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/128111
Maybe they don't care if I finish all the races, but they like if I am riding very hard and try to do more than is possible. That is the only reason I can think of. Also, I like to be with the fans, to speak with them, because they also give me power for racing. They help me continue and to be more strong." The fans, for their part, appreciate it and after the infamous Foggy fight, even the British fans were soon back with the Pier-Francesco program. Now, Chili believes that that business is finished, although he explains why he did such an outwardly bizarre thing in the first place. "I did it because I felt I had to," Chili explained. "Always I try to be honest with everybody, but this time I think he didn't be honest with me, and that make me so angry. I did something I felt at that moment in time, but already is an old story. I went to speak with him about the problem and now we don't care anymore. The importance is that Ducati give to me just one chance with World Superbike and I didn't understand why they give an Australian [Troy Corser], and English man [Fogarty], or somebody else more than one year to try and win with Ducati. That, I cannot understand." Standing up for himself is something of a national pastime in the Chili pit garage. Frequent run-ins with the promoters, the F1M - including grabbing the microphone during press conferences to berate the blazerati for their lack of understanding of the riders' needs - are commonplace. To put it simply, Chili i~ the last of the emotional Mohicans, entirely unaffected by PR spin and the consequences of his passionate outbursts of anger or joy. "Yes, I am emotional," he conforms. "I feel it when I win, I have emotion for everyone in the team, I feel it for them as well as myself. It is not that I want to be emotional - I am emotional. When I win, everybody wins - all of my fans win. That is what I feel. But when I lose, I lose. Not everybody, but just me." Except of course, his Alstare Corona Extra Suzuki team, a Belgian-based camp of human diversity, featuring members from possibly every nation in Europe, if not the world. And their own United Nations Charter, their daily credo, is the deification of Frankie by helping him to the top step of the podiums. "The team I have is fantastic, and they are behind me, and always try to find something better on my bike. My chief mechanic' does not sleep in the night right now. Everyone knows we are in trouble and everyone wants to come out from it." Languishing on the periphery of the factory supported rider standings at present, as Suzuki struggles to make their newest version of the GSX-R750 a viable racebike, Chili is in visible pain, suffering the torture of being unable to even challenge for race wins. "If the bike is not perfect, I don't like to ride it fast - but I must anyway. In the first race in South Africa, the bike was very bad, but I try very hard to do the best possible. I don't know the words in English to describe how I felt. I do not feel so good about people watching me in this bad position. I think that they think something bad about me. But I cannot be in the position I like to be now. What we have now is what we have." A natural sportsman since he was a child, Chili could have been a minor professional footballer or even an Italian Division One baseball player. A fitness regime that would break a man 10 years his junior has kept him on the upper reaches of his sport in his late 30s, but like his fellow bike racers, Chili's career has been peppered with injuries and crashes. Tarmac hurts when you fall on it when stationery. Hitting it - or worse still, hitting trackside objects really hurts at speed. And Chili swims in a sea of pain on a daily basis even now. "I know when I retire I have to continue to play sport because if I do nothing I feel pain in many, many parts of my body: he said. "But you cannot go through life thinking 'I have a 'pain here, a pain here,' you must just carryon. I cannot go running any more without pain in my knees from the impact, although cycling is okay. But I still run, because I enjoy it. "The worst injury I have had was at Spa-Francorchamps, when I crashed in a wooded section. It was a double left and I slid in the wet, so fast, into the guardrail. I broke a vertebra, a wrist, my foot. I have also done both my collarbones, feet, wrists, many injuries but I don't really think about it. I know the risks there are, but I don't care. I don't have to think about it. When we die we are all the same. It does not matter if you die with your bones straight or not. I have to concern myself more with life." Chili shares his life with his ex-model wife Romina and his young children Kevin and Sharon (the former named after his old GP pal, Kevin Schwantz, and Sharon to fit in with his brother's English name. "I like to be different," explains Frankie, "but when Kevin was born Romina's mother and my great grandparents, who are 91 and 92, could not remember it properly so we had to write it down!"). "Generally I have with me my wife at races, and it is good to have someone with you. You can have very hard moments in this line of work, and I am a little bit different than some of the others here, so I like to have a little bit of relaxation with my wife and that gives me more ability to be strong on the bike. For me, this is important. This is our normality. If she is not here it is heavy with me. When I go back to the hotel and my room is empty if I am alone. I cannot speak with the wall, you know!" Contrary to all rumor, Chili has made no plans to retire, simply because there is no plan. "What I have said is that when I feel that I do not enjoy riding the bike anymore I stay home. Even if it is halfway through the season. At this moment, I have no plan to retire, or plan to have another year or 10 years. When I am not able to give any more I have to tell the team right away." The World Superbike Championship without Chili is unthinkable for some, although the enforced retirement of Fogarty this and last season didn't bring the roof down. When Frankie does go, however, there will be an unfillable void - such is the popularity of the veteran Italian. Luckily, that might be a while. CN cue' • neVIl's