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
Road Race Racing injuries (Above) Freddie Spencer throws the Fast By Ferracci Ducati down the road at Daytona in 1995. Injuries thwarted Spencer's career on several occasions. (Above right) The scars of time. Alex Criville's left wrist and hahd suffered serious damage in the Dutch GP in 1997. He came back just 66 days later to compete again. (Below) Even the fittest gel hurt. Mick Doohan's left leg shows the scars of his near-careerending crash of 1992. 22 enemy, main motivating factor and subsequent racing soul mate Wayne Rainey confined to a wheelchair the previous sea on, and having finally won his desperately coveted World title, no one would have blamed him if he had taken his battered body and bruised soul back home to Texas for some permanent rest and relaxation. But, come 1994, there was Kevin, number-one plate proudly displayed, wrestling his ever-squirrelly Suzuki down the fallow brick road to premature, injury-forced retirement. His Schwantzsong ride at Dorrington Park - carrying a plethora of injuries including a mashed hand, not only in a cast but mUms three bones - only carne after the biggest high-side this side of a circus trapeze act th\? very day before the GP itseU. I was blessed/fortunate/cunning enough to have hooked up with the Lucky Strike Suzuki team for the weekend and saw every bead of sweat and ounce of grit Kevin poured and shoveled into his final GP victory, charging from nowhere in the early laps to temporarily oust the latest of the GP gods, Doohan, from his pretence to the American's throne. Up to then I had seen some awesome acts of sheer determination and adrenaline (albeit aided by a visit to Costa the Orthopaedic Alchemist) overcome pain and allow riders to compete, but undoubtedly that was some sort of unbeatable peak of endurance and sheer mindedness. It was such a feat that it became a kind of wa tershed for Schwantz - his victory pre-empting, or maybe even forcing, the realization of his ultimate defeat by a clinical force majeur - the ultimate in Pyrrhic victories. Three races into the 1995 season, Schwantz was done, finished, back home, broken but unbowed and minus some physical functions and body parts the vast majority of us tak for granted. His personal tally reads: 98 GP starts, one World Championship, 25 GP wins and 16 broken bones. Impressive arithmetic on anyone's abacus. This may be a good time for oftinjured riders to look away, ~nd my apologies for being some kind of harbinger of doom, but Schwantz and you lot are looking at middle and old age riddled by premature arthritic conditions, replacement hips 30 years before you're due, and an aversion to cold, damp mornings. A world of pain awaits, the wages of sins against bodie which were never designed to be pounded into tarmac or impacted into barely protected Armco at 100 mph. So the next time you see Mick kis his girlfriend, Selina, on the way to another of his seemingly endless procession of race-winning press conferences, just remember that every step has cost him dearly. And give even more of a thought for all those guys who mashed themselves to bits for no reward bigger than the sheer love of the sport we call motorcycle racing. eN