Cycle News

Cycle News Issue 2019 45 November 12

Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles

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VOLUME 56 ISSUE 45 NOVEMBER 12, 2019 P113 or painfully cheesy victory pan- tomimes and costume dramas. All the way to the more austere and certainly more authoritative figure of today. Massively charming and ruth- lessly cynical in equal measure. And heroically successful. Sunday in Australia marked his 400th GP, one among so many records. Including the highest number of 500/MotoGP wins, podiums and points. Only Agostini has more premier-class titles, and more any-class wins. Rossi's career has spanned the technical eras. He cut his teeth on two-strokes, bikes that many (to an extent including the rider) still regard as "real rac- ing bikes." From 125cc singles, he moved to 250cc twins, then won the last-ever two-stroke 500cc World Championship, on the Honda NSR that for years af- terwards he would name as his favorite bike. Fittingly, he then won the first-ever four-stroke MotoGP title. Feeling under-appreciated, he turned his back on Honda, |de- termined to prove that it was the rider that made the difference. It was good timing. Underdogs Yamaha were about to introduce the cross-plane crankshaft. To- gether they humbled Honda. When he switched to Ducati, again feeling undervalued, as Yamaha's attention turned towards Jorge Lorenzo, it didn't work. By then he was such a legend that it neither dented his image nor his career prospects, as he returned to Yamaha. How to put this number of 400 starts into proportion? Well, if you blink 400 times, it will take you around 25 minutes. More realistically, how about 400 times of waking up and going to work? With weekends and holidays, the average work- ing year is around 230 days. Thus Rossi's 400-race workload would take most of two years. But a race weekend lasts three days. Rossi's been waking up and going to work for more than five years. As a GP racer. Amazing. What stress, and for so long. And he still hasn't had enough. In this time, Valentino has amassed a personal fortune, thanks to the careful monetiza- tion of his popularity. More altruistically, he's founded a still-growing racing academy for young Italian riders, that has so far yielded a slew of GP winners and two World Champions (Franco Morbidelli and Pecco Bagnaia). He's also put his name and management skills into running successful teams in Moto2 and Moto3. Even more amazing, riders at his level are usually more inter- ested in themselves. He celebrated the milestone well at Phillip Island, sweep- ing around the outside into the daunting first corner and leading for three laps. But it was not the best way, because it didn't last. He slumped to eighth, a position that is becoming all too familiar. At a favorite track where he won five times straight between 2001 and 2005, and again in 2014. It's now over two years since his last win. His premier-class average has dropped to 26.25. Marquez's stands at 44 percent. In Rossi's last championship year of 2009, his was bet- ter—46.1 percent. This figure alone puts his stature into pro- portion, compared with the new upstart. There's life-affirming joy in that he's not only stayed dedicated and motivated for 72 races more than any other rider, but that he continues to believe in himself so strongly that he blames fad- ing results on bike setup rather than the rising tide of youth. That's why he's changed his crew chief again for next year. But there's another feeling, too, reflecting respect for his dignity and fear that he might get hurt. A wish that he might take a different reading of the writing on the wall. His original crew chief, Jerry Burgess, blunt as ever, said it best, at the Australian GP. "Maybe he's been around a bit too long." CN

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