P124
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
A
h, the good old days.
When racing was rac-
ing and riders were
tough. Not like the cotton-wool-
wrapped overpaid social-media
celebs of today.
I jest, of course: nobody
who rides a 260-horsepower
MotoGP is namby pamby. But
I was thinking about this at
Misano, when it started raining
on race day.
Because, well, because
that's what happens at Misano,
no matter which direction they
run it, and no matter how often
they resurface it, the track be-
comes slippery.
As a result, there were a few
crashes on race day. Eighty
crashes, in fact. Spread over
three classes, although those
scampish youngsters in Moto3
took the lions' share.
It brought the total over the
weekend to 140. Which I think
is a record, and certainly sets
the bar very high, in a year of
high achievement in this regard.
The greatest numbers managed
anywhere else so far are 94 at
Le Mans—the figure swelled by
22 all in one go when some-
body spilled an oil slick in
Moto3 and almost everybody
crashed on it; and then a rela-
THE MISANO MUTINEERS
