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/127981
Ooohan, Rainey, Schwantz, Gardner and even Lawson all injured and either posted missing or way under par for much of the year.) Ooohan scored no points in Brazil, while Rainey won, and the Aussie duly missed out on the World· crown, despi te an even more epically heroic sixth place at the final GP in South Africa. With no number-one plate, Ooohan was left with a different sort of everlasting memorial to his 1992 season: his leg. Even now, Doohal1, the fittest man in the GP world by ul1al1imous consent, cannot rW1 on his leg. He side-steps this problem (sic) by wearing out not only the crank of his screarner-engined NSR but the crank of his exercise bike at hqme in Monaco. His current 500cc GP comrades are also much scarred by the unforgiving l1ature of racing and have displayed similar levels of determination to rejoin the grid as soon as possible. Alex Criville suffered a truly horrifying hand il1jury at Assen on June 27 of 1997, almost completely severing his thumb and possibly ending his career yet he rea ppeared a t the Czech GP on August 31, having missed only five GPs, including Assen - a total of 66 days out of action and he still finished fourth in the race. . Carlos Checa had a near-death experience that almost left him blind and did leave him without his spleen. He slipped on the shadow cast by the Grim Reaper at Craner Curves during the British GP at Donington Park on July 5, 1998. Yet only 77 days and four GPs afterward, there wa Checa, battling for a podium finish in his return to the fray at Catalunya. He was by no means the only 500cc rider sidelined by injury last season. John Kocinski, Jean-Michel Bayle, Tadayuki Okada and Doriano Romboni all spent significant periods of time out of the GP hunt. Tragically, Takuma Aoki is out for good, having been paralyzed during a preseason testing accident. All in all, it was the usual war of attrition in the GP ranks, and I say that without the slightest hint of flippancy or insensitivity to the fate of Takuma or anyone else. If you talk in terms of riding (and winning) while injured, Kevin Schwantz is probably the most obvious - and some would say awesome - example in the modern era. It was (I hesitate to use the word) appropriate tha t Kevin Schwantz's last-ever GP win, at the British GP of 1994, came while he was seriously injured. . Conquering injury and the qdds to prevail in the end had been Schwantz's trademark ever since he took his Suzuki two-stroke big-game hunting on racing's wildest frontier. Having seen his one-time hated (Left) The man who puts the Grand Prix and World Superbike stars back together . Dr. Claudio Costa. (Right) The face says it all. Kevin Schwantz deals with the pain of a broken wrist at the Dutch Grand Prix in 1994.