Cycle News

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GOLD & GOOSE VOL. 50 ISSUE 26 JULY 2, 2013 said Lorenzo, his left arm in a sling after the race. Although off the rostrum, his race preserved a finishing record second to none. He was knocked down at Assen last year, but since then has been first, second or third in every race except Valencia last year, where he crashed out of the lead, and Le Mans this year, when he slumped to seventh. This year he had won the last two races prior to Assen, and had closed to within seven points of leader Pedrosa. Thursday's crash was at one of the fastest points on the track, and a real test of rider commitment. Hoge Heide is a right kink taken almost flat out, followed directly by the banked-over braking for the subsequent left-hander. According to the team he had been travelling at 148 mph when he crashed: speed was maintained thereafter when to avoid possible delays at the local hospital an aircraft was chartered to fly him to Barcelona, where surgery was performed from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. at the Dexeus Institut where GP track doctor Xavier Mir practices. Lorenzo's race confounded those who espoused a conspiracy theory - that he planned only to start, in order to introduce a sixth engine. He would suffer a pit-lane start, but it would matter little when the chances of a strong finish were far less than the expectation that he would retire after a lap or two. With only a third of the season completed before the Dutch round, all four Yamaha riders have already taken the fourth of their allocation of five engines, with both Valentino Rossi and Lorenzo having had an engine withdrawn from the allocation. The likelihood of running out is high. Lorenzo greeted his fifthplaced race result as "tasting as good as the best victory" and "an amazing day," after confounding pain and injury to return to the race-track 37 hours after he was put under anesthetic for reconstruction of his shattered collarbone. Pale and visibly exhausted, his left arm tightly strapped, he was ecstatic as he spoke to the press. "On Thursday  I never thought about the possibility to race. Then I thought maybe it was great to try a surgery and come back to Assen. And I did it. I was in doubt until I held the bike's handlebars on the track. After the first laps in warm-up, when I was thinking about giving up I continued and P25 felt every lap a little bit better and with more confidence. The pace was not so bad." A round of local anesthesia prepared him for the race. "I suffered a lot, especially in the second half. But I never gave up and could finish in a great fifth position. The right side of my body was completely destroyed at the finish because I was pushing really hard to keep the bike on the line and not suffer further pain in my collarbone and shoulder. And in the last two laps I felt even better because I saw on the screens that Dani [Pedrosa] was fourth." "I'm not a crazy person. I think riders are not crazy people. We know exactly if we are fit or not to race. If I felt I wasn't in a perfect condition to try I'd never have tried. I am not a hero; I am so human. "I felt a lot of pain during the race, but I think if you push hard to get your goal you can reach it. And that's the way I followed." Michael Scott SOUTHWICK SWAN SONG T he AMA National Motocross Series has been traveling to Southwick Moto-X 338 since 1976, but, according to MX Sports, the organizer of the outdoor series, it won't any more. The contract between MX Sports and the American Legion (338), which owns the property on which the track lies, has run out and the two parties have not come to terms on a new contract and it doesn't look like they ever will. "It's bittersweet," says MX Sports' Davey Coombs. "The series has been coming here since 1976. It's a wonderful track, it's old school, and it's evolved over the years. However, as time has gone by the original MX338 promoters have all moved on and there is a new group of people running the American continued on next page

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