aim of Public Relations is to generate publicity for the brand you are representing. Some PR firms are better than others, and in motorcycle racing, Yamaha certainly seem to be gaining the upper hand. Their latest offering is a rather silly but nonetheless entertaining look at what Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Colin Edwards and James Toseland do in between races. Colin Edwards in a uniform? Who knew?

At Laguna Seca, Hayate Team Manager Andrea Dosoli confirmed what we all already knew. Kawasaki is history, and won't be back in MotoGP in 2010. According to reports in the Italian press, Dosoli said that he didn't expect Kawasaki to return next season. "I don't think that Kawasaki will be here [in MotoGP] next year: The decision to pull out was taken at a very high level, and coming back into MotoGP would be an admission that they made the wrong decision," GPOne.com reports Dosoli as saying. 

Dosoli was proud of what the Hayate team has achieved with limited means: "With a budget of 25% of what it was last year, I think we've done pretty well," he said. Members of the team are doubling up - Dosoli is both team manager and crew chief to Marco Melandri, for example - and the savings even go so far as not to produce and distribute press releases. Meanwhile, the team has a mass of equipment which is surplus to requirements and up for sale, including a hospitality unit, transporters and a host of other items.

With Hayate / Kawasaki definitely out of the series for 2010, the MotoGP grid will once again be reduced to under the magic 18 rider mark. Dorna have an almost indefinite contract with the FIM to organize the series, but it is believed that one of the stipulations in that contract is that Dorna will ensure there is a minimum grid of 18 riders. Kawasaki's withdrawal would reduce the grid to 17, and question marks remain over the future of Sete Gibernau's Grupo Francisco Hernando effort. Former championship runner-up Gibernau must find it hard to remain motivated to run around at the back of the field, while the construction company that is funding the team has taken some severe financial blows from the collapse of the Spanish housing and construction market.

The most frequently suggested new entrant to the grid would be Jorge Martinez' Aspar team, but Aspar still has the problem of finding machinery. The Spaniard has been turned down flat by both Suzuki and Yamaha, and perhaps his only option would be to pick up Gibernau's bike from the GFH team. But right now, finding a rider for the Ducati is tough, as both Marco Simoncelli and Alvaro Bautista have flatly refused to ride the Ducati GP9, which has picked up a reputation as a career killer. Martinez may find another rider for the bike - Hector Barbera has alluded in passing to the possibilities of rejoining Aspar in MotoGP - but without a top Spanish star, it will be hard to find funding for the project, even for a seasoned and highly successful operator like Jorge Martinez.

Yesterday we reported that Yuki Takahashi would not be racing at Laguna Seca, today the news is even worse. In a statement issued jointly by Team Scot and Honda, the team announced that Takahashi has been dropped for the rest of the season, in favor of Gabor Talmacsi. The reasons for the decision were simple, and stated plainly: It was a matter of money. Team Scot needed the income provided by Gabor Talmacsi and their new sponsor, Hungarian oil company Mol, but couldn't afford the extra bikes needed to allow them to run both Talmacsi and Takahashi. And so Takahashi had to go, as the Japanese rider's results so far had been very disappointing.

The withdrawal of Takahashi leaves the MotoGP class without a Japanese rider for the first time since 1992, a situation the Japanese factories - and especially Honda - have struggled to avoid for many years. But the flow of talent coming out of Japan recently has dropped to just a trickle, with fewer Japanese rider entering through the 125 series and working their way up through the ranks. The question is now whether next season will see the return of a Japanese rider, with 250cc championship leader Hiroshi Aoyama the current favorite to make the step up to MotoGP.

Below is the text of the press release issued by Team Scot concerning the release of Yuki Takahashi:

From the US Grand Prix onwards, the Scot Racing Team will continue in the MotoGP class with the Hungarian rider Gabor Talmacsi. With great regret the Team announces that - due to unavoidable circumstances - Yuki Takahashi will not continue.

The decision was reached after exhaustive attempts to find a way to continue with two riders, but the economic realities facing the Team due to the increased cost involved in running two riders, combined with a health problem of Yuki, has led to this regrettable decision.

Cirano Mularoni, Scot Racing Team Manager, said: "The Team would face a lot of new costs to line up two riders and without the possibility to improve its results with Yuki because he has suffered a slipped disc in his back, most likely caused by recent falls. So our team has decided to stop racing with Yuki and to wait for his recovery before taking any decisions on his future".

Shuhei Nakamoto, vice president of HRC said: "For Honda as well as the Scot Racing Team, this is a sad announcement and one we wanted to avoid if at all possible. But we understand the Team's problems with regard to the increased costs of running two riders. Takahashi was the only Japanese rider in the MotoGP championship and of course Honda wanted to see him continue. But in the end the Team made it clear that this outcome was impossible and we respect their decision. Honda will continue to support the Scot Racing Team in MotoGP with Gabor Talmacsi riding".

Earlier, we reported on a story on usually reliable GPOne.com that Yuki Takahashi was out of Team Scot, to be replaced by Gabor Talmacsi. But after MCN reported seeing Takahashi in California at the rental car pick up desk, we contacted Team Scot to get the official story on Takahashi's future in the team.

The Team Scot press officer confirmed to MotoGPMatters.com that Takahashi will not be riding at Laguna seca, but denied that Takahashi had been dropped altogether. "Yuki has a slipped disc and his results on track are conditioned by this problem," Stefano Bedon told us. "The team would face a lot of extra costs to line up two riders but without the possibility to improve the results. The solution is to wait for his recovery and to defer a decision later."

Ever since the old North Loop at Assen was removed, emasculating the glorious old track, the scarcity of fast left hand corners have made those remain potentially lethal. So far, since the track was shortened prior to 2006, the MotoGP race at Assen has claimed at least one victim forced to miss a race every year: Toni Elias in 2006 and 2007, John Hopkins in 2008, and now Mika Kallio in 2009.

The Finn crashed on the very last lap of the race, grinding his ring finger on his left hand and suffering friction burns severe enough for him to lose the fingernail on that finger for good. As a result of his injuries, Kallio has elected to miss the Laguna Seca round this Sunday, preferring to make his return at the Sachsenring. After Donington, to be run a week after the German Grand Prix, Kallio will undergo surgery to have a skin graft placed over the affected area, but until then, the young rookie will race with artificial skin protecting the affected area. As Kallio will only be missing a single race, the Pramac team have elected not to replace him at Laguna Seca.

The prime culprit at Assen is the Ramshoek, the fastest of the left handers which the track still retains. The bikes spend a long time on the right hand side of the tire, but are only briefly on the left, and so cool tires can catch riders out easily. Kallio's crash wasn't a result of cold tires - it came at the end of the race - but because he was pushing so hard to keep the rest of the group behind him. The fear is that the Assen circuit will take the easy choice to fix the problem, emasculating the track even further by slowing down either the entry through Hoge Heide, or tightening up the Ramshoek altogether. The ideal solution would be to either put more of a left-and kink into the Veenslang, or extend the Southern Loop and another couple of fast lefts there. Unfortunately, both of these would be expensive and difficult to realize, and so it probably won't be too long before Assen is shorn of its sting once again.

Noriyuki Haga seems to have had a lucky escape at Donington, after his huge crash at Coppice Corner saw him being slammed multiple times by his tumbling Ducati 1198F09. The cracked vertebrae he was suspected of suffering turned out to have been older injuries which had already healed, and scans in the local hospital in Derby revealed just a broken arm and a fractured shoulder blade. The Japanese star had surgery today to fix his arm, and looks set to rejoin the series at Brno to defend his championship lead against Ben Spies. The silver lining to Haga's crash is the four-week break between the Donington round and Brno, which should allow his injuries to heal sufficiently for Haga to race well enough to limit any points damage to Spies in the Czech Republic.

The details of Haga's surgery and expected recovery were released in a press release from Ducati, which follows:

At 5pm this afternoon Ducati Xerox rider Noriyuki Haga underwent successful surgery at the Derby City Hospital. Having fractured the ulna in his right arm in yesterday's crash at Donington Park, Noriyuki today had a plate and screws inserted to set the bone. The surgical team deemed the surgery a success and there were no unforeseen complications.

Prior to the operation, medical staff took a closer look at his right shoulder blade and an x-ray unfortunately confirmed that he has multiple fractures to his left scapula. The scapula will not necessitate surgical intervention and the bone should knit itself back together in time; this complication should not prolong Noriyuki’s recovery time. The Japanese rider should be discharged from hospital tomorrow (Tuesday) and he and his family will fly back to Italy so that Noriyuki can begin the necessary physiotherapy treatment.

The Ducati Xerox rider will not participate in the next tests at Imola but it is foreseen that he will compete in the next round at Brno.

From the moment Gabor Talmacsi confirmed the rumors of a ride with the Team Scot Honda squad in MotoGP by turning up at Barcelona with a new sponsor and a contract, the writing has been on the wall for Yuki Takahashi. Despite the denials and promises from the team to try and find a way of accommodating both riders, in reality, it was merely a question of time before the Japanese rider would be forced to make way for the Hungarian, who was bringing a much-needed cash injection into the squad.

That time, according to the authoratitive Italian site GPOne.com, is now. Takahashi, it is being reported, has been withdrawn from the US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, ostensibly to allow surgery to be performed for back problems Takahashi suffered in his crash at Barcelona. The surgery will require a recovery period of 3 months, leaving Takahashi sidelined for the rest of the season. Just how badly Takahashi required surgery remains open to speculation, but his back injury is extremely convenient.

Team Scot manager Cirano Mularoni was open about the problems faced running two riders without spare bikes. "It was a difficult situation," he told GPone.com," because contrary to what I had read, extra spares were not available for the RC212V, a situation which would have gotten worse after Brno, with the limit on the numbers of engines. Not to mention the problems we would have faced in a flag-to-flag race, where we would have been forced to change wheels instead of bikes." Just where Mularoni read that Honda had extra RC212V parts lying around is a bit of a mystery, for HRC have made no secret of their aversion to supplying any more bikes, especially since sales slumped in aftermath of the global financial crisis.

Takahashi's "retirement" can have come as no surprise to the Japanese rider. The rookie is in 18th and last place in the championship standings, his best result a 12th place finish at Jerez. With Gabor Talmacsi suddenly available, and having both a world championship and access to a large sponsorship base, running around at the rear picking up points one at a time was never going to be enough to save Takahashi's job.

So far this year, Noriyuki Haga has been praised for his consistency, finishing every race but one until Donington, his one DNF so far down to a bird strike rather than rider error. But in the UK, his run of consistency came to an unfortunate end. Haga scored good points in race 1, unable to match the pace of Ben Spies and Max Biaggi, but in race 2, Haga was not so lucky. The Japanese Xerox Ducati rider crashed out in race 2, falling at Coppice in a crash which was all too reminiscent of Troy Bayliss' horrific crash there two years before. But Haga's crash was even worse than Bayliss', as Haga's Xerox Ducati tumbled through the gravel with him, landing on top of him at least once before coming to a standstill.

After the incident, Haga was seen walking away, and was thought to have come away relatively unharmed, though clearly very beaten up. Sadly, this was not to be the case: Examination at the trackside medical revealed a suspected fractured vertebrae, and Haga was immediately airlifted to a nearby hospital in Derby. At the hospital, Haga was stabilized and had fluid drained from around the injury as a preventative measure. Initial reports indicated that the Japanese rider had indeed suffered a fractured vertebra, and would be out for at least 2 to 3 months.

A CAT scan later revealed more promising results. The scan did not find any indication of recent fractured vertebrae, meaning that the worst of the danger has probably passed for Haga. However, the scan confirmed the results of earlier examinations, which showed that Haga had fractured his left shoulder blade and broken his right ulna, one of the two long bones in the forearm. Haga is due to have surgery to fix the broken arm, while the fractured shoulder blade is still being examined at the time of writing (10pm CET, Sunday 28th June).

Though a fractured shoulder blade would require a much shorter period to heal than a fractured vertebra, Haga is still set for a lengthy recovery process. It seems improbable that the Japanese rider will be back at Brno on July 26th, but he should be fit enough to ride at the following round, at the Nurburgring on September 6th, after the World Superbike series' long summer break. Given the strength of Ben Spies' challenge, and the fact that Texan trails Haga by just 14 points in the championship, Haga is likely to make his return down on points and with an uphill struggle to get his title challenge back on track.

In the past, Haga has shown an incredible physical resilience, suffering his first broken bone last year in a crash at Miller Motorsports Park, an incredible record given his reputation for pushing beyond the limit and paying the price. But perhaps Haga's age is starting to work against him, and a 34 year-old does not have the resistance to injury of a 22 year-old, no matter how fit he is.

It's race day at Assen for the 79th running of the Dutch TT, and the weather prospects are looking up. We arrived early with masses of bikes already heading towards the circuit, and locals sitting along the side of the main transit canals waving as the bikers passed. The skies are overcast, but it's very thin cloud and a watery sun is doing its best to break through the haze. The weather forecast is for rain, but only at the end of the day, after the races have finished and as the crowds head back home again. We should get a full day's dry racing at Assen today.