FEATURE
T
he world’s fastest racers have been suffering from adrenaline withdrawal and deprived of their normal buzz of riding 260bhp+ works MotoGP missiles but the elite can now start flexing their wrists once more with the delayed 2020 season just around the corner. However, there are some riders who won’t be getting high that way again: the journalists for whom a blast on a MotoGP bike – or 500cc GP two-stroke before that – is now a distant memory. It’s more than a decade since the factories stopped allowing a handful of hacks a spin on their most exalted machinery, usually the day after the season-closing race. I was privileged to be involved for years – riding NSR500s and RC211Vs, Desmosedicis, YZR-M1s and more – but haven’t been let loose on a MotoGP bike since 2007, and am not sure that any other journos have either. The tests varied hugely, from very small – I recall seeing just five names on the list to ride one of Rossi’s M1s – to considerably larger. Occasionally a couple of dozen riders from magazines around the world queued for a “test” that was sometimes less than three laps: one out lap, just one flying lap, plus most of one more to get back to the pits.
That’s not much time to get up to speed on any bike, for any rider. Let alone to get the best out of one of the most fearsomely powerful and high-tech motorcycles on the planet. And even more so when, like me and most other testers, you’re not a youthful superstar but a rusty ex-racer and current keyboard warrior who’s considerably taller, heavier and older than the regular pilot, whose suspension settings and riding position you’re stuck with. More to the point, you know that the exotic, hand-made factory missile below you MUST NOT BE CRASHED under any circumstances. Adding to the pressure is the fact that, although you know your lap times don’t matter, the factory mechanics are timing you anyway, and will probably provide a printout to emphasise how much slower you were. Not that lapping well-off laprecord pace spoils the story. Having raced at a decent level definitely helped (sometimes journalists were asked to submit racing CVs) but many of the racer tests I’ve most enjoyed reading over the years have been the “Oh-my-god-it’sso-scarily-fast!” type, written by slower – or just more honest or imaginative – riders. Far better that than dispassionate but dull analysis from a recently