Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Cycle News 2004 09 29

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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By MICHAEL IN "HE PADDOCK SCOTT Crash! ots of things can happe n when you make a mistake in motorcy cl e ra c ing . Some conse quences are too dire to joke about , obviou sly. But if yo u escape serious injury or worse , the n lots of var iables kick in. In Grand Prix racing, apparently, it depends on who you are, what you are riding, who yo ur sponsor is. And also on whether you tell the truth or not . The case in po int is last Sunday 's firstturn ca rnage at Motegi during the Japanese Grand Prix. Loris Ca pirossi , starting from the thir d row of the grid, we nt barrelling into the first corner so fast that he was already o ut of co ntrol in the braking area, back wheel in the air, bike going sideways. Right in front of him, lying seco nd to Valentino Rossi, was Suzuki rider John Hopk ins, on the new Moto GP rub ber-of-choice Bridgesto nes and after a career-first fro nt-ro w start. Cap irossi was already we ll into the highside when the inevitable happe ned . He clobbered Hopper so hard that "it felt like a fre ight train," as he told me later, grimacing all the w hile as Dr. Claudio Costa's men sewed up a massive gash in his bac kside. Four othe r ride rs we re instant ly caught up in a maelstrom of bikes , bits and bod ies, with Colin Edwards, Max Biaggi and Nicky Hayden punte d off wit hou t injury, and the unfortunate Kenny Roberts Jr. having a nasty time, his le ft arm tra pped by Biaggi's back wheel, dislocating his e lbow while at the same time pulling him onto t he exhaust, so his othe r arm was burned . Even be fore th e dust had sett led, the memorie s of the prev ious year were fres h in the mind. That time, it was Hop kins w ho did something similar, and he took out Edwards, Troy Bayliss and Carlo s Checa. And soon after the race , he had to face dire consequences . Not only was he hit with a he fty fine for dangerous riding, he L was also disqualified fro m the following crime ," race. So what had Capirossi said, after his crash? Simply this: '" do n't know what happened. I just found myself lying in the dirt ." (Perhaps he sho uld re ad Cycle News, or any number of any other magazines. They will be able to te ll him.) This excuse was more than implausible. Then again, Cap irossi is som ewhat ex pe rie nced in these matters, a veteran of a number of co llisions. One was with 250cc title rival Tetsuya Harada in Argentina. He punted him off on the last lap and wo n the championship - though only after protracted legal battle s with the FIM, whic h at first d isqua lified him. Another was when he clo bbered Marcellino Lucchi on the start line at Mugello. That time he was suspe nded. But he's obviously learned when to keep his mouth shut . Another point, said Butle r, was that th ere had bee n no protests fro m any of th is year' s victims. "If there had been , we wo uld have looked at the eviden ce in more detail. But ther e we re n't, and our original decisio n So w ill the sam e thing happen to Capiross i? Funnily enough, no. Ther e were , however, some differences betwe en the tw o cases that were not immed iate ly appare nt to pressroom obs erver s, poring ove r photographs of Cap irossi's se eming ly equall y e xtreme indiscretion , and studying the video foot age frame by frame. Like Hopkins , Cap irossi had been out of control some distanc e befo re the collision. As with Hopkins, a mo re measured view was tha t it was simply a racing incident. Race director Paul But ler, pressed for answ er s, gave (to be fair) a good account of the decision reac hed by himself and his co lleagues. "We don 't make co mp ar isons. We cons ider these things case by case," he said . "But one difference was th at Hop kins admitted his guilt [in a state me nt in which he apologized to his victims]. The re was no quest ion that he had com mitted the crime. All you can take issue with is whethe r the punishment fitted the www.cyclenews.com stoo d," the urbane Englishman explained . One re ason might have been th at Hop kins was lyingon a bed of pain at the time . Another might be that he is one of nat ure 's gentlemen. Just because he had be en trea ted so harshly doesn't make it right for other riders to suffe r in the same way. The taste of injustice lingered on , how ever. As fe llow victim Edwards said: "If they 're not going to punish Capirossi, then they shou ld give John a re fund of his fine." But to do tha t would be to be co nsistent with applying the rules. And that's never been much of a criterion , in a sport wher e , increasingly, people can get away with making it up as they go alo ng. Espec ially the ir postcrash excuses . More likely, suggested some wicked tongues, Ca piross i will be reward ed . The next ro und, sponsored by his Duc ati team backe rs Marlboro , is in Q atar, in th e heart of Bin Laden co untry. How abo ut a special bo nus awa rd to Loris, fo r taking out all four infidel Ame r ican MotoGP ride rs in one fe ll swoop? eN CYCLE NEWS • SEPTEMBER 29, 2004 95

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