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/1517996
To them, the Sprint undermines the gravitas of the world champi- onship enterprise. (Perhaps, in his context, it should be capped up: World Championship!) To me, it's not a given that motorcycle racing should be a matter of gravitas. The thought seems a bit precious. A bit up itself. It's just a motorbike race, as the wonderfully matter-of- fact Mick Doohan once told an interviewer whose questions he found a bit airy-fairy. Last week, however, a lively discussion with a colleague —an avid anti-Sprinter—did suggest the argument is not cut and dried. His major objection was the matter of safety—more chance of getting hurt. Last year, he asserted, there had been a 300 percent increase in the number of riders missing the Sunday race through injury. Sounds like a lot, put like that. But it's a percentage of a very small sample: up from an aver - age of one per race to less than three. In just one misfortunate year, when crashes that might have been benign instead broke bones—like Alex Rins's nasty leg double fracture at Mugello. The outcome of fast crashes is always in the lap of the gods. To be meaningful, statistics need to be less selective. Or taken from a larger sample. Hurling huge percentages of very small numbers is deceptive. A second objection blames Sprints for stealing practice time, specifically free practice, when riders can work on race setups rather than just belt out single laps for a crucial grid position. There is a point here. Practice time had already been squeezed anyway, and it got worse last year. Before then, there were 135 minutes of so-called Free Practice, though in fact all times counted towards selection for A fter one year, opinions are still split on the value of the Sprint races. Most fans love them. Most riders? Maybe not so much. A few (Jack Miller springs to mind, plus the most frequent Sprint winner, Jorge Martin) relish the chance to go racing twice as often. Others (Fabio Quartararo, for one) believe that—among other negatives—the extra race trivializes what should be a weekend dedicated to one seri - ous contest. P124 CN II IN THE PADDOCK BY MICHAEL SCOTT TO SPRINT, OR NOT TO SPRINT