P106
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
T
he Spanish Champion-
ship came to a climax in
Valencia in November. The
dominant national hero Marc
Marquez took all the attention
again. Whoops. Sorry, that
was actually the World Cham-
pionship. The Spanish national
series is called only "the Junior
World Championship," and that's
only in Moto3.
Forgive the confusion. GP
racing is nowadays so Spanish,
with four of 19 races on Spanish
soil and slews of Spanish win-
ners. Although one of the three
2020 World Champions is not,
Moto3's Lorenzo Dalla Porta is
the first from Italy to win in 125/
Moto3 since Andrea Dovizioso
in 2004, in a class that once
belonged to Italy.
It's not just the riders. The
management of grand prix rac-
ing, Dorna, is an entirely Span-
ish company. Exclusively so,
and observably nepotistic at the
highest levels, with CEO Car-
melo Ezpeleta not shy of install-
ing his children in management
roles in both MotoGP and World
Superbikes.
If this is starting sound like a
xenophobic anti-Hispanic rant,
please bear with me. It's actually
the opposite. About face!
I recall writing in 1987 under
the headline "Only In Spain"
about events at the newly built
Jerez.
That first Spanish GP there,
won by eventual champion
Wayne Gardner by a massive
20 seconds, was hilarious, a
memorable hoot and a proper
ONLY IN SPAIN
Spain seems to be the
current home of MotoGP,
and it all began at the
new Jerez track back in
the late 1980s.
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
