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JULY 29, 2006 • C Y C L E N E W S 82 BY MICHAEL SCOTT IN THE PADDOCK T he world of MotoGP was outraged at the German Grand Prix when the German track doctor, Jorg-Uwe Fisch- er, declined to give Casey Stoner permission to take his place on the third row of the MotoGP grid. The Aussie battler had crashed in morning warmup (shut up, that person who said "again," though it was his second of the weekend, and his eighth of the year), and been scooted to hospital for a checkup. There was some loose talk of concussion, but he was apparently given a clean bill of health after a CAT scan, and he returned to the track, ready to go racing. The bill, however, was not clean enough for the track doctor. Concussion? No chance. Permission to ride was refused. And all hell broke loose. Talk the next day was that the doctor might easily have been brought to his senses had there been more time. Instead, the MotoGP race was at 12:30, an hour and a half earlier than usual, in a made-for-TV accommodation to get out of the way of the F1 race that was taking place in France. Stoner's team denied the concussion. Their release quoted Stoner as saying that he had "absolutely no problem... physical- ly or mentally; I was capable of riding. I was cleared by the scans." He was, of course outraged. And well he might be, since for once he fell on the wrong side of a very ill-defined criterion. With some justification, his camp won- dered whether, in the same circum- stances, Valentino Rossi would have been prevented from riding. But his plight is not the issue. The importance is that, for the first time in liv- ing memory (or certainly in my memory), an official track doctor stood up for his principles, and succeeded in overruling MotoGP's established medical order. This is a landmark, in an affair that has become more and more worrying over recent years, months and weeks - the way injured riders are allowed, some might think even encouraged, to ignore their injuries and get straight back out there. Is it the start of a return to sanity? Even before it became MotoGP, the paddock had the services of a quite remarkable medical facility, the famous Clinica Mobile. Run with a rod of iron by the (extremely eccentric) Dr. Claudio Costa, it offers riders everything from life-saving emergency treatment to quick- fix rehabilitation, often in the form of con- troversial mesotherapy (multiple local anaesthetic injections). The Clinica, staffed by three or more doctors and gen- erally working hand in hand with the on- site track medical facilities, has a remark- able reputation, and a number of glowing case histories, including the saving of Mick Doohan's leg. Their ethos is simple: They get the rid- ers out there just as soon as possible. This, of course, suits the riders, though not always to the long-term benefit of their health. But the Clinica staff makes no pre- tence at anything else. They are world leaders in the field of the medical quick fix. Which is all very fine and dandy. Where it all goes wrong is that, in the course of evolution to modernity, the role of the Clinica came to overlap that of racing management - literally so. There is a per- manent medical director at every race, usually one of two Italian doctors. Both of them are Clinica men. One of them told me once, when I asked him what his criterion was for pass- ing a rider fit to race, that these were all top professional sportsmen who knew exactly what was required. They know if they are capable of racing. If they say they can do it, then they can do it, he happily averred. Now look at this from another side. Some of the participants in the World Championship, in the 125cc class, are 15 years old. Not old enough to vote, drive a car on the road, graduate from school, or in many cases to leave home legally. They are people's children. Yet they are able to diagnose their own fitness to race? Would you send your racer son to a doctor whose decision was based on the patient's own opinion? There have been cases galore. Anyone remember the same Mick Doohan being lifted on and off his bike, back in 1992, when he made a heroic and ultimately unsuccessful return after that awful leg injury? Anyone remember the same Casey Stoner, in 2002, being allowed to go out and practice on his 250 at Mugello after suffering a real concussion that same morning? His consistency suffered, he allowed at the time, because with waveringly intermittent double vision, it was hard to see the brake markers or pick the right line. There are many more examples, espe- cially just from the last few races: Marco Melandri racing with a broken collarbone at Assen, Donington and Germany; Loris Capirossi doing the same with unspecified internal injuries; Rossi competing at the same races with a fractured hand. Were they safe to race? In that they all made it to the end, yes. But how much was that due to pure luck? Melandri's case is somewhat more complicated. He also suffered a concussion in that Catalunya turn-one multiple. Yet four days later, he was out on his 990cc MotoGP machine at Assen. Other high- risk sports take a very different view. In rugby, for instance, a concussion invokes an automatic three-week match ban. Never mind. If these riders felt they were fit to race, they should know. According to the medical man in perma- nent charge. Stoner's team boss, former rider Lucio Cecchinello, was clearly either not aware of this system, or not a believer. He called for a dedicated chief MotoGP medical officer who would have the final say on matters of fitness. The FIA operates a similar one-man system in F1 racing. Funnily enough, motorcycle racing used to have one, back in the early days of independence from the FIM. He was a most pragmatic man. A rider with an arm or wrist injury could be expected to do a number of clap press-ups to prove his fit- ness; one with a leg injury might be invit- ed to jump off a table. I'm not sure how he would test for concussion, but it would be something equally severe. Anyway, he was shuffled to one side and long since forgotten. Stoner's case is just one more that proves the post of medical supreme is more than ripe for revival. CN Fit Enough?