I agree 100% Tom. Mixed feelings on the "retirement series" part. Hard to disagree, and part of me thinks that if you've been at the WSB/MotoGP level, you've proved everything you need to prove and let it be a feeder series. Like you have Elias, who's beaten Rossi, competing in MA...c'mon dude. All you're doing is pushing those that are too fast to be club racing further into the back on the pack of MA...lose spot light (whatever little there is), lose exposure for your sponsors...lose funding, stop riding.
Part of me thinks it's washed up riders coming back to a smaller stage to go out and have fun, but part of me is also excited just to have some new (old?) people back on the grid. Watching Mladin and Spies battle it out, purposely going off track just enough to fling rocks into each others helmets at Road Atlanta and the like to try and slow the other guy down was/is awesome to watch. Can't help but feel bad for the rest of the grid they were racing against, as those dudes were miles ahead of the competition (history repeating itself again?)
I suppose I'm 50/50 on it. Entertaining to watch, for sure, on the other hand, it just moves down those that should be somewhat competitive at the MA level down another grid position or two.
One interesting thing is that there's really no set rules on what you can/can't do. I know Spies would never do it, but could you imagine if he raced WERA/CCS again? Would it a draw a crowd of fans...absolutely. Speaking strictly from a racer perspective, at what point are you like "OK dude you're too damn fast to be here, go pick on someone your own size"?
But then again, maybe his shoulders really aren't 100% and he's nowhere near where he was. Nobody knows...for now.
