So, the owners of MotoGP are going to shift the BIG RACE from Phillip Island to the streets of Adelaide. Now, elsewhere in this issue you’ll read informed opinions – real experts in the field like Gordo and Hammer – on the ins and outs of why this is happening.
What I’ve got is the average rider’s opinion at most, the yobbo who’s on the fence pissed by lunchtime and thinks finding his tent that night is the clever bit.
Mind you, the first time I went to the Island I was the esteemed editor of the biggest bike magazine in the country. Well maybe not ‘esteemed’, more slightly blanched. I’d only had the job six months and wasn’t remotely qualified. Unless you consider reading magazines on a remote outback long-drop dunny a form of expertise. The management of the publishing company were Trump types who made staffing decisions on a roll of the dice before ducking out to the TAB. They sacked Bill McKinnon, who was a brilliant editor, and gave his job to the other guy in the office. Before that the most responsibility I’d ever had was getting the motor going on the puddler.
So ‘Mr Editor’ and his number one advertising man, Two Wheels’ veteran John ‘Koala’ Waugh, had to attend a meeting three months before the first Australian GP with track engineer and promoter Bob Barnard. Waughy swung a deal for the first ever ‘ride’ around the new track.
We grabbed a photographer and borrowed some bikes and rode through wind and rain to have a go. The track itself was finished, just. And it was raining. And you know that corner Casey used to slide around? Yep, I trowelled a test Honda VFR straight into the mud limping around at skateboard speed.
But the motorcyclist in me loved every corner. Barnard knew more about track design than anybody on earth. It was brilliant, as a legion of top-class riders spent the next two-and-a-half decades finding out. Phillip Island is a rider’s track, a place where the pure expression of motorcycle competition can be released. Always fast and flowing, it favours the brave; riders who can handle elevation changes and slip streaming while sliding on full noise. There is no better test of ultimate motorcycle riding precision than Phillip Island. Period.
That’s an opinion – I’ve never raced at any sort of level that’d back it up. I have got pissed with riders who have though. And I’m pretty sure if I polled the rest of the blokes leaning on this fence we’d tend to agree. Apart from the great views, the Island brings out the best from the best.
After Wayne won that first event in 1989, I woke up under a table in the press tent. In 1990 I didn’t even get back to the tent. The years after that were spent as a punter not a publisher and mostly that’s because I couldn’t cut it with the experts. They’d be talking tyre tech and fuelling temps and how so-and-so performed at Shah Alam or Assen. I’d be lining up for a round of Dagwood Dogs. Being a punter means all the enjoyment with none of the responsibility. And I don’t do responsible.
I did do Phillip Island though, lots. And loved it, just like our annual pilgrimages to Bathurst back in the 1970s and 80s. Will I ‘do’ a MotoGP in Adelaide?
No. I’ll stay home and watch it on the telly. From here Adelaide is just as far as Phillip Island but it means sharing what used to be a real motorcycle event with the general public. That means a whole lot of wankers who’ll be cheering for all the wrong reasons. It’s sad, it’s cheap and it’s all about offering more facilities to bring in bigger crowds. Chuck in corporate greed versus the true spirit of motorcycle racing, add a few huge lies about how the statistics prove a city circuit can be as safe as a purpose-built track and then tell everybody it’s for the benefit of the sport.
Yep, it’s all about making money. Since Mango Man lied his way to the top in the US of A, things like honour, pride, quality, tradition and ability have all been subverted to piling up cash. Greed is the new God. Watch out, next year they might replace riders throttling 300 horsepower with topless girls in Teslas.
