Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Trouble ForVale W#;:,i# Because his current situation - the worst he's been in since his first S00cc-class season in 2000 - has brought out the very best in him, adding a whole lot of badly needed warmth and humanity to grid. China was worse still, qualifying l3th. Then his front tire fell to bits - an occurrence so rare and unexpected that his crew changed the rear wheel instead. And rhen his bike stopped dead wirh six laps left in Fiance. He was a bit miffed in China, and his ebullient humor after the Le Mans engine failure could be put down to the fact that he was miles in the lead at the time. hav- Not knowing what will happen next is what makes sport - and, indeed, life itself - endlessly stimulatinS. His situation is bad. but not irretriev- able. As of now, he could stillwin the title. His crew chief, Jerry Bur8ess, equally hap- pily points out that the gap is still smaller than those by which he has won the title in the past. ln fact, it is fully 104 points smaller than his winning margin of last dice kept coming up double sixes for Valentino. There was, for instance, that practice crash at Valencia last year. He was goinS so fast that the bike vaulted over the bar- riers, flew right over a service road into a ditch, and b.oke in two as it landed. Similar luck saved him from getting run over when he fell in front of the pack at lerez this year. Both times, Vale walked away without a sci-atch, as he has from a number of other crashes. Kevin Schwantz, by contrast, seemed to break his wrist almost every time he slipped off. He even did it on a mountain bike once. My own favorite example o{ Rossi's special relatiohship with luck is a little less direct. lt came one hot summer, which was plagued by wasps. Every motorcyclist knows what happens when you get a wasp in your helmet or in your clothing. They sdnS and stinS and sting. I 8ot one in my boot once: I screeched to a stop, ripped the boot off and flung it away in agony, neSlectinS to notice that I had pulled up next to a deep ravine. Never got that one back. lYore to the point, at Brno that year, several riders needed treatment for similar incidents. ln the race, it was Rossi's turn to get a wasp in his helmet. Buzzing around his eyes and nose. He opened his visoq and the darned thing simply flew away with- olt touching him. Even the insects love Valentino. It's an old clich6 that in racing you make your own luck, but it's only workable up to a point. lt's also only sometimes true that luck, be it good or bad, seems to come in long runs. For an instance. iust look at Gibernau. His streak of a circum- stantial adversity started at the first iace of last season, and is still going on. Will Rossi's bad run end now? He would certainly hope so, but histo- ry may not be on his side. He and we will have to wait and see, and rhe quesrion will be answered soon enough as the sea- son gains intensity in the coming week. A more interesling question is this: lfhe carries on with this run of misfortune, will he maintain his sense of humor about it? lf so, then he deserves everybody's admiration for a lot more than merely his ability to ride a motorcycle. Cil MotocP in the process. Hi5 position is pretty precarious, with two zero-points races in the first five, and a yawning 43-point deficit behind leader Nicky Hayden. Over the years, l've known a number of top riders in similar situations. Understandably enor-rgh, they would become sullen and glum, sometimes rail- in8 Lear-like aSainst their ill fortune, shouting at pit crews, firing their man- agers, and snapping angrily at iournalists. Rossi's response could hardly be more different, Valentino seems to find his bad luck vastly amusing. This is marginally underctandable as well, because all of his bad results this year have been *re result of matters quite beyond his control, and he is now at least happy that they have fo'rnd the way forward with his hitherto reGlcitrant 2005 M L And it is still reasonably early in the season. Just to remind you, he has been havrng all sons of trouble with tire chatter in qualifoing; then he was knocked off at the lirst corner at Jerez, remounting for l4th and two points. He won Qatar. narrowly beating the resurgent Hondas, and was a fine founh in Turkey - from llth on the ing come storming through from the third row of the grid. The emergency new chassis with revised stiffness ratios had finally given him the wherewithal to "show who is the boss,'' as he put it before the race. I like to think there is another reason as well - that the easy charm he has dis- played over the yea6, something I have always suspected might be somewhat sup€rficial (the world's Sreatest motor- cycle mcers, after all, need to have ver), big egos), is in fact fully genuine and very deep. And, more importantly, unlike many people to whom racing means more than life itself. he still understands that it's only a sport. This puts him way up in my estimation, Of course, a few more bum deals could change him for the worse. Who knows? year. l"lathematically, he still has plenty of hope, though he will have to start some serialwinning runs pretty damned soon to make it happen. Can anybody rule that out? Not if you saw the way he rode in France, and just how firmly he had put the upstart Oani Pedrosa in his place, before it came to a premature end. Rossi still towers over ever/body, in terms of sheer talent and ability - even the thoroughly remarkable Dani-Boy. The deciding factor now is definitely iusr luck. And it's fair to say that in just five races, he's had a whole bun€h of bad luck all come at once. (''Gibber's luck," his Aussie crew call it - meaning Sete Gibernau.) ls this simply fickle fortune's revenge for year after year of incredibly good luck? There are countless examples of how the And, more importantly, unlike many people to whom racing means more than life itself, he still understands that it's only a sport. to6 MAY3r,2W6 . cYcLE NEl,r'S IN THE PADDOCK Bv Mrcuan Scorr t I v 1 SPANX 7!! l/ lir i. t I \, Y e l- ! F ,e s /.. I /

• Cover