And now I know it may hurt a little here Mdub but I am told that Stoner is much the same in that he does not suffer fools well and is amazingly focused. On top of that, the people I know who have met Stoner all say that he is courteous to a fault away from the pits of a meeting but can be a right prick if approached at the wrong time with race face on (just as could Gardner, Doohan and believe it or not Bayliss)
No doubt though, there are good and bad stories about ALL racers around as our perceptions are based on that which we see on an edited screen, or a 'dorothy dixer' interview, or even based on .... that is biased due to the perceptions of others and yet we fall into the trap of believing it
Whilst I am no longer around bike racing as much, the stories I have heard about many of the riders is interesting to say the least (good,, bad, ugly and indifferent)
Funny thing about this Gaz, is that what you describe is in my estimation perfectly normal behavior.
People have this nasty habit of expecting the stars of a sport to act a certain way that meets whatever they designate to be acceptable or unacceptable behavior. It's how you wind up with these moron catch-all phrases such as "he plays the game the
right away," as if any of these ....... yokels would be able to define what that even means. It's a load of horse .... that's designed to try and back those who don't conform to their vague, ridiculous standards perfectly into a corner by trying to present them as rude, selfish, mean-spirited, etc.
Which is precisely what happened to Casey Stoner. Since he dared not conform to the media and fans expectations of what constitutes a proper GP rider who "plays the game the right way," oh boy was that a fatal error. He was turned into the character who is supposedly a selfish, ungrateful piece of .... who would probably cut his own mother's throat in the dead of night if it got him some success.
The problem is that even 3 years later, you've got people who are still raging over Stoner's "behavioral issues", and as I stated, they cannot look at anything but their perception of Stoner's behavior. They think he wasn't really that great of a rider, and continue moving the goal posts forward, and backwards as they deem necessary in order to diminish anything he has ever done.
The clowns here think that pass on J-Lo at Laguna Seca is a great example.
"OH I'VE SEEN PASSING ON LESSER VEHICLES IN THE SAME SPOT, NOT IMPRESSED, GET SOME SKILLS CASEY MOANER!!!!!!!!"
Yeah what lesser vehicles? Bicycles? Their legs moving at a leisurely pace walking the track?
Frankly, I'm convinced the only way they might've grown to like Stoner was if they went camping, and stroked their leg and then slowly ...... them off to completion while staring into their eyes deeply, in the way the good old VR does.
