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MotoGP
MOTOGP: Noyes’ Notebook - Men Who Stare At GOATs
Is it time to rethink Valentino Rossi's place in MotoGP history? Dennis Noyes consults the numbers…
Ducati Team's Valentino Rossi (Photo: Evan Williams)
PROGRAMMING NOTE: The 2012 MotoGP round from Jerez, Spain will air LIVE on SPEED on Sunday, April 29 at 8:00am ET. Qualifying will air LIVE all season long on SPEED2. #SPEEDmoto
Every year at one time or another the question arises again: Who is the GOAT -- the greatest of all time?
It is an impossible question. Especially impossible for fans so young they never saw Eddie Lawson win any of his 31 Grands Prix, Roberts spinning the Goodyear on his crossed-up Yamaha as if Jarama were Ascot, Spencer doing the 250-500 double, Doohan winning five championships in a row… not to mention the vast majority who never saw Agostini against Hailwood, Read against Agostini, and the ever bigger majority who never saw Duke on the Gilera and the Manx Norton or Surtees on two wheels (I only saw Surtees drive once in F1). There are young fans who don’t even remember 'the American Years' from 1978 through 1993 when Japanese factory bosses still kept an eye on AMA dirt tracks looking for the next Roberts.
I saw my first GP at Barcelona in 1968. The late and great Jack Findlay got the holeshot on his old Matchless (he raced the same bike for five years) and led the opening laps until Agostini came past on the howling MV at tree-tunneled Montjuich Park. That same day a Spaniard, a little guy with glasses, Salvador Cañellas, gave Spain its first GP win on a Bultaco TSS single in 125 after Phil Read and Bill Ivy blew up their V4 Yamahas.
I thought the celebrations of leaping, crying joy in the Bultaco pit was rather extreme. I didn’t know it was Spain’s first win and I didn’t have a clue as to just how much Spain loved roadracing. At that time GP racing was dominated by Italian and British riders with Spanish riders limited to what the Brits in the media center referred to as “the tiddler classes.”
Now in 2012 Spain has become the leading motorcycling nation as regards GP talent while Ducati struggles to regain some parity with Honda and Yamaha. In Qatar Spanish riders won all three places and took five of nine podium places. In 2010 Spanish riders finished first and second in all three GP classes! Today Spain is the only country whose fans actually expect to have a good chance of winning all three classes -- it’s called a “triplete” in Spanish. But the most popular rider in Spain is probably still Valentino Rossi.
The Italian’s popularity is so great that it is said that whereas Spanish riders have five home races (the four Spanish rounds plus Portugal where a large part of the crowd comes from Spain), Rossi has 18 home races.
But is he the GOAT?
In a very clever TV interview, translated and posted on GPone.com, Valentino, as if he were just a TV guy in a suit, interviewed his own dad, former GP winner Graziano Rossi, on the subject of his son’s (his own) future. Great stuff. Graziano opined that Vale will be around another four or five years, winning with Ducati in MotoGP before he goes to Superbike to have a final showdown with Max Biaggi. (Max will have to keep racing until he is 45 or so for this to happen.)
Personally, I can’t see Rossi leaving Ducati without at least winning another few races, and it is hard to imagine him going to SBK unless he wins at least one more title in MotoGP. But the reason we have the races is to answer those questions. As far as Rossi’s place in current history, here, for the hell of it, is what the numbers seem to say.
Every year at one time or another the question arises again: Who is the GOAT -- the greatest of all time?
It is an impossible question. Especially impossible for fans so young they never saw Eddie Lawson win any of his 31 Grands Prix, Roberts spinning the Goodyear on his crossed-up Yamaha as if Jarama were Ascot, Spencer doing the 250-500 double, Doohan winning five championships in a row… not to mention the vast majority who never saw Agostini against Hailwood, Read against Agostini, and the ever bigger majority who never saw Duke on the Gilera and the Manx Norton or Surtees on two wheels (I only saw Surtees drive once in F1). There are young fans who don’t even remember 'the American Years' from 1978 through 1993 when Japanese factory bosses still kept an eye on AMA dirt tracks looking for the next Roberts.
I saw my first GP at Barcelona in 1968. The late and great Jack Findlay got the holeshot on his old Matchless (he raced the same bike for five years) and led the opening laps until Agostini came past on the howling MV at tree-tunneled Montjuich Park. That same day a Spaniard, a little guy with glasses, Salvador Cañellas, gave Spain its first GP win on a Bultaco TSS single in 125 after Phil Read and Bill Ivy blew up their V4 Yamahas.
I thought the celebrations of leaping, crying joy in the Bultaco pit was rather extreme. I didn’t know it was Spain’s first win and I didn’t have a clue as to just how much Spain loved roadracing. At that time GP racing was dominated by Italian and British riders with Spanish riders limited to what the Brits in the media center referred to as “the tiddler classes.”
Now in 2012 Spain has become the leading motorcycling nation as regards GP talent while Ducati struggles to regain some parity with Honda and Yamaha. In Qatar Spanish riders won all three places and took five of nine podium places. In 2010 Spanish riders finished first and second in all three GP classes! Today Spain is the only country whose fans actually expect to have a good chance of winning all three classes -- it’s called a “triplete” in Spanish. But the most popular rider in Spain is probably still Valentino Rossi.
The Italian’s popularity is so great that it is said that whereas Spanish riders have five home races (the four Spanish rounds plus Portugal where a large part of the crowd comes from Spain), Rossi has 18 home races.
But is he the GOAT?
In a very clever TV interview, translated and posted on GPone.com, Valentino, as if he were just a TV guy in a suit, interviewed his own dad, former GP winner Graziano Rossi, on the subject of his son’s (his own) future. Great stuff. Graziano opined that Vale will be around another four or five years, winning with Ducati in MotoGP before he goes to Superbike to have a final showdown with Max Biaggi. (Max will have to keep racing until he is 45 or so for this to happen.)
Personally, I can’t see Rossi leaving Ducati without at least winning another few races, and it is hard to imagine him going to SBK unless he wins at least one more title in MotoGP. But the reason we have the races is to answer those questions. As far as Rossi’s place in current history, here, for the hell of it, is what the numbers seem to say.
Grand Prix of The Americas
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