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/1514840
VOLUME ISSUE JANUARY , P117 Anthony was just that good. He was so good he didn't need to try, which was one of his downfalls. Natural talent will only take you so far, no matter how much of it you have. There comes a point where you have to work at it. The world never saw the best of Anthony Gobert. Although there were flashes of the absolute beast he was on two wheels, he was still so young when he went from WorldSBK to 500cc Grand Prix in 1997 that I'm positive his youthful, natural talent still had way more left in the tank. He's been labeled by many as the greatest talent of his generation. When The Go Show was truly on, bending a motorcycle to his will with almost telepathic ease, it's hard to argue with that claim. Gobert's proclivity for the party life was well documented, espe - cially when he came to America, where he raced from 1998 to 2005, punctuated by a short but memorable stint with Bimota in WorldSBK in 2000 (one that saw yet more Phillip Island gold), a few rides on the Kenny Roberts KR3 Modenas and some rounds in British Superbike on a Yamaha. However, in America, he found a country that indulged his every request—good and bad—and his escapades with all manner of people inside and outside the AMA paddock are too numerous to mention. Gobert's time with Vance & Hines Ducati alongside Ben Bostrom and, later, the factory Yamaha and Erion Honda outfits made him seriously good money, enough to set himself up for a very easy life if he applied himself to the task. But his bad boy antics never left his side, and after he was caught driving under the influence in Huntington Beach, California, in 2005, the twine hold - ing The Go Show together started to unravel for good. After he returned to Australia, Gobert suffered some very public run-ins with the law in 2008 that ended once and for all any hope he could return to racing. He vanished from public life until a series of uncouth and seriously distasteful social media inter- view videos surfaced in the last few weeks of his life, showing a man almost unrecognizable to the one who stood atop world championship rostrums across the globe three decades before. Yet, despite all this, I will remember Anthony Gobert not as the shadow of his former self he would become in the last years of his life but as the guy who made a 12-year-old boy look at his television screen in absolute awe, knowing he'd just seen something and someone very special. That October day in 1994, Anthony Gobert became an idol to every Australian superbike kid who grew up in the 1990s and dreamed of doing what he just did. I only met Anthony once, at the now bulldozed Oran Park in southwest Sydney, the track he, Mat Mladin, Garry McCoy, Josh Brookes, and his younger broth- ers Aaron and Alex all cut their teeth on as they came up the ranks. I was 15 at the time, and Anthony had just lost his ride with Lucky Strike Suzuki for test- ing positive for marijuana. But I didn't care. Anthony was to me as so many people remember him—warm, friendly, always up for a chat, and happy to indulge an annoying 15-year- old who was just gobsmacked to be talking to one of his racing heroes—despite the fact his world had just imploded in a very public fashion. If you've not yet done so, or if you need a refresher of just how good Anthony Gobert was, check out this YouTube video. The stuff he could do on that Muzzy Kawasaki often defied physics. His all-action style meant he was impossible not to root for, regardless of your nationality. I'm happy Anthony Gobert is now at peace. He lived his 48 years with the throttle firmly planted on the stop, both on and off the track. He's a man impos- sible to forget. Godspeed, The Go Show. You really were one of a kind. CN I'm happy Anthony Gobert is now at peace. He lived his 48 years with the throttle firmly planted on the stop, both on and off the track.