A lynch mob. Now, Honeybunz stated an opinion in a rather unnecessarily offensive and unpleasant way, but there is a point there. Simoncelli has been beatified after his death, and claims made about him that are simply unjustified. Before he was killed, there was a group which championed Simoncelli's cause, and saw him as a bright young star adding some spice to what has become a rather dull series. There were those who thought he had it in him to win races, and there were a few that thought he might be a world champion. Since his death, he has been turned into the savior of MotoGP lost to untimely tragedy. Now, everyone is suddenly convinced that Simoncelli was a shoe-in for world champ at some point, and his ascent to alien level was only a matter of time. I remember the last time this happened. I was moving house, when a woman and her partner of the time were killed in a car accident in a Paris underpass. The world went insane for a year. The same thing is happening now with Marco Simoncelli. There is now a collective hysteria surrounding Simoncelli, in which it has become impossible to have a calm, rational debate about him. Now that he has been dead for a year, I expect that hysteria to subside, just as it did for Diana. I realize this is probably not a popular opinion. But frankly, the hype and hysteria is starting to overwhelm my gag reflex, and I need to spew a little bile. Feel free to ban me, badmouth me, call me all sorts of names, boycott my site. Hopefully, though, we can all calm down a little. Reminds me of a section of this song: "The Beatles, just a band". <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nBJ3Q5Qrx7c?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Elton doesn't feed the hero worship of motorheads. Need some fellas like Ramstein to do a proper tribute song.
I think part of these long eulogies is that not as many people die in motorsports now as when I first started being interested in them (early 60's) back then and before a few racers died a year some were your average rider or driver some were the cream of the crop. It was almost as if there wasn't enough time to dwell on it if you liked racing you just moved on and thought about the consequences in your own way. I remember seeing a video of Sir Sterling Moss at Goodwood and he said basically the same thing only he lived the danger saying in effect a few of his mates were going to die every year and he had to just look ahead and drive the best he could or else get another job. another example besides Diana was Dale Sr. in NASCAR the reaction of his fans and enemies was way overblown.
It doesn't seem unusual to grieve openly on only the first anniversary of what was a shocking and very tragic death. Sic was what he was. Good, bad, and everything in between. It doesn't lessen the pain of his loss for some of us. I was a very open supporter when he was among us, though I never proclaimed him to be any kind of savior. Just an impossibly enthusiastic and and very talented racer who did leave a very large void in his wake, like him or don't. Slinging mud at his memory is in very bad taste on the anniversary of his death. If debating his legacy is so very important and necessary, save it for a different day.
The only part of that I take issue with is that Simoncelli's death was shocking. This is motorcycle racing. A year earlier, Shoya Tomizawa had been killed, and a week before Tomizawa, Peter Lenz had lost his life. Motorcycle racing is dangerous. People die. Every death is a tragedy, but it should not be a shock.
I was trying to figure out a way to agree with Honeybunz on principle without agreeing with his particular word choice. I watched much the same hysteria to deify Kato back in 2003. And like you have become somewhat tired of it this time around. They seem to be wringing a great deal of mileage, and money, out of his death over the last year.
I think you may be lacking a bit in the empathy dept. That is OK, but that would be your flaw not ours.
I can agree that I lack empathy. However, I think it is very important to remember that this is a dangerous sport. Every crash has most of the press room on edge, at what might happen. Hayden at Aragon, Hayden clearly unconscious at Indianapolis, those were bad, bad scenes. But we know the price that riders may end up paying for our entertainment.
Of course, but that doesn't stop (some of) us from being saddened and even shocked when these tragedies occur. The brilliant thing about sport, especially dangerous ones like moto racing, is that it is very real and our heroes take very real risks with very real consequences when things go badly. It is not fictitious TV drama. Shit, people mourned for Valentino Rossi's broken leg like he had been killed. It is very human to do so.
I agree that it sadly is a part of the sport, and riders as well as viewers know the dangers. Nevertheless I can say that I, personally, was shocked a year ago. Apart from this I want to say that HoneyBunz received a temp ban because of an unrelated issue, people don't get banned for bad taste here, or we'd run out of KLR riders within days.
Well put. I was shocked as well. But we grieve and we move on. So now that it's been one year, when is it appropriate to analyse what exactly happened, and, as someone asked a while back, when will we see Bridgestone's head on a platter?
I never thought that far. I was a fan of his, because I really liked his style and I despised the way the "aliens" treated him. Would he have become that good? Maybe. We'll never know. But I think you're severely exaggerating when comparing to Diana - the tributes have been well-placed this year and not particularly exaggerated. Sure, they're probably more than we used to see for people who died in the 70s or whatever, but that's kind of self-explanatory. I wasn't devastated by his death either, I never even met him so how could I be? I was saddened, it's always sad when someone dies, but for me it was sad that we would never see the guy who brought back some flair to the sport ride again. I definitely agree that racing is dangerous and they're in it with their lives on the line. Which is part of why I thought that Pedrosa and Lorenzo acted like asses when Sic was alive. They seemed to think that they were the fastest and no one should challenge them, especially not if it meant with a spectacular/risky riding style that they didn't approve of. Bullshit, I say. They're there to race, and the way JLo doesn't even put up a fight now when Pedrosa overtakes him while obvious and I would do the same, is fucking boring and arguably damaging for the sport.
SIC was a talented young gun. many times his ambition out weighed his talent to put it gently. It seemed to me he was first a racer with the whole " hair on fire WFO" style. Exciting? yes. but I cursed him almost as much as I cheered for him with some of the just plane bad choices he made on the race track. What I took offence to and my comment was directed to was the lack of taste and basic curtesy from the other poster. GO NICKY!!!!!!!!!!!! YA GOTTA PUT IT ON THE BOX AGAIN BRO! now back to racing yeah i no i caint spell.... no spell ck on this machine