MotoGP 2022 in Australia: Mark the maverick

– Bezzecchi (photo above) dreams of team factory and MotoGP title. I want to add ” and fortunately ! because making so many violent and exhausting efforts, injuring oneself more or less seriously from time to time, having chosen one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, all that just to impress the girls, even if these gentlemen have moreover very pretty companions, it would be a bit short as a stimulus… We run to win, period And when you are a rookie and in your first year you get a pole (Thailand) and a second place at the GP of Assenwe can logically have ideas of grandeur. His are the Factory Ducati team and the MotoGP title. Obviously his training at the VR46 Academy is a big plus. Besides, Rossi has promised to be physically present during the last GP in Valencia, to support another eminent member of the Academy, Pecco Bagnaia… The Tavullia ranch where Rossi trains the foals of his Academy is definitely a real gold mine…

– It’s car, it happened in DTM an accident which did not cause any casualties but recalls a very painful episode at Le Mans in 1955. In the DTM, therefore, the burning engine of Dennis Olsen’s Porsche tore from its support following a major shock and it is a fireball that hit Nick Cassidy’s Ferrari, without injuring the pilot, a miracle. On June 11, 1955, on the straight line of the stands at Le Mans, the engine torn from Pierre Levegh’s Mercedes during an impact killed 84 people in the public (including the driver by the way)

– VTC: Ventoux Trial Classic: A world apart, carefree and brilliant as before… Photos are by E Frugières from trial-classic.com
We know that in motorsport, currently in desperate search of audiences (no more F1 French GPs, ultra thin spectator figures in the two Italian MotoGPs etc…) everything Classic works on fire. By car of course, but motorcycling is no exception to the rule. Whatever the discipline, speed, cross, enduro or trial GP… Trial was my first playground when I entered journalism, at Moto Verte and I was lucky , the 80s were the pinnacle of this sport, in France and around the world. Motorcycles were selling like hot cakes, in the world championship I remember areas (difficult to cross on a motorcycle trying not to set foot…) where there were thousands of spectators (Sommières, Les Rousses ). The Ventoux Trial Classic allows pilots, accompanying persons and spectators to relive those years. With the champions of the time, we have seen in a few years two French world champions (Gilles Burgat and Thierry Michaud solo, Burgat who rode this VTC 2022) we also had team world champions, Fred Michaud and Pascal Couturier are part of it and were also at the start in Malaucène, village magnificent at the foot of Mont Ventoux. Charles Coutard came with his son Arthur. 400 attendees! So many accompanying people, this Classic trial has become a colossus, run in teams of three over two days. In the paddock, we hear German, Italian, English, Spanish, Catalan, Dutch, the event has become important to the point of making some crews want to attack almost 1000 km in a van with the motorcycles behind and this since all the !
Seeing the band mates of the 80s again on their bikes of the era (bikes built with twin shocks in the rear) is awesome. The organization also decided to open the trial to what are called pre-65 motorcycles, they were English or French, four-stroke engines, phenomenal noise and obligation to roll up the areas because weighing 150 kg, difficult to make them dance the samba! These Terrot, Triumph, Greeves, BSA, Ariel, Motobécane, Motoconfort, James, Guzzi, there was even a very rare René Gillet, are a sort of revival of competitions from other generations taken over by the new ones. Amazing and superb. The most amazing thing is that on these bikes there are many young riders, who usually race in so-called modern trials but love to have fun restoring and rolling these machines beautiful as jewels. An English team came with its Triumph Cubs (and cycle parts totally unknown except to a few experts, handcrafted by brilliant craftsmen who rode English motorcycles before the Japanese wave in speed and Spanish then Italian in trials). The guys came from Bristol, at the confluence of Wales and English Cornwall, Cornwall!
With the reunion, there is emotion and joie de vivre everywhere in this event, the region in the colors of autumn is magnificent, the organization is regulated to the millimeter and then there are the very great moments. Among the participants we find for example a father and his 23-year-old son, former GP pilots of course, 100% family teams (from Catalonia came a crew comprising the father, the daughter and her husband, Married quickly became the mascot of the event!). In short, the competition is still there but happiness is everywhere, even when you pick yourself up, even when you have to repair in the middle of nature with the means at hand, it’s a world apart that finds itself these two days of October. Where in the world today can we gather 400 people from everywhere and share an immense moment of happiness? In this cult place of sports cycling but also of travel motorcycles, this trial weekend is a moment particularly appreciated by the inhabitants of the region. A nod to the commissaires, there are sixty of them, sometimes coming from very far away to give this event its fame and success. Mark this on your diaries, to have a great time in a very beautiful region at a time when three quarters of Europe is freezing, in 2023 it will be the weekend of October 14 and 15. Results linked at the bottom of this report…