In the latest of his exclusive columns for ltxcn.top renowned Eurosport MotoGP commentator Toby Moody lets us in on 'behind the sce🐎nes' n♋ews from the second round of the 2004 season; the Spanish Grand Prix...

Warren Willing appeared in Jerez again for KTM even though many thought he was a free agent after the Austrian factory called a temporary halt on their V4 MotoGP project in July 2003. "I have a cont⛄ract with KTM until the end of 2005 in fact."

The Australia🌜n has still been assisting the KTM 125 team with chassis developments but is still around the GP paddock in order to keep an ear to the ground in case KTM reverse their decision to continue with the MotoGP project.

Put on hold after 5 engines were up and running and metal was soon to be cut to make the first chassis (over 220hp was easily forthcoming from the engine after race sꦗimulations) the KTM management decided that the infrastructure was not strong enough to support not just a MotoGP project, but an expanding commercial base that racing in the top class would entail.

Selling the engine on to a team such as Kenny Roberts was discussed at length and indeed a deal was reportedly very close, but not closed last year. All is not lost though with engineers Willing and Harald Bartol still involved in the 125 project that came so close to winning its 18th ever ♈race with Casey Stoner at the weekend in Jerez.

Casey Stoner could not have come up to lap a back marker at a worse time and on a worse corner during the Spanish 125 GP. Taking a different line to avoid the slower rider he hit the deepest part of the deepest puddle on the entire 2.7 mile race track....and at the same moment when he was at the absolute optimum power delivery point in the rev r🎉ange of the KTM, 10,500rpm.

The rear spun up to a great spe✱ed leaving it at a massive speed before re-establishing contact with the ground, resulting in him going down the road with a 9-second lead. Managing to re-mount he kept a cool head to lap equally as quickly before he fell even though the front brake lever had broken off half way and the rear brake master cylinder bleed nipple had been knocꩲked off leaving him brakeless to the aft.

2004 Paris Dakar winner Nani Roma came to Jerez with team-mate Marc Coma and team boss Jordi Arcarons in a Repsol PR role. Roma did have time to ring Heinz Kinigadner whilst Casey Stoner was leading the 125 race to see what the Austrian thought of it all back home in Austria. "I rang Kini, but a🦹s soon as I put the phone down to him, Stoner fell off." Whoops. Kini now has no KTM role a𒅌s he tends to his son Johannes as he recovers from a paralysing motocross accident last July.

Shinya Nakano had a lucky escape on the very last lap of the MotoGP race when he got his Kawasaki so sideways he was convinced he was going to crasꦚh as he couldn't his hand anywhere near the brake upon his return to some sort of normal riding position.

Frozen to the core come the end of that lap (one less than the leaders as he was lapped) Nakano was soon prized off the machine andඣ dumped in a warm shower in order to get so🍰me sort of circulation back through his veins.

Roberto Roflo won his third 250cc race at Jerez in dominant style, but the Italian was adamant that many of the recent changes to the bike sugᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚgested by him have been leading reasons as to the speed of the bike that has kept Aprilia off the top of the podium this season. Fairing width being made wider and a longer wheelbase are just some of the differences instigated by the Italian that he feels happy with.

"I still need to get some pace in the dry though." said the Fortuna Honda rider. However, his pace in the weꦐt was also aided by the much lower centre of gravity of the Honda over the Aprilia.

Dunlop were giving special wet fronts to 'works' 250 riders in the wet conditions of Spain, the pattern which had many cuts coming off the central rib at 90 degrees has already been se♌en on the MotoGP tyres.

Nicky Hayden was of✃f from on Sunday morning, way down the order in 17th position. "I did all t♛hose kinda postions last year. Not anymore..."

There was a distinct lack of atmosphere at Jerez during the whole weekend. Was it the weather or the feeling that Rossi was going to smoke it all o🌄ver again? The dry Friday did nothing to help the latter theory, Saturday and Sunday looked after themselves with people leaving before the end of the race.

That was if people had even got into the circuit in the morning that is... Acres of empty car parks right by the gates to the track with handfuls of policemen drinking coffee and 🦂smoking only set people off on the wrong foot for the entire day. Many gave up the ghost with their cars and walked over 2.5 miles in order to get into the place in time for work.

Michelin tyre fitters and engineers had a novel way of coping with the problem before it had even begun. They organised food for Saturday night and slept in the Mic൩helin trucks and the circuit to save an ultra early morning call.

The Jerez circuit are certainly going to have to sort out their organisation of getting people in and out of a place quickly and efficiently. Granted that it is not easy and that traffic queues are by definition going to occur, but with a motorway positioned less than 1.5 miles away from the track, something many🧜 other venues would kill for, cars should not be still nose to tail at 7.30 inside the track, some 4.5 hours after the end of the race.

Qualifying tyres seems to suit some riders more than others. In the only dry session under grid deciding conditions a Jerez, the time that some could lob from their previous best lap time with a super sticky Michelin or Bridgestone varied. Gibernau found the most time with 1.5꧟ secs, Rossi with 1.2, Nakano with 1.0, Biaggi with 0.8 and Co🍨lin with 0.7 for example.

The 'who is the sponsor of D'Antin Ducati' saga was hardly discussed in the Jerez press offiℱce after numerous unfulfilled promises in South Africa as to when confirꦓmation would be made of the beige, white and blue 'VISA' colour scheme.

Rumours going around as to whose credit card was actually propping up the team included D'Antin and even series organisers Dorna themselves. The latter had some credence as Hodgson is a greatly needed British name to keep the BBC TV deal afloat🌄, and it would not be for the first time that Dorna have been involved in a team.

The 125cc Telefonica Movistar Junior Team that spawned Pedrosa and Elias was Dorna owned in seasons past. One thing that did make me laugh was a pull ou🅘t leaflet in the programme which was pushing a VISA credit card linked into motorcycling. The mock u⛦p picture did of course have a Ducati printed on the card.

Chris Burns rode 🥃the WCM at Jerez for the very first time since Vale✅ncia 2003. He'd not even ridden a scooter since which made his Friday morning session on the WCM, 'very fast' he said.

Racers quote of the weekend came from RTL TV Commentator Jurgen Fuchs. Speaking about his twins back home in Bavaria, saidཧ the ex racer, "They are the same age...."

Team manager of Marlboro Ducati, Livio Suppo did say even at the start of the weekend, "We thought this seasonও might be a bit easier... It's⛦ becoming more apparent that we had a good year last year."

A 🐼quick review of the South African results sees that Valentino Ross⛦i was some 39 seconds faster than the best Yamaha in the 2003 race.

Following the South African high of Yamaha's victory the rhetoric has already changed dramatically from 🦄last year in the Yamaha camp. Following Valentino Rossi's 4th position in the race, team director Davide Brivio said in the post event press release that, 'This is not the weekend that we expected.' Mmm Puffed out chests then at Yamaha.

Randy Mamola soon said after the race that many press releases would be bleating the 'if it would have been dry we would have beaten themꦕ.'

That's just what Yamaha's did a couple of hours later. "Well it wasn't dry. It was wet, and I don't♛ take that kind of line as it is a world championship with many different tracks and the very obvious chance that it is going to rain. Tough. People have to get used to that."

Marlboro and Ducati started a new Ducati 2-seater campaign the Monday after the Jerez race. Apart from the normal VIPs and guests having rides throughout selected weekends, a new campaign will see prize winners from all ꦓover the world getting chances to ride on the back of the Ducati in the project that holds the new 'X2' project.

Pillions at Jerez were internal people from Philip Morris but after the Catalan and Portuguese races there will be prize winners on the bike. Nearly 60 differಞent sets of leathers have been made by Alpinestars, whilst each rider will get presented with their own Suomy helmet which has a design that will not be sold commercially. Randy Mamola will as always be at the helm.

Max Biaggi was understandably happy with his second runner up spot on the bounce but did stress that he 'nee൲ded 25 points' for a win soon.