As a practicing psychologist and motorbike rider, I tell you, Casey Stoner, grand prix motorcycle racer, is mad. And that’s what you need to be if you want to be a great motorcycle racer.
Madness suppresses fear; the rush of fear that assists survival, but slows you down.
The madness has made him fall a few times – some say too much – but who cares, Stoner is a genuine racer and will ride the bike as fast as the thing can go – simple.
Give me a rider who is quick and just needs to learn to stay on any day over one who is slow and needs to learn to go quicker.
He’s an aggressive rider. He urges the bike on; wants more out of it than it can give. If he was a jockey he’d be banned for whipping the horse too much and making it bleed.
Most experience the opposite and have to raise their skills to the superior level of the bike. No punk you see on the road can get anywhere near the level of their bike.
Stoner pushes the front end hard – that means in non-bike talk, he’ll go into a corner fast – and that is where and why he can fall.
It is approaching the corner where the true fear – and danger of falling – is in riding a bike, and is where madness must live to defeat it, which will then let you go faster.
Lesser skilled types like me have fear and will go in slower, relying on the exit to get speed, where the fear is less.
I first noticed his madness when he was a mere kid in the 125cc class. He’d seem to want to turn the bike through the turn before it got there; impatiently jumping all over the bike – all that bit more than the other kids.
He wasn’t known then, just another little guy in a crammed cattle yard of pocket sized junior racers, but I ordained him immediately and publicly, as a serious talent and a future GP champion.
I was right. I always am in these matters. I’m rather untalented in most aspects of life, but if there’s one thing I can pick its a good bike rider.
Despite winning the GP title in 2007, many still regarded Rossi as the best. That was true perhaps – Rossi is a genius, a great, The Great – but simple injustice and cruel to diminish Stoner’s insane talent like that.
But Stoner was accustomed to it, always under rated and previously over shadowed by Dani Pedrosa – his 54 kg Spanish nemesis.
All commentators talked of Pedrosa since his conception with deity-like praise; a return of the messiah-like expectation, adoration and inevitability.
Stoner didn’t like it, for he knows his own skill and lack of praise.
In the 250cc class – the middle class of the GP scene – Stoner stated pre-race, “ I just want to win and show everyone Dani isn’t as good as they all think”. I applauded it as a great bold aggressive statement.
Stoner fell – front end as usual – after hounding and leading that race. Pedrosa won, and post race was sobbing and sniveling child-like, gasping for air between each word to the affect, “Stoner (sob) say (sob) bad (sob) thing”.
I don’t mind emotion, but that was just a little weird: I like weird, but that was pathetic.
Stoners self belief is never shaken, but when he was snapped up by Ducati in 2007, it was mainly because he was cheap, not for recognised talent.
Since winning the title for Ducati, he got attacked by mystery illness and fell off too much due to madness and a faulty front end Ducati, but he still won loads of races – always likely to win – and only he could ride the Ducati fast, every other rider moved it around at the bottom or mid-field.
Now he’s been poached to the factory Honda team – generally regarded as the ultimate smooth fast bike – where Pedrosa has resided for his entire MotoGP career.
Why? Because Honda want to win again after many years of not, so they’ve got Stoner to do it for them.
He topped the time sheets the first time he rode it – an extraordinary feat – and has been there ever since.
Stoner has now evolved, if only unofficially, to top place in Pedrosa’s own team which must hurt the Spaniards pride, and will push Pedrosa more too no doubt.
They’re now both on the same bike – egos at stake – so some great battles should ensue.
Stoner beat and pushed them on a lesser bike. Now on a great bike, look out. He’ll beat you all because he’s a total racer – mad as a hatter and skilled as all hell.
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