"Marco was flamboyant on and off the track. When someone dies, everyone always says they loved life. But he had a very vibrant personality. He already had a huge fanbase around the world, partly down to aggressive riding - but also because he was just a cool guy. He didn't take himself too seriously and would have been a big star for next year." Matt Roberts, BBC MotoGP presenter.I first heard about the crash on Monday evening when I came back from work. Tom had had the day off and had been told by a friend that something bad had happened during the race on Sunday, so he found the footage online (the fact that it wasn't on iPlayer is an indicator of the seriousness of the event). When he told me that someone had died, for some reason my first thought was that I hoped it wasn't Casey Stoner, who had recently won the 2011 championship at the Australian Phillip Island race. I remember thinking at the time of the Philip Island race that it would horribly ironic if something terrible happened to Stoner just at the point when he couldn't be beaten by anyone else.
But when Tom told me that it was Simoncelli, I was surprised by how much it shocked and saddened me. I hadn't been a big fan of Simoncelli to be honest, as from what little I'd learned about him over the past year watching MotoGP he was an aggressive rider who had been previously cautioned about his riding. Tom had an accident last year which really hit home the risks of motorbikes, so for one rider to be riding in a way that endangered fellow riders really annoyed me at the time.
But that being said he had really done well this season with a couple of podiums, and there was something quite lovable about the crazy Italian giant (by comparison to the average MotoGP rider anyway) with his massive Afro hair. As a fair few people have commented, Simoncelli or 'Super Sic' as he was known in MotoGP, was a 'rising star' who was considered a contender for next season's championship. Watching the race footage I started to feel sick thinking about the crash that I knew was about to happen, and knowing that the person on the white bike with the number 58 was now longer alive. Part of me didn't want to watch it, didn't want to see a man about to lose his life in front of my eyes, but I kept watching. I don't know why, and part of me feels ashamed at myself for doing so.
He literally appeared on the screen out of nowhere. Edwards and Rossi had no chance whatsoever of avoiding hitting him, but I don't imagine that thought will help them cope any more with the distress of what happened. Especially for Valentino Rossi who knew Simoncelli when he was younger and when he first started racing, who mentored him, and has even said that Marco was like a little brother to him. I believe Steve Parrish (BBC Motorcycling commentator) may be right when he predicted that Rossi may retire as a result of Marco's tragic death, even though his former manager has denied this. If I had seen that helmet bounce and roll across the track, looking horrifyingly like a head, if I had seen a friend of mine stretched out unconscious on the track, I don't think I would ever be able to go near a race track again, let alone compete.
As both Steve Parrish and Charlie Cox mentioned in their respective reports on the incident, motorcycle racing is a much, much safer sport than it used to be, with huge run offs, crash barriers, and technologically advanced safety equipment, including leathers with in-built airbags to cushion the body on impact. But listening to Charlie Cox talk about the accident on the BBC website, and describing the speeds the riders must have been going, and the sheer force that would have been required to remove a helmet from a rider's head was enough to bring tears to my eyes. It is clear that this accident was the result of an extremely unfortunate and unlikely set of circumstances. At the point where Charlie talks about how it might have gone differently, how under different circumstances it would have been a fairly harmless accident by MotoGP standards, and that Marco would probably have just dusted himself off and got up relatively unscathed, it just made me feel so sad for his family, and even now makes me well up a bit.
When Tom had his accident, he was conversely extremely lucky. But I kept thinking about how things could have been extremely serious, even fatal, if just the slightest thing had happened differently. If his bike hadn't twisted to the left and pinned him against the car that had pulled out in front of him, he most likely would have been thrown off and would have suffered much more serious injuries. Even though I'd spoken to him on the phone following the collision and knew he was more or less ok, the image of my boyfriend flying through the air and landing in a crumpled heap on the ground made me feel physically sick and I could barely talk.
I imagine Marco's Simoncelli's family and friends will be thinking along similar lines now. What could have been if only this or that hadn't happened, and he might still be with them now, albeit a bit bruised and battered. My heart goes out to all of those who knew him personally. There is nothing that can be said which will make the grief go away. In these circumstances, you can only celebrate what he achieved and who he was in the short space of time that he was alive, and hope that nothing like this ever happens again.
But as everybody who rides a motorbike, or watches the races knows, there will always be dangers. Now I do love riding pillion on the bike as I mentioned in an earlier post (Night Riders) and there is something wonderfully thrilling about being on two wheels, and I suppose part of that is the element of risk, but it is amazingly liberating. Back when I was a child I used to write short stories about teenagers running away on horseback and camping in forests, and I suppose a motorbike get-away is the somewhat more grown-up, less flowery version of that childhood fantasy of the flight into freedom. I've just finished reading the book 'The Long Way Round' from the TV series with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman and it makes me want to go on another motorbike holiday really soon, but at the same time I know I won't ever feel quite as relaxed about bikes as I was on the first holiday before Tom's near-miss. The rewards of riding motorbikes are certainly great, but you can't deny the risks.
As a final note on this sad topic I'm reminded of the words of Bridget Dobbs, wife of Paul 'Dobsy' Dobbs who died in the 2010 Isle of Mann TT:
"You can't love the death. You can't love the loss. But you can't love the excitement and the thrill without knowing that that's part of it."
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Sand sculpture tribute by artist Andy Hancock: http://www.allamericansandcastle.com/andycom |
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