Cycle News

FEATURE VALENTINO ROSSI P142 trous stint at Ducati, and perhaps point to last season's return to Ya- maha as evidence that he's now officially past his prime, making for a less than fair comparison. That may be a credible argument in terms of his head-to-head match-ups with Pedrosa and Lo- renzo, who have had access to extremely competitive equipment their entire careers, although it's somewhat leveled out by the fact that the rookie years of Pedrosa and Lorenzo are factored in -- seasons in which there is a low- ered likelihood of success. It's also worth noting that the writing may have already been on the wall at Yamaha in 2010, as Lorenzo looked capable of eclipsing Rossi even prior to Rossi's injury suffered at Mugel- lo. The Italian was uncomfortable sharing a garage with another genuine "#1 rider" and report- edly gave Yamaha a 'him-or-me' ultimatum, of which they picked 'him'. Of course, Rossi has since returned to Yamaha, albeit forced to accept an 'understudy' role to the fully-developed Lorenzo. At any rate, it becomes very difficult to explain away Stoner's all-around superiority in terms of career head-to-head numbers, especially as the Australian's rookie season is counted (on an LCR Honda no less), not to men- tion the four years he spent with Ducati, which directly preceded Rossi's. Marc Marquez is not includ- ed here as one season is not enough to count as a track re- cord, but we all know how that went last year. With all of this in mind, how can you possibly consider a rider the greatest of all-time when he has effectively been outperformed by his key rivals since their arriv- al, a timespan that accounts for over half of his MotoGP career? Well… The doldrum years – a not so happy Jeremy Burgess and Rossi. MAYBE Is it possible that Rossi's undeni- able and very immediate great- ness hastened his own obsoles- cence? As mentioned, Rossi signifi- cantly raised the profile of the sport. And with that, the manu- facturers responded by pouring more and more money into tech- nological development -- Honda in particular, as HRC was com- mitted to beating their former ace. That quickened the pace of the rise of the motorcycling equivalent to Skynet and Rossi's sublime talents may have been rendered somewhat less of a de- cider as a result. And as also touched on earlier, Rossi showed the way to those who followed. The Italian didn't have anyone to demonstrate just how fast a MotoGP bike could possibly be hustled around the racecourse, but Pedrosa, Loren- zo, Stoner et al. certainly did. Rossi is a bit like 'King' Kenny Roberts in that sense. Roberts was a revolutionary figure who irrevocably changed the face of the game. His success signaled the coming of a new generation of dirt-track honed superstars. Some of them -- fellow hall-of- famers such Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, and Mick Doohan in particular -- logged even more impressive career numbers, but does that in any way detract from

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