ciao, Marco.

shock. i was shocked when i turned on the computer to watch today’s MotoGP race in Sepang, Malaysia and found out that rising star Marco Simoncelli had died at 16:56 local time from injuries sustained during a collision with Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi on lap two.

it seems so outrageous that elite MotoGP riders can still die racing in this day and age but Simoncelli’s passing has made it a staggering two in two years with Moto2 star Shoya Tomizawa having lost his life at the San Marino Grand Prix last September. to give you some context, the last on-track fatality before Tomizawa was his fellow countryman Daijiro Kato during the 2003 Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka.

as Beka and i remember one of our favorite riders, our thoughts and prayers go out to Marco’s family and friends. Rest in peace, Super Sic.

today is one of those rare days in the motorsport calendar i like to call ‘the perfect storm.’ in other words, the MotoGP, Moto2 and 125cc races at Motegi, two rounds of World Superbike at Magny-Cours and the stunning conclusion of Rallye de France all fell on the same day today. perfection, indeed.

well, i didn’t watch Formula One yesterday but i did rewatch the penultimate race from the 2006 MotoGP season, a crazy race during a year which saw one of the greatest championship fights in recent history. it was fun seeing old regulars in action like Shinya Nakano and John Hopkins as well as Kawasakis, the Honda-powered KR211V and the beautiful but short-lived Ilmor X3 on the grid but what really drew me to rewatch that particular race was one man: Toni Elias.



Toni (pictured above during practice at last year’s Indianapolis Grand Prix atop his Moto2 bike) won his first and only (to date) MotoGP race that fateful autumn day in Portugal, beating the venerable Valentino Rossi to the line by 0.002 seconds in one of the closest victories i can recall seeing from any racing series. it was fantastic to see Tiger Toni sliding into corners like a madman with his entire body hanging off the bike and his post-race celebration was second only to when he clinched the Moto2 world championship in Malaysia last year.

while Toni isn’t doing so hot in the big class this year on his satellite Honda, i sincerely hope that he continues his racing career for many years to come. his super aggressive riding style is always great to watch and the fact that he celebrates like a rhesus monkey makes watching him win even better.

well, i didn’t watch Formula One yesterday but i did rewatch the penultimate race from the 2006 MotoGP season, a crazy race during a year which saw one of the greatest championship fights in recent history. it was fun seeing old regulars in action like Shinya Nakano and John Hopkins as well as Kawasakis, the Honda-powered KR211V and the beautiful but short-lived Ilmor X3 on the grid but what really drew me to rewatch that particular race was one man: Toni Elias.



Toni (pictured above during practice at last year’s Indianapolis Grand Prix atop his Moto2 bike) won his first and only (to date) MotoGP race that fateful autumn day in Portugal, beating the venerable Valentino Rossi to the line by 0.002 seconds in one of the closest victories i can recall seeing from any racing series. it was fantastic to see Tiger Toni sliding into corners like a madman with his entire body hanging off the bike and his post-race celebration was second only to when he clinched the Moto2 world championship in Malaysia last year.

while Toni isn’t doing so hot in the big class this year on his satellite Honda, i sincerely hope that he continues his racing career for many years to come. his super aggressive riding style is always great to watch and the fact that he celebrates like a rhesus monkey makes watching him win even better.

with a list like this, you might expect my Sundays to be packed full of racing and you’d be right most of the time. not today, though. today is one of those rare Sundays during the middle of the season when i have nothing to watch. it’s weird but i think i’m so desperate, i might even watch Formula One.

OH WAIT, I ALREADY FOUND OUT WHO WON THE SPANISH GRAND PRIX BECAUSE THE BBC POSTS SPOILERS IN THEIR HEADLINES.

my brother Dan of Corner Speed Photo fame was in the Bay Area this past weekend shooting AMA Pro motorcycle races at Infineon Raceway. here he is captured by television cameras as he calmly walks past the very talented Jason DiSalvo on the starting grid.



he’s so pro, being on TV doesn’t really phase him anymore.

i was catching up on the season opener of FIA GT1 when i noticed that all the cars had windshield banners that said “BLANCPAIN” in big white letters. a quick look on Wikipedia revealed Blancpain to be a Swiss watch company which made sense because they were doing the official race timing. still, something didn’t really seem right so i used my enormously small brain in conjunction with my extremely limited knowledge of the French language to deduce that “blanc pain” means…”white bread?”

i quickly ran it through an online French to English translator to confirm my suspicion and the result came back loud, clear and in capital letters: WHITE BREAD.

weird.

after an excruciatingly long winter, MotoGP is BACK and my Sundays are filled with the sweet, sweet sound of grand prix bikes screaming down the straights once again. ahhh…

so i sat down to watch coverage of the 2011 season opener of AMA Superbike the other day. i was relaxing at my desk watching the pre-race stuff when this series of short rider interviews came up about eight minutes in. the horror. THE HORROR.











alarmingly, the terrifying font in question is NOT the lovably hateable Comic Sans but some sort of obnoxious derivative. i can understand wanting to breed weakened strains of the bubonic plague for research purposes but why would anyone want to create a variation of the most loathsome font in the history of mankind? and once such an abomination came into existence, why would anyone want to use it for anything important like a nationally televised sporting event?