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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P106 CN III IN THE PADDOCK BY MICHAEL SCOTT W ith no racing now other than the virtual, and with the future uncer- tain, at least for the next few months, we're left instead to look back. Not in anger nor with rose- tinted "those-were-the-days" reminiscence. Just to pass the time while we're waiting. Speaking of which, revered wooden-faced actor Steve Mc- Queen had a line, in his mean- dering self-made racing-car film Le Mans: "Racing is life. The rest is just waiting." You might think that is very profound. Or very silly. It is both. Quotations are the theme, and I've made a small collection over the decades. Remarks that made us laugh, think, maybe even weep. The funny ones, rather un- fairly, are usually innocently nonsensical, made by people using words they don't fully understand. Like the anonymous U.S. Superbike racer way back who said, after being one of only a handful of finishers on a gruel- ing afternoon of crashes and breakdowns: "It was a race of nutrition." Or the quite famous British TT racer who broke down while well in the running for a leading fin- ish. Wiping his brow, he told live commentators: "I'm devasted." It's perhaps unfair to single out foreign press releases, bat- tling with English. But I treasure the Spaniard who inadvertently dissed his home nation by de- scribing it as "the hole Spain." And the Frenchman who, after his rider hurt his hand, wrote: "he has a strong blonde on his finger." An enviable fate. There are many such, one emanating from another Span- iard who left out an important "r" when she notified the press room of the time for "the media scum." (Many a true word?) A greater treasure in the archive, however, comes from an English writer, employed by Dorna to drum up interest in the forthcoming GP season, some years ago. "MotoGP," he wrote breath- lessly, "is set to literally re-ex- plode." A sentence that is wrong on about every level. Re-explod- ing, even figuratively, is beyond the capacity of most explosives. They're a one-off thing. But let's get serious. I'll never forget the aged Pops Honda, at the last race he at- IT'S ONLY A MOTORBIKE RACE I'll never forget the aged Pops Honda, at the last race he attended. It was a face-off between Freddie Spencer on the Honda and Eddie Lawson on the Yamaha. Fatuously asked who he thought would triumph on the morrow, he met his interlocutor's eye, and replied with great solemnity: "If we knew who was going to win, it would not be necessary to hold the race."