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/1224843
VOLUME 57 ISSUE 12 MARCH 24, 2020 P101 I share this view. I've known a parade of champions and wannabes for more than three decades. They might not have wildly staring eyes and they might not be given to uncon- trollable ranting (well, not all of them), but there are very few who you wouldn't think of as at least slightly nutty. In a really good way. Putting your neck on the line weekend after weekend, risking life and limb to measure yourself against the best riders in the world, is a particularly fine kind of madness. Loony, yet in its bonkers way actually saner than engaging with the rat race, bat- tling on to pay the rent and save for a two-week annual holiday on a crowded beach. It certainly helps to be obses- sive. Often knowingly so, if only in hindsight. The difference in mindset between active racers and retired racers can be aston- ishing, even to themselves. I've known riders who would bite your head off at the merest hint of offense while they were active emerge just a year or two after retirement as entirely pleas- ant and amusing meal compan- ions. As if released from chains. (To be fair to all, some never change. Especially those whose retirement was not voluntary.) Why do we admire and re- spect our racing heroes? As well (obviously) as their talent, for this mental dedication. But only some of us actually envy them. And especially not now, when the past months of expensively managed and controlled mental and physical training—the dieting and programmed exercise rou- tines, all aimed at being ready to race at Qatar 10 days ago—have culminated in, well, nothing. Coitus interruptus. Maybe literally so, if reports of reports emanating from virus-stricken Italy are correct. The Italian web- site GPOne attributed informa- tion to the Spanish press that Marc Marquez and his wistfully beautiful model girlfriend Lucia Rivera Romero had split after more than a year of bliss, report- edly because of the unexpected stress of having to spend so much time together. Sounds like fake news to me. More comforting is the report from the Italian Gazzetto dello Sport, repeated in German-lan- guage website Speedweek, that Rossi's enjoying spending time at home with mum and girlfriend Francesca Sofia Novello. These are truly extraordinary times. Racing is caught up in a 21st-century version not so much of the plague, but of world war. No shooting, but the equivalent suspension of normal life and the usual economic realities. Current conditions make it highly unlikely that the season will be- gin, as presently proposed, on May 3, at Jerez in Spain. It also looks unlikely that the remaining 19 races will be able to squeeze into the time available. The regu- lations decree a minimum of 13 for a champion to be declared. The regulations, however, might have to be bent more than somewhat. Meanwhile, while fans twiddle their thumbs and watch replays of favorite races (funnily enough, they always have the same out- come); organisers and promot- ers wrestle with problems of finances and rescheduling; tire technicians worry about whether they will need to make special new tires for conditions if the racing goes on into the Euro- pean winter. The riders? They carry on training, wearing holes in the seats of their dirt bikes, and ensuring team managers bite fingernails to the nub. This is a real concern: big names are no strangers to seasons spoiled after dirt-bike misadventures. Rossi broke his leg in just such a manner, Marquez suffered a bad hand injury a few years back, and a wrist fracture was a major contributor to Lorenzo's dire final Honda season and prema- ture retirement. And already last week Maverick Vinales spent a night in hospital after a thumping dirt-track fall. Safer news comes from Rossi again. "With my buddies and the Acadamy guys we play real fights online on the simulator—the last race at Spa." CN