VOL. 51 ISSUE 39 SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 P23
"A few weeks ago, I was think-
ing I wasn't good enough to race
speedway because I was totally
down," he said. "It's so hard to
race if you are not 100 percent
sure when you sit on your bike.
It's really tough to fix all of your
problems in one day or one mo-
ment. After so many bad races,
I've been working really hard on
myself to find a reason and find
the problem that was causing me
to go so badly. It's not that easy.
Sometimes you need to take one
step back to make two steps for-
ward. I feel like I did that.
"I've had some trouble with the
bikes, of course, but when I've
been out on the track, I haven't
believed in myself. I'm not bro-
ken, though. I tried to think posi-
tive and I learned a lot day by day
about myself; I figured out the
best thing for me to do and how
to enjoy it again. I feel much bet-
ter now."
John Hipkiss
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
JOHN
HIPKISS
ROSSI A-OKAY AFTER CRASH
V
alentino Rossi crashed out
of Sunday's Grand Prix of
Aragon in Spain after running off
track and hitting the wet artificial
turf that lines parts of the Motor-
land Aragon circuit. Although he
was carted off the track by medi-
cal personnel and was transport-
ed to undergo a CT scan, Rossi
checked out fine and was back
at the track on Monday where
the team was being featured in a
commercial.
"I'm fine, everything is okay,
and this is the most important
thing," Rossi said in a Yamaha re-
lease on Monday morning. "I did
not injure myself too much except
for a big bump to the head. Last
night I had a little headache, but
today I'm fine, I'm 100 percent. It
was a real shame because be-
fore the race we made a change
that would have helped me a lot;
the bike was strong, I was going
well, I had recovered the gap in
the first few laps and I was there
with the leading riders. I felt good
and I am sure I could have made
a good race, so it was a real
shame to fall. In a way I'm almost
glad because even though we
had a difficult weekend on Sun-
day we were competitive and this
was supposed to be a track that
is not very good for us."
Rossi watched the race on re-
play and commented on what he
saw.
"Unfortunately, like [Andrea]
Iannone I went onto the artificial
grass," he said. "This is always
very dangerous and especially in
these cases because the track
was still wet from the morning
shower and there was nothing
to be done. Marc [Marquez] and
Dani [Pedrosa] tried to stay on
track on the slick tires, but they
took a big risk and in fact they
crashed. In my case, if I had
gone off track one meter before,
I would have just gone wide, in-
stead I touched the grass and I
fell."
Valentino Rossi didn't suffer injury
in his crash from the Grand Prix of
Aragon on Sunday.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
GOLD
&
GOOSE
