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/192336
CN III IN THE PADDOCK P124 BY MICHAEL SCOTT THE CABLE-CUTTER'S LAMENT A ccidents will happen. By accident. Hence the name. They're unexpected. And can sometimes be quite bizarre. Seldom more so than that which afflicted the ever-luckless Dani Pedrosa at Aragon. You all know what happened. Pedrosa had passed teammate Merciless Marc, who (as is his wont) was harrying him mercilessly. Marquez brakes later than anybody, and that's why we've seen him swerve out several times this year to avoid running up the back of Jorge Lorenzo and Pedrosa while in close combat. This time his clutch lever and elbow just brushed Dani's tire and swingarm. By a chance in a million, this severed the cable measuring rear-wheel speed, disabling the traction control. As soon as Dani opened the throttle a few meters further on, the Repsol Honda spun up the rear and spat him off. This simple brush not only ruined Pedrosa's race; also his (admittedly increasingly distant) championship chances, perhaps his last to add a premier crown to his 125 and double 250cc titles. It also took the sting out of an increasingly tense and exciting title battle. And left a black mark as big as the tire scrape on the forearm of Cable-Cutter Marquez's leathers. On first reflection, the brush and the subsequent highside had no obvious connection. The Race Direction committee wrote it off as a racing incident. Minor collisions happen all the time, on almost every corner in the smaller classes. By the time they heard the technicalities, however, that proved the two incidents were related, it was too late to do anything about it. Which is odd, because Twitter carried the news of the failed TC even before the race was over. Maybe it had something to do with the Dorna representative on the commission having to leave pronto, to catch his helicopter ride back to Madrid with big boss Carmelo Ezpeleta. Since the rules dictate that riders must not "cause danger to other competitors," and since the collision clearly had imperiled Pedrosa, the officials rather belatedly announced they would be investigating the accident. But – er, not now. It'll have to wait until all the necessary personnel were together again – two weeks later in Malaysia. This means that any decision will be announced between the writing of this column and its appearance in print. It means a certain amount of guesswork is required. Given the number of conspiracy theories flying around, there is plenty to choose from. The committee's most sensible response would be to preserve the status quo. It was a racing incident, no malice aforethought. It might be possible to cite dangerous riding… but it would set a precedent for every other racetrack collision. Any other response would suggest another agenda. The menu of punishments ranges from loss of points and fines via ride-throughs, time and grid-position penalties all the way