At the MotoGP season opener in Qatar, Dani Pedrosa was the only rider who had anything for Casey Stoner. Qualifying second, two tenths behind the Australian, Pedrosa was six tenths ahead of third place qualifier, Jorge Lorenzo. Those of us who expected Stoner to find the front within a couple of laps and disappear were surprised to see Pedrosa pass Stoner with 17 laps to go. It was then the Pedrosa-Stoner show until, with 11 laps to go, Dani’s stuck-throttle crash at Motegi last season came back to haunt him. He dropped to second, then fell back into Lorenzo’s clutches as his left arm went numb.
In Motegi Pedrosa had broken his collar bone, and it was thought that the nerves beneath the clavicle suffered when subjected to the pressure or fighting Casey Stoner on a MotoGP bike. Dani said he was basically unable to use the clutch for the second half of the race, and the fact that he managed to bring it home in third place is a testament to how tough a rider he is. It has now been confirmed that Pedrosa will be having another surgery on the trouble shoulder after Jerez to address the issue, which turns out to be pressure on the subclavian artery causing numbness in the left arm, and I’m pretty sure, a good deal of discomfort.
Dani Pedrosa gets a hard time here in the U.S., largely because he knocked Nicky Hayden off at Estoril when his teammate was fighting to win the title, partially because he has a reputation for only being able to win if he can get out in front and turn the race into a time trial, and partially because he does not show us an engaging public persona. It’s a tough piece of luck if you’re incredibly fast on a motorbike but not entertaining in a press conference. People make judgements about your character based only on what they see when you have a microphone in your face and bright lights in your eyes, and if there is more to you than what comes across in that moment, you just don’t get credit for it.
Perhaps Dani’s gritty ride at the season opener will earn him some credit. Still feeling the effects his his stuck-throttle crash at Motegi last season, Dani’s left arm was numb by the end of the race in Qatar. I was in Parc Ferme when he came in and from his body language I thought he was seriously ill. It turned out he had ridden the last ten laps in such discomfort he was unable to work the clutch as he struggled to hang on to third place. It’s no secret that you have to possess some major toughness to make it to the premiere class, and when one of these guys climbs off his bike wincing in pain you know that whatever it is has got to hurt. Think what you will about #26, but to stay out there and salvage third-place-points is championship stuff.
One of the things I like about my work is that I sometimes get glimpses into the riders’ personalities away from interviews and press conferences. These glimpses aren’t always flattering, I’m sorry to say, but sometimes they make me wish a given rider was as gifted at public speaking as he is as going fast.
On Thursday afternoon I watched HRC assemble all six of their bikes and riders and team for a group photo. As you may imagine, this is a bit of a chore for everyone involved. But it is part of the business side of racing. Riders and team members aren’t required by contract to dig ditches, but they are required to do things like stand up straight and smile for the photographer once in a while.
This was one of those situations when the various details that needed managing combined to ask all involved to smile and practice patience. Even with one of the top photographers in the paddock in charge, it is tricky to get the bikes lined up just right while a lot of people are waiting, all of whom have other things to do.
Once the bikes were set in place, all those people were asked to line up and fit into the shot behind the riders, who sat astride their machines. While all of this was going on, some were cracking jokes to ease the burden of the activity, and some of Casey’s guys got him laughing pretty hard. I’ve seen that before so it didn’t surprise me. I think Stoner is another guy who gets an underserved rap from the public in general. But at one point someone got Dani to laugh out loud, and for a moment it seemed like the veil had lifted and the real Pedrosa peeked out. Up until this moment he’d been the Dani Pedrosa we’re accustomed to seeing, shy, quiet, head down, far from the life of the party. Suddenly he seemed like a regular guy. I’d only ever seen glimpses of this side of him before, but now there it was, plain as day. It just took the right circumstances to let that side out.
My point is that these men we watch do amazing things on motorcycles only show us part of who they are when on the track or wearing their public personalities. For one, I can only imagine what it must be like to suffer the kind of scrutiny they endure. We have successes or failures that go unnoticed by all but a handful of people in our inner circles. But the riders perform at an amazing level with millions of people watching, and then are expected to climb off the bike and be entertaining. Rossi is unique because he manages both so adeptly. But for others whose remarkable quality is that they are in the minutest percentage of humans who can tame a MotoGP bike, shouldn’t that be enough?
I regret to admit that for years I have been among those who continue to hold a grudge against Pedrosa for the incident at Estoril. (For those new to MotoGP, Pedrosa’s teammate, Nicky Hayden, was in a close fight for the championship with Rossi in 2006, and at the start of the Portuguese GP Pedrosa tried to pass Hayden, knocking them both off the track and dealing what seemed at the time a fatal blow to Hayden’s hopes for a world title.) It was not merely sympathy for Hayden, it was that for a 250cc champ who had been in Hayden’s spot before, trying to clinch a world title, the move was unforgivable. It seemed beyond what we could dismiss with, “Well, we’re all human, we all make mistakes.” A MotoGP rider could not be allowed to make that mistake. It was just too ridiculous.
I still think it was one of the worst bits of judgment I’ve seen on track, but I no longer hold it against Pedrosa because I am simply unable to put myself in his shoes. (No tiny shoe-size jokes, please.) Somehow, seeing Dani at the HRC team photo made a little light go on for me. We know that no matter how good at a given thing someone is, deep down we are all human beings with the same desires and weaknesses. But it is easy to lose track of that basic understanding when we watch people who are so good at a given thing as to appear godly. So now I like to think of Dani as he is in the photo above, a Dani we don’t often get to see but who is there nonetheless. He laughs when something is funny, he makes mistakes. He’s just like us. Except a hell of a lot faster on a motorcycle.
