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/128339
IN fHE PADDOCK By MICHAEL Scon Safety and Business ot o rcycle raci ng is dan gerous - that is a given. Huge e ffo r t s go into making it safer (e ve n though even huger efforts go into making it more dangerous, too ... in the sens e that the bikes kee p on getting faste r). By and large, safety does impr ove year by year, with bett e r run-off areas matched by ever-improving riding equipment. Motorcycle racing is also big business, none bigger than Grand Prix racing. Sometimes these two concepts - safety and business collide. Th is seemed to be the case at Brno this last weekend at the Czech Republic Grand Prix. The weat her was dodgy all weekend, with loads of rain during practice . Race . day was supposed to be dry, but nobody told the clouds, and it was pretty marginal, most especially during the 2S0cc Grand Prix. The re'd been a shower before the start, but not eno ugh to wet the trac k. However, during the progress of the race , it tried to rain a couple more times at ce rtain points on the long M And just one lap later, Pedr osa decided en ough was eno ugh and also put his hand up. Blow me down if his rivals didn't give him the same trea tme nt as he had given de Angelis - charging by to leave the Spaniard trailing along, looking mise rable . Naturally en ough, Pedrosa was pretty peeved. And many supported him. Why hadn't race directo r Paul Butle r stopped the race? Why hadn't the race leade r's signal been hee de d by the officials, even if the riders ignore d it? Even though it turned out that the rain wasn't as bad as Pedrosa thought, sho uld they not err on the side of caution when safety is involved? Butle r defended himself firmly. He gets constant updates from tracks ide marshals and fro m the 1V helicopter about conditions . He also watches the lap times and section times, and if they stay the same , that's a pretty good measure of the grip involved. As it transpired , continuing the race was prob ably correct. But that decision left many questions in its wake. The first was simply this: To what extent had commercial considerations influenced the decision? Had the race been stopped early on, they would have had a restart, costi ng e nough time for the all-important MotoGP race to be delayed . This would risk the 1V slot, fro m whence much of Dorn a's incom e is derived . (In fact, by the time Pedrosa's hand we nt up, enough distance had been run for a fullpoints res ult and no restart. so the question had become irre levant.) Secondly, for the Mot oG P class , nobody could remember a case when the leader had raised his hand and slowed and the race had not bee n stopped immediate ly. Are 2S0cc riders not important enough? Is risk to their life and limb not to be taken as seriously as riders in the big class? Third ly, whatever happened to rider solidarity? Again, nobody cou ld remembe r a case when the leader had tr ied to sto p the race and his com panions had not immed iately com plied - certainly not in the big class, anyway. And this is not by formal agreement, just a tacit understand- ing. No such co-operation in the 2S0s, that' s for sure . Finally what about tha t matter of , erring on the side of caution? This is harder to answ er. O ne man's reasona ble caution may be anot her man's namby-pambiness . And vice versa, obviously. Again, the decision to co ntinue the race was co rrect , as it tra nspired , in that Butle r's ove rall weather information was more accura te than Dani Pedrosa's snap shower rea ding. This being so, Butle r cannot be challenged if he do es say he was sufficiently careful. But it could easily have gone the other way, and if a multiple pileup had ensued (even if for a reas on ot her than rain), then all this idle m using wou ld take on a much more serious tone. Meanwhile, maybe the 2S0cc riders shou ld get together and discuss a stra tegy among themselves , to avoid situations such as Sunday, when both de Angelis (who later crashed out) and Pedrosa just en de d up loo king rat her silly. eN circuit. Was it now enough to wet the track ? Some riders clearly thought so. The first time it happe ned, early on, the leade r, Alex de Angelis, put up his hand and slowed. In the past, especially in the soo« or Moto GP class, this would have been enough for all the competitors to back off, and for red flags to be shown . Not this time. De Angelis was serio usly dismayed as most of his com panions just tucked down behind the screen and we nt flying past him. Clearly, the rain that worried de Ange lis didn't last, becau se lap times stayed fast, and on lap 17 new leade r Dani Pedrosa even set a new record . But enough riders had fallen off by then to prove that co nditions were tricky at best . as the scattered spots of rain came and went. PUT YOUR HAND DOWN PEDROSA ANI) GET ON WITH YOUR WOI\K! IN CZEc.HO IT'S NOT kAlNI"' OVER HEf\! 01\ I~ ATHENS ~ITt\E" COME To 11IAT.. TRoueLE IN ,-...EJUNIOR '-LASS... www.cycienEWs.com CY CLE N EWS • SEPTEMBER 1, 200 4 103