Announced today (1 October, 2009) by Yamaha:

Yamaha has confirmed that Ben Spies, currently 2nd in the World
Superbike Championship, will be moving to the MotoGP Championship in
2010 to join the Tech 3 Yamaha Team. The Texan recently signed a two-
year deal with Yamaha, which originally planned for him to remain in
World Superbike for one more year before moving to MotoGP in 2011, but
Spies and Yamaha together have decided to advance the move by one
year. The 25-year-old is currently just three points behind and has
just two more World Superbike rounds to contest in his efforts to win
his and Yamaha's first World Superbike title.

"I want to thank Yamaha globally for their faith in me," said Spies.
"They have treated me like royalty! Yamaha just recently allowed me to
rethink my contract for 2010-2011; I did sign for WSB for 2010 but
after Indy I began thinking of the competition and my age versus
waiting until 2011. This was not an easy decision, the Yamaha World
Superbike Team crew and especially Massimo (Maio) Meregalli have been
fantastic and it's been great fun to put in a season together. I am
hoping that I can give Maio, Laurens Klein Koerkamp and everyone else
a championship to remember this year with me. My thanks also extend to
‘Infront', the promoter of the WSB series, especially Paolo Ciabatti.
I have enjoyed his series and this first year racing in Europe. Now I
have two challenges, to complete this year giving my best and to move
towards new goals in MotoGP. Herve Poncharal at Tech 3 is showing his
support by allowing me to come on board with my Crew Chief Tom
Houseworth and Gregory Wood, my mechanic, who have both been with me
since AMA days. We will have learning curves to overcome next year but
I am up for the new goal. I hope to have a good year and my goal is to
try and stay in the top 6-8 which, given the talented line up, will be
a tall order. With the world upside down, there is one constant for me
and that's Yamaha".

On Oct 1, 11:20 pm, Schiffner <stevenkei... at (no spam) hotmail.com> wrote:

On Oct 1, 1:47 pm, Tim <tomorrowerolsdot... at (no spam) yahoo.com> wrote:

Not only that they get a 3 man team that works well together on any
make of motorcycle...he brought along his crew cheif and mechanic.
Good deal for all of them, because success at that level is about team
work, not just some hot shoe kid with his hair on fire.

Well, yes, but without the kid all you've got is two guys standing in
the pits and watching the race go by.