While Team KR's results on the track have been disappointing, their innovative approach to sponsorship and marketing has really helped them stand out. So the news that Team KR will be printing the names of fans and supporters on their bike gives their marketing campaigns yet another interesting twist.

Nicky Hayden's grenaded RC212V motor is barely cold and we are already talking about next weekend's meeting in the steamy jungles of Malaysia. This may be the only time that one hears the word cold in the same sentence as Sepang as the Malaysian track is synonymous with wretchedly hot and humid weather conditions. Valentino Rossi has done well here in the past as has Loris Capirossi. Recent results haven't much favored one tire brand over another, not that conjecture that one track or another commonly favors one brand or another has much relevance this year.

As objects to look at, motorcycle racing tires are neither particularly impressive nor very interesting. They're round, black, shiny when new, matte when used. Some are wider than others, some are larger than others, some have a taller profile, some have a rounder profile. Some tires are covered in a system of grooves, to channel surface water away from the body of the tire, and allow it to grip, others are smooth as an eight ball.

As objects to look at, motorcycle racing tires are neither particularly impressive nor very interesting. They're round, black, shiny when new, matte when used. Some are wider than others, some are larger than others, some have a taller profile, some have a rounder profile. Some tires are covered in a system of grooves, to channel surface water away from the body of the tire, and allow it to grip, others are smooth as an eight ball.

The tire issue just won't go away, and tonight, yet more news comes on the issue. Dennis Noyes of SpeedTV.com is reporting that a new consensus has been reached on the tire rules, which will avert the need to go to a single tire. According to Noyes, the new rules will be as follows:

It seems that the tire issue is going to be with us for a long time to come yet. At the front row press conference, after qualifying at Phillip Island, Valentino Rossi hinted that he still had the option of switching to Bridgestone tires for 2008.

The threatened introduction of a control tire in the MotoGP series has raised more commentary and debate, or should that be argument and invective, than any issue in recent history. The proposal's supporters have welcomed the prospect of closer racing, its opponents have denounced the switch as abandoning the principles of a prototype series and darwinian competition, and raised the specter of innovation grinding to a halt. So when the debate becomes so intensely heated, it is good to inject a little calm and reasoned analysis, and to place the move into some kind of context.

With the championship sewn up, it seems that all the excitement in the MotoGP series now comes from "The Tire Issue." In frankly bizarre statements to the Italian sports daily Gazzetto dello Sport, Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta admitted that he had only threatened to move the series to a single tire make to get the tire manufacturers to "put their own personal interests to one side in order to make the championship more interesting."

There's something ineffably romantic about a newly-crowned champion returning to his native soil to be feted in his home race. And at first sight, Casey Stoner would seem to fit that poetic  notion just perfectly: a handsome youngster and his beautiful young bride return home after securing the world title in a tightly-fought battle with a grizzled veteran. But cast anything more than that cursory glance at the situation, and the romance disappears faster than a Ducati GP7 down Qatar's front straight.