I've been a Formula 1 fan since I was a young boy. Unlike many other motor racing fans, however, I just never got into the two-wheel variation. I found motorbikes boring - the technology and racing itself not doing it for me on any level. Others raved about it, I remained untouched.
Until this year. I found myself flicking through some the sports channels one Sunday back in May and, suddenly, I found myself completely ernthralled by a MotoGP race. The wheel-to-wheel racing,the sheer gutsiness of the dimunitive motorbike riders, the back and forth place-swapping - just amazing!
I'd be lying if I said I'd become a huge fan of MotoGP since then - watched a few races, found some of them great, others of them quite dull, and, to be honest, also turned off a bit by the fact that the 2011 championship was being headed by racers that didn't catch my fancy (Stoner, Lorenzo, et al) and Valentino Rossi almost always mid-field due to his slower Ducati.
Be that as it may, one guy really caught my eye from the word go. Quick as lightning, incredibly audacious on the track and more often than not crashing out after one impetuous move or another. The fact that he was a total dude who happened to sport a mop of orange Rasta-like hair and happened to be Italian just made me like him even more. I really like Valentino Rossi, of course, but this ultra-fast audacious young upstart really got me excited. His name was Marco Simoncelli.
Today Simoncelli tragically passed away after a terrible crash on the 2nd lap of the Malaysian GP at Sepang. I now wish I'd watched more of him and been able to savour more of a tremendous rider who now, all too unbelievably, is no more.
If you love motorsport, there are drivers and riders you know are great but just can't like, other drivers you like but you know will never be great, and then there are those that stand head and shoulders above the rest for you. They are the ones, the very few, who really make the sport that much more thrilling, that much more alive. You watch their every move in every race, and every triumph they have is your triumph, every failure they have is yours to endure. Michael Schumacher is that man for me in F1. Marco Simoncelli would've been that man in MotoGP.
Like so many others around the world, I feel robbed of a great talent, robbed of a really simpatico guy - a real dude - who always readily smiled and waved at the camera.
Arrivederci, Marco - risposare in pace.
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