Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
Joined Oct 2012
3K Posts | 725+
Crab Key
Rethinking my post....it did win the WC. But only because the championship was "best 3 results of 6". Strange company AJS. But I still want a Boy Racer with the weirdo saddle tank.
Joined Oct 2007
4K Posts | 744+
Tuscany, Italy
Arrab, you could say exactly the same of Marquez, of Pedrosa, of Lorenzo. I was answering the conspiracy theories that VR was always given unfair advantages, and that's very different from the advantages you mention which are the same that most other champions of his level also had, for the simple reason that they were fast and consistent and fast and consistent riders usually get the best.
I know there are exceptions and sometimes it's not enough to be fast to get up the ladder, especially when the good seats are taken. But that's another story.
Joined Jul 2011
1K Posts | 872+
Dont Know
Sometimes Jumkie & C. here make me wonder when, according to them, Rossi's "unfair advantages" began. Because there must have been a beginning... Or was he born with them?
Maybe yes, because even the fact that he was born as the son of a good racer must have been part of Dorna's conspiracy. Why wasn't Biaggi the son of a WC rider -- heck, he would have beaten the Tavullia clown hands down then.
No doubt he must have had unfair advantages all the way -- of course also when he was racing in 125 and 250, -- how could he win so much otherwise, just an ordinary good rider! Not to speak of early 500 days in 2000 and 2001, -- no doubt as soon as the jolly guys at Michelin saw him, they must have been dying to give him some special tires: "Oh regard là, il'y a un garcon qui s'appelle Rossi, fait vite, il faut lui donner quelque avantage!"
Looking at the numbers, the winning % and championships up until 2010 mean there are only two possibilities. Talking pure statistics, or if you like the odds, to win the amount he did either he is either truly the greatest rider talent we have seen at least in modern times, or he enjoyed a bit of help, an extra ace up the sleeve, a loaded dice.
Im guessing you believe its talent. You are justifying the stats by bringing up the NSR500 which won the previous 6 championships prior to Rossi, or the Aprilia 250 which was used by a number of riders to win championships such as Bautista, Simmo, Melandri, Biaggi etc etc etc.
I would say its not entirely talent. I would bring to evidence not the NSR or the Aprilia, rather the Ducati was the one which was pivotal. If Rossi had of won races on that pig Duc then yeah, I would have bowed at the alter and worshipped. The reality is on a second rate bike Rossi immediately became one of those dreaded 'lesser riders'.
When did the motor-home private meetings with Carmelo begin? I dont know.
Which championship Rossi has can be discounted? None. As Michael said, he could have retired in 2010 and pretty much been the GOAT. I tend to think he wanted to retire ahead of Ago, and that is still what drives him.
I have no problem with any of his 7/9 titles. It is the ceremonial extra one which he seemed to regard as his due last year with which I take issue.
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
Agree with general sentiment- however I think it's not a case of absolutes and either/or proclamations. More often than not the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Joined Oct 2007
4K Posts | 744+
Tuscany, Italy
Man, the NSR 500 wasn't good enough for Criville to keep winning on it apparently. Whatever silver-spoon feeding Rossi got served it wasn't any better than what other great riders like Lorenzo, or Pedrosa, or Marquez (also deservedly) enjoyed. So? Why single out Rossi? Think.
Joined Apr 2011
477 Posts | 195+
Romania
Joined Apr 2008
7K Posts | 3K+
Out of Nowhere
In his first two years the package assembled around Valentino had far higher potential than Criville, who despite winning them a championship in 2009 was never even given his championship winning bike - it was all he could do to pursuade them to let him ride a parade lap at Catalunya a few years ago -remember?. Alex was never the anointed one at HRC like Doohan or Rossi, the comparison is redundant.
Vale had to match that potential and he adapted and mastered the the NSR with consummate skill - no doubt about that. But, the exponential advantages at first incrementally awarded to him which then mushroomed ensured that by 2001 he was riding far higher spec equipment than his competitors. However fallacious the term 'aliens' may be, they simply didn't exist then because none of Valentino's rivals were availed which such advantages unlike the factory riders today. Let's not even discuss 2002 and the switch to the four strokes - the Championship was Rossi's before the RC211v had even been unpacked from the crate. The most farcical year in the history of this sport in my opinion - and remember what ensued at Motegi and Valencia when Barros and the late Antonio Corbas finally got his hands on one.
The point is, this tiresome GOAT trope is trotted out by the blind devotees, (who tend to be followers of Rossi as opposed to the sport itself), and those that bandy it around are either too myopic, ill informed or wilfully ignorant of the history of this sport and as a result impervious to the massive inequities which have consistently bolstered Rossi's career and I would suggest tainted several of his titles.
Also, why is it that the narrative created by many of the same insists on referring to Rossi as a 'nine times World Champion' and Lorenzo as 'three'?
Joined Feb 2007
11K Posts | 2K+
Tennessee
Joined Jul 2011
1K Posts | 872+
Dont Know
I would say more like the Suzuki wasn't good enough for KRjr to keep winning.
Why deservedly? Why does any rider deserve advantages? Because they are aliens? Rossi (Ducati) already showed to be an alien he needs the advantages. What comes first then, the chicken or egg, alien or alien like advantages.
Put it this way, what rider out there deserves sub-par machinery, deserves to line up as grid filler to maintain the illusion Rossi and co are in legitimate competition with 25 riders.
The perfect example happens to be none other than Casey Stoner. Deemed unworthy he won a total of 0 races in 2006 on the second tier Michelins. Imagine if he had to run his whole career as an 'underserved' second tier rider, and Rossi successfully vetoed Lorenzo from Factory Yamaha. How would that have affected Rossi's winning % championship total? Perhaps he would have already eclipsed Ago by now.
I am not sure whether that title deserves caveats, and have hitherto given Rossi the benefit of the doubt.
Yamaha did improve the bike for 2008 by bringing in a pneumatic valved engine, which Rossi pushed for and ran in late 2007 before it was perfected costing him at least one dnf because he knew he needed it for 2008, and obviously there is nothing illegitimate about that. I thought he never rode better than he did in 2008 either, basically making 1.5 riding errors all year.
Ducati on the other hand stuffed up for the start of 2008 and eventually had to revert to the 2007 engine after an engine related dnf, and the bike didn't want to turn at all even for Stoner on the tight European circuits like Estoril before Ducati reverted to the old engine. In the pivotal Laguna Seca race it was a riding error by Stoner which eventually cost him the race, after Rossi benefited from some luck and Stoner's reflexes earlier in the race at the Corkscrew of course.
It could be argued I guess that Rossi should have got a penalty for maintaining the lead by leaving the track at the Corkscrew, which would very likely have changed the result of that race, and hence perhaps the championship but I am not sure the Corkscrew move/lose was illegal at the time, and it was a semi-lose rather than a deliberate tactic imo; if deliberate it would definitely have been illegitimate.
I guess it comes down to tyres. If Bridgestone really didn't want Rossi and only supplied him on instructions from Dorna after threats to the latter from Rossi that is not exactly legitimate, and if Dorna made Bridgestone change their tyres in 2008 in advance of the control tyre to thwart Ducati/Stoner then that was definitely illegitimate. As I recall that was a theory from Lex at the time, which seems to be an accepted fact now, but I myself have never seen any confirmation of this and more to the point never seen or heard Stoner complain about it in relation to 2008, at the time or since.
I do see irony as was delineated in a post earlier in the thread in the tyre machinations leading to a control tyre which has probably hampered Rossi since, and certainly did when he was at Ducati. He would seem to have uncommon tyre preferences himself, which is where the SNS tyres may have been unfair if they were cooked to his particular recipe. Otherwise the SNS tyre was pretty much a control tyre itself as Babelfish (I think) argued in that it was made available to all the contenders, although Catch 22 applied imo in that you needed to be on that tyre if a Michelin runner to be a contender.
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Joined Oct 2006
25K Posts | 4K+
Your Mom's House
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
No offense but I think it's time some folks got 'round to realizing that a great numbers of the most accomplished people in many fields, are or were not saints. Moreover - I think I can safely say that few if any here fit that requirement themselves. People feel the need to hold artists and sports figures up to a higher moral standard because they have either a need to indulge in hero worship or because they like to raise themselves up by mudslinging for the sake of of the warm flush of schadenfreude. The degree to which this forum has become devoted to vigilanteism is starting to make this place feel like a parliment of angry Quakers. Even ....... Gandhi had many less than stellar moral and ethical gaffes; ones that had serious, far reaching historical consequences. Okay Rossi isn't pure as driven snow - but for God sake how many pages are we going to devote to whining about this guy?
Considerably fewer pages than were devoted in the overall motogp media, and in internet forums/fora in particular, to criticising Stoner for being a "whiner", or to MM and JL for "cheating" Rossi out of last year's championship. He reaps as he sowed, and the person who justified his current criticism on here as being a consequence of great hypocrisy has a point imo.
You have a point also though, and if the forum was to become nothing but criticism of Rossi it would be rather one-dimensional, and I for one would not like to see J4rn0 follow other fans of both Rossi and the sport like Yamacka into non-participation in the forum.
Joined Jul 2007
5K Posts | 1K+
unda cheese
Great topic guys. Nice contributions all around. Excellent post by Birdwoman.
I hope our new canadian rossi members ambassador and moose jiz are paying attention. Theres ever new generations of Rossi fans like those two who look at the career numbers and massive hype machine and ascertain they are witnessing divinity. Threads like this cut to the meat and hopefully open the eyes on those newly blinded by day glo
I hope our new canadian rossi members ambassador and moose jiz are paying attention. Theres ever new generations of Rossi fans like those two who look at the career numbers and massive hype machine and ascertain they are witnessing divinity. Threads like this cut to the meat and hopefully open the eyes on those newly blinded by day glo
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
Agree. I really got tired of the jihad against Stoner and while not a Rossi fan I hate to see the forum swing to the other extreme. We've seen this forum filled with folks who hated Nicky (Rossi fans) and then it became fashionable to hate Pedrosa, which while understandable - dragged on disproportionately for years. One starts to see a pattern...
Joined Oct 2006
25K Posts | 4K+
Your Mom's House
Yamaka46, if I recall had issues with flame wars, and as I remember he chimed in 'specifically', but I think he enjoys the discussions surrounding Rossi. He comes back from time to time, I wouldn't worry, he's solid. J4rn0 has think skin despite being a bopper, and has been around through thick and thin. Plus he's got a healthy portion of delusion, that always helps dealing with reality.
Rossi enjoys 99% of fandom and worse media, principals, organizers, and everything in between to sing his praises. As Herve Poncharal said, "Rossi is our emporer." So I enjoy being part of a small niche of the GP conscious that champions truth. .... we don't have enough threads and posts dedicated to the subject for my taste. The good news is that we are free to debate and repeat it on this forum.
Joined Oct 2006
25K Posts | 4K+
Your Mom's House
I've been enjoying the discussion myself, it's a treat to read posts by Arabi, Bird, Mike, Povol, Gekko and others on the reality of Rossi's "domination"; so few understand and appreciate the truth. And, I always learn something new. The freedom to bang on the subject really makes this space fantastic.
Edit: I hope Juice 46 and Da Embassador chime in, we need members like them. Powerslide is like those free Ivy League courses that are given out for free. World class knowledge, all you have to do is be willing to learn and accept truth.
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