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/628182
VOL. 53 ISSUE 2 JANUARY 19, 2016 P105 knew everybody, and had the inside track on all sorts of things at several levels. More of them are folksy and quite inconsequential. Told with Carter's droll subtlety and per- vasive humor, the book is none the worse for that. Perhaps even better: where else would you read about Ron Haslam's ultra- conservative dietary preferenc- es, and that his more adventur- ous son Leon finally introduced the strictly meat-and-two-veg Rocket Ron to prawns? Carter seems to like almost everybody; he even has a good word or two to say about me, though you have to get all the way through to page 232 (out of 233) to find it. But there are notable exceptions. Mainly rid- ers with big heads and dubious personalities. Phil "look how great I am" Read is one such; while Barry Sheene's manipula- tive shindigs are exhaustively ex- plored, alongside his skills and strengths. Sheene is summed up as "Mr. Charming, but not entirely nice underneath, I am afraid." Carter and I overlapped quite a bit, and laughed a lot. Most of all I admired his sheer profes- sionalism. Chris could ad-lib a perfectly written news story over the phone to an exact word count, hardly pausing for breath, and without so much as a result sheet in front of him, let alone any notes. More impressive was the serene way he dealt with disas- ter. We commentated together once for TV at Brno. Halfway through the main race Carter's flimsy metal chair slowly col- lapsed under his considerable weight. Now lying on his side on the floor, tangled up with the wrecked framework, his com- mentary didn't skip a beat. Carter's memories may be rose-tinted or acid-dipped, tailored to the individual, but the tenor of the book is how much racing has changed. Right up until the arrival of the Americans—Pat Hennen and Kenny Roberts up front—in the 1970s and for ten years beyond that Carter revels in an informal atmosphere of a traveling circus. Riders socialized with one an- other, and helped one another out. The book conjures up a world of jolly barbeques and late-night card games, of drinking parties and mutual confidences and assistance between on-track rivals. A million miles away from the paddock atmosphere of today. Can you imagine Lorenzo and Rossi sitting down to a friendly meal without it ending in a mas- sive mutual sulk? Let alone a game of cards. Or that if either came upon Marquez broken down by the road en route to the next race that they would stop to give him and his bike a lift? The old chummy ways sur- vived the arrival of the big money from the likes of Lucky Strike, Marlboro and Rothmans, but succumbed to the tide of market-speak and pro-active PR initiatives flogged to those sponsors by smart men on big percentages. The funerary hymn (as I recall observing at the time) was the hiss of automatic sliding doors on the new air-con sponsor hospitality units. Sealed from the outside world, no longer could (for example) Kevin Schwantz throw bread rolls at Wayne Gardner if he walked past. There are some shining exceptions—Jack Miller and Cal Crutchlow spring to mind, and most unexpectedly Dani Pe- drosa is emerging from his dour youth to become a dry humorist and (during the Rossi-Marquez spat) something of a sporting gentleman to boot. Most riders, by the time they get to the top, are so seriously focused that they have little time for human relationships. Any bonhomie is staged for the cameras: Rossi the most expert of all. Would we want it to be differ- ent? And is it really that different from the old days? "Chris Carter at Large" is pub- lished by Veloce Books. CN