P112
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
D
o you remember where
you were on March 31,
1996? Maybe crawling
around on all fours, a grown-up
wiping up behind you. Or not yet
born. Or telling feeble jokes to
fellow primary-school pupils.
I remember where I was.
Sweating it up at the steamy old
Shah Alam circuit outside Kuala
Lumpur, reporting on the open-
ing round of that year's World
Championship.
Rossi remembers, too. He
was riding in his first GP. He
finished sixth. The race was won
by Stefano Perugini (remem-
ber him?), the 500cc race by
the similarly long-retired Luca
Cadalora. Later that year, Rossi
would take the first of a total of
115 grand prix wins; in 1997 his
first World Championship.
It was impossible even then
not to notice him. Still a teenag-
er who apparently modelled his
image on Prince Valiant, Rossi
was everywhere, like—as the
saying goes—a rash.
Ever since then, he has
been through a series of image
changes and hair colors, and a
procession of variously hilarious
400TH GP!
When Valentino Rossi suited up for the
Australia GP a few weeks ago, it marked his
400th career GP start. Think about that!
