Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/100352
By M ICHAEL SCOTT PHOTOS BY GOLD & GOOSE he Ita lian GP ha d a lmost everything - drama, humor, w eat her, e nte rtainment, cou rage , r e co r d speeds, une xpected stars, up to five changes of lead per lap, and tooth-andnail racing over a rain-interrupted twoleg MotoGP race . Everything except sudden death, and it came perilously close to that , with the fastest racing crash in history. And it had a genu ine hero, who had the 8S,OOO.strong crowd chanting his name so loudly that even he could hear it, as he flashed past the grandstands at more than 200 mph. That name? What do you expect the fans were shouting in echoing unison? "VALE. VALE. VALE . VALE." Valentino Rossi's second win of the four-race old season tested the threetime World Champion and new Gauloises Yamaha rider to the utmost. The race was run in two parts : 18 of 23 scheduled laps in the dry, before rain brought out the red flag. Rossi was leading that one, in spite of a conspicuo us top-speed deficit t hat T meant he lost the lead almost every time they went down the stra ight. All that meant nothing more than grid posit ions for the restart, under the newlast-year race-neutralization rule. And the restart was fraught : a six-lap sprint officially designated a Wet Race (no stopping for changing conditions) . Part of the track was still soaking, other parts drying very fast. Almost everybody chose slick tires, and the close pack shuffled constantly as first one then another rider found extra reserves of courage (o r whatever it was) to shoot ahead . Surprise leaders included Norick Abe, rook ie Rueben Xaus and Troy Bayliss. By the end , however, it was that man Rossi again. "Y u've got to hand it to him," said o BayliSS late r, after finishing fourt h. "He must have convinced himself it was dry. He was going like a maniac." Rossi's own com ments were jubilant . ''To win in front of all the se people is incredible . It' s hard to explain the emotion when I heard the crowd cheering on t he last few laps. Thank you to all of them . "It was like winning twice today... once 24 JUNE 16,2004 ��� CYCLE NEWS in the dry, where it feels like I made 30 or 40 ove rtaking maneuvers; tho ugh it would have bee n hard to beat [Sete] Gibernau . And then a new race in incred ible conditions. Using a slick in we t co nditions was very strange in the beginning, but luckily it stopped raining, and it was possible to push to win." He did so by just .36 1 of a second fro m points leader Sete Gibern au and his Telefonica MoviStar Ho nda, the polestarting Spaniard setting fastest lap in both the first leg (a new record) and the second, cutting back his points lead to 40th Anniversary 10 points. " I think I would have been able to beat Vale in the dry race, and I tried my best in the second part, with my last lap the fastes t," Gibe rnau said. "But sometimes th e weather decides the resu lts, and that's how it was today. It was still a fantastic race for me ." Camel Honda's Max Biaggi came through in the closing stages also as the track dried , just over a second adrift of Gibe rnau. "O f course I'm happy to be on the podium, but I'm also unhappy that we