Supersic 58

My favourite rider; you'll be sorely missed Supersic.

Earlier this year Henrik sent me a lovely picture he took of Supersic which has been my wallpaper since - thanks Henrik.

Unfortunately my tears won't stop flowing.

I am devestated myself. I was watching the rugby so I didn't see the accident. Earlier I was happy for Luthi winning in Moto2, but concerned for Axel Pons. Then this...

Marco was a fabulous rider with a huge talent.

RIP...

What Henrik said.... so unfair.
Can't help but thinking that he was the same age as Greg.
Wasted talents.
I hope you guys find each other up there. I know you will.

Crap. So sorry to hear this.

.

I'm fucking gutted. We all know this can happen, and that never lessens the pain.

Rest in peace Racer.

What exactly happened? speed is blocking coverage by only showing the 125 race.

YouTube it TC.
There are quite a few slo-mo's kicking around.
But the race was Red Flagged after the event on lap 2.
I watched the videos on YouTube - and wish that I hadn't frankly.
Not a good week for Motorsport.
Marco's helmet coming off should not have happened. He stood no chance, and that's simply not right.

Increased Safety? Dunno what can be done, other than more inflatable suits that activate on crisis / impact. But the fact that Marco's helmet came off is a fundamental FUBAR surely?

Gelert wrote:

Increased Safety? Dunno what can be done, other than more inflatable suits that activate on crisis / impact. But the fact that Marco's helmet came off is a fundamental FUBAR surely?

Nothing can really be done. Its a fact that racers are going to die. Whatever hit Marco's head could've just as easily taken his head off.

Marco died from cardiac arrest. My guess is the bike hitting him did serious damage to his internals and did a number on his heart.

H8R wrote:Marco died from cardiac arrest. My guess is the bike hitting him did serious damage to his internals and did a number on his heart.

Are you sure, H8?
I don't doubt your inside knowledge, but AutoSport say different:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95634
Marco Simoncelli died as a result of massive trauma to his head, neck and chest, MotoGP's medical director has confirmed.

The fact that CPR was continued for 45 minutes might be a factor...?

I found a vid on live leak. He lost it, tried to save it, and got blasted. I think the way he was hit pushed the helmet off his head vertically. The strap broke, but with that kind of impact any thing stronger might have decapited him.

RIP Simoncelli.

Shitty week in motorsports.

what an unbelievably bloody miserable week!

such a waste!

gutted, sickened, miserable...

i'll never get the image of one of my heroes being crushed like that... i feel terrible for Colin and Vale... i would not be surprised if Vale walks away from it all after that...

i totally dissagree that nothing can be done... i was absolutely livid to see one of the motogp safety officials said that... i thought of 3 things immediately that would help prevent that freakish scenario from happening again...

1 - put a cover of the wheels right down on the edge of the tyre... as soon as it leans over too much, it slips back, making it harder for the rider to bring it back up.... you could also incorporate a less grippy compound right up to the edge of the edge contact patch to make it even harder to pick it back up... these riders have amazing skills and theyre young and instincts are to make the massive saves... but the technology of that edge grip is too much.

2 - make a rule, any rider that picks the bike up off the farrings after having lost the front or the rear... whether it turns out ok or not,,,, race over... come into the pits race done, thansk for coming, we admire the skills, but never pick the thing back up... its a hard one... instincts kick in and its difficult to monitor... but that can be done.

3 - and this is in hindsight.,... extremely painful hindsight... maybe the right thing to do was to give Marco a year off when there were problems earlier in the year... we had a number of top level riders making complaints, people were being injured... the writing was on the wall... if there was a little more soul searching earlier, they couldve taken the decision to give him a year away , or given him a few races off... maybe he wouldve collected himself a bit in that time... who knows... but we had a guy, exciting as anyone ever to watch... but he was always trying to pull off the impossible... just like at malaysia... trying to save the unsavable... instincts overriding presence... there should be some avenue to 1 - recognise a problem when its raised by their peers 2 - put the safety above entertainment... Marco might still be with us.

another one... which i think is the real problem... and shouldve been addressed alooooong time ago...


and thats the geometry of the fuckin widow making fucking 800cc class... its been aproblem from the start, and as theyve reach the limit of development in this category the injuries have escalated, particularly this year... theyre too unpredictable on the tyres, and the they are forced to try to maintain too much speed in the corners, running max power from halfway down the straight... you couple that with the competition from 5-6 of the best riders in the world and limits are exceeded, and the limits of the 800cc are too many...

i think the safety guys at motogp should be scrapped for their comments that nothing can be done.. i dont know why i love motorracing so much when things like this happen...


Rest in Peace Marco!
you will be sorely missed

There is an upside- his smokin' hot girlfriend is now single.

What? Too soon?

.

Revs, there are a number of things you say there that I do not agree with, but I think that all deserve a thread on its own. Right now I don't feel like getting in to it, as I still have a lump in my throat about the whole thing.

One thing though, the accident from yesterday really had nothing to do with the kind of riding manouvers Marco was criticized for earlier in the year, and although you can see he would still be around today if he had not raced yesterday, I don't think banning him from races would have changed anything. It is a racer's reaction to save the situation when his vehicle slides. It is hard-coded in them.

No matter what is done, motor racing is a dangerous sport. That doesn't make the loss any easier to deal with.

It seemed like he stayed on to try to avoid getting ran over. Had this been lap 5 he might been able to pull it off.

You know, I only have a handful of heroes from the last 30 odd years of motorsport.
- Gilles Villeneuve
- Jean Alesi
- Valentino Rossi
- Robert Kubica
- Sebastian Vettel
- Marco Simoncelli

Not only are they massive talents although not all champions (Kubica and Alesi only won 1 race each, Gilles only 6!)...but they are hugely passionate and their personalities totally captured me.
That's what sets these 6 apart from the rest for me ...their human side - flair, passion, charisma and charm.
I've only met 2 of my heroes; and now 2 I will never meet.

In this sport, you can follow a driver or rider's career, watch them as they develop into accomplished racers, share in their greatest performances and most ignominious moments, anticipate their future successes with relish, only for it all to end forever in a matter of seconds. Makes it even more painful when you see them from a young teenager and see them grow into an adult .. but he was still only a young man, 24.

I am totally crushed.


A piece of motogp died yesterday.

Thanks for the memories Super Sic, you'll be sorely missed. Arrivederci.



- forza supersic # 58 -

Gelert wrote:

H8R wrote:Marco died from cardiac arrest. My guess is the bike hitting him did serious damage to his internals and did a number on his heart.

Are you sure, H8?
I don't doubt your inside knowledge, but AutoSport say different:
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/95634
Marco Simoncelli died as a result of massive trauma to his head, neck and chest, MotoGP's medical director has confirmed.

The fact that CPR was continued for 45 minutes might be a factor...?

Gelert, yes H8 is sure and so am I.
Massive trauma to head, chest and neck will result in important blood loss if organs are ripped - the case for Marco. This will result not only in blood filling the chest cavity but also in blood flow & oxygen delivery being interrupted hence the cardiac arrest.
The docs at the medical center tried to pump the blood out from the chest to avoid drowning of the lungs and performed a tracheotomy to facilitate breathing. CPR was an attempt in this case to replace the beating of a failing heart. 45 minutes makes sense but any longer would have been useless, even at that point Marco would have been a vegetable if he had survived being deprived of oxygen for that long. Ilgs could confirm.
In short, we will all die from cardiac arrest, it's what causes the arrest that will differ.

Playlife,

I do feel your pain. For 12 years now I have felt this very same pain.
I also met my hero, watched him grow, get into the higher category, get respect from his peers and the entire industry and I also watched him die at 24. I can't count the "NO's" I screamed that day.

The only thing that soothes my pain a bit is that 2 weeks before Greg died, at Laguna Seca where another driver died during Saturday practice, he said that if he had to go he wanted to go racing. Someone I know was with him when he said that.

Maybe you will find comfort in knowing that Marco didn't have time to suffer, the suffering is on us. He died being recognized as the one who was going to be the next Vale. That at least to me, means a lot.

And as Burt Munro said:

"You live more in five minutes on a bike like this going flat out than some people live in a lifetime."

It doesn't lessen the pain, but I don't think you can stop a true racer from doing what he loves the most...race!

Revs wrote:

i totally dissagree that nothing can be done... i was absolutely livid to see one of the motogp safety officials said that... i thought of 3 things immediately that would help prevent that freakish scenario from happening again...

1 - put a cover of the wheels right down on the edge of the tyre... as soon as it leans over too much, it slips back, making it harder for the rider to bring it back up.... you could also incorporate a less grippy compound right up to the edge of the edge contact patch to make it even harder to pick it back up... these riders have amazing skills and theyre young and instincts are to make the massive saves... but the technology of that edge grip is too much.

A good racer may "lose" the front a multiple times during a race. I would hate to see a contraption decide they couldn't save it.

Revs wrote:
2 - make a rule, any rider that picks the bike up off the farrings after having lost the front or the rear... whether it turns out ok or not,,,, race over... come into the pits race done, thansk for coming, we admire the skills, but never pick the thing back up... its a hard one... instincts kick in and its difficult to monitor... but that can be done.

My last race bike would drag the fairings in certain corners. So I should have to go home? Not a chance, this is a blood sport. Everyone of those guys knows the ante to race, as I did at the level I raced at. We'd all sign up again.

Revs wrote:
3 - and this is in hindsight.,... extremely painful hindsight... maybe the right thing to do was to give Marco a year off when there were problems earlier in the year... we had a number of top level riders making complaints, people were being injured... the writing was on the wall... if there was a little more soul searching earlier, they couldve taken the decision to give him a year away , or given him a few races off... maybe he wouldve collected himself a bit in that time... who knows... but we had a guy, exciting as anyone ever to watch... but he was always trying to pull off the impossible... just like at malaysia... trying to save the unsavable... instincts overriding presence... there should be some avenue to 1 - recognise a problem when its raised by their peers 2 - put the safety above entertainment... Marco might still be with us.

Hindsight. I'll agree to that. It wasn't an unsaveable crash. Shit happens on a bike that doesn't happen in cars.

Revs wrote:
another one... which i think is the real problem... and shouldve been addressed alooooong time ago...


and thats the geometry of the fuckin widow making fucking 800cc class... its been aproblem from the start, and as theyve reach the limit of development in this category the injuries have escalated, particularly this year... theyre too unpredictable on the tyres, and the they are forced to try to maintain too much speed in the corners, running max power from halfway down the straight... you couple that with the competition from 5-6 of the best riders in the world and limits are exceeded, and the limits of the 800cc are too many...

i think the safety guys at motogp should be scrapped for their comments that nothing can be done.. i dont know why i love motorracing so much when things like this happen...

It wasn't the safety guys from Dorna or the FIM that wrote the technical regs. It was the bike manufacturers. Spearheaded by Honda that gave us the dumbass 800cc rule. If I had to place blame it would be squarely on the shoulders of Bridgestone with tires that require so much heat to work. Riders are forced to push before the heat is totally up to temp in the core of the tires. The rest of the blame would go with unchecked advancements in TC. The 800cc bikes would be unrideable without TC. 800's suck. They've taken the fun out of racing for all the racers except maybe Dani Pedrosa. Everyone here do a quick search....look up a photo of Valentino, or Colin from 5 years ago. They look fit, healthy, have a glow about them like an athlete should. Look at photo of them now. They look gaunt, malnourished, unhealthy...just trying to "make weight". I'd love to see minimum weight requirements from MotoGP to make it about the racer who's fastest, not about the guy who weighs 20 kilos less than everyone.


It's a moot point. We get back proper engines next year, and as a fan I'm stoked on that.

Marco's dead, and roadracing will go on. I'm not heartless. I cried watching the race. I still tear up thinking about it. Simple fact is that motorcycle roadracers are going to die....and I love them all for their desire. Racers race. That's a fact.

Let me add.

Get rid of the ridiculous 21 liter or whatever it is fuel rule.

Anyone ever wonder why the middle of the race is boring? Bikes start the race with full power...then go lean through the middle of the race until the computer says they have enough to finish the race...and then the computer richens up the A/F ration again and all of a sudden people can race again.

Give these guys 25 liters so they can race for the whole race, as opposed to making laps waiting to get some power back.

So let me get this right, the 800cc bikes suck because the engine is so small only a midget can win on them? Why does TC help the case?

So when we go to 1000cc next year all will be even?

In the vain of Greg and H8R.

Life is terminal, we might as well do something we enjoy and if it kills us, well so be it.

Marco did something most can only dream of. Lucky guy.

"Why does TC help the case?" We've all been asking that question for years TopContender.

TopContender wrote:So let me get this right, the 800cc bikes suck because the engine is so small only a midget can win on them? Why does TC help the case?

So when we go to 1000cc next year all will be even?

800cc bikes don't have the torque, so they have to be ridden like a 250cc bike. It means there is only one real "fast" line, you can't square off a corner and late brake to make a pass. On a 800cc bike when you make passes you lose out on your lap time, and then can't make it up. 800cc bikes have a very narrow "powerband" which compounds the problem...and absolutely has to have TC since it's all about corner speed...you have to grab a whole handful of throttle and trust that the TC will do it's job.

The 1000cc bikes will have more than enough torque and HP, too much actually, and that will mean the midgets won't have an advantage like on 800's.

The average weight of a MotoGP rider is almost 63 kilos. Dani weighs 51 kilos....Colin and Vale weigh roughly 67 kilos and Ben and Sic both were over 71kilos. Most everyone knows the formula "7lbs per hp", Well Ben and Sic weigh around 157lbs, and Dani weighs closer to 112lbs. Thats 45lbs, or 7hp. Since Dani weighs less, his bike doesn't go lean for as long and few other things.

I hope that helps.

greg99 wrote:Playlife,

I do feel your pain. For 12 years now I have felt this very same pain.
I also met my hero, watched him grow, get into the higher category, get respect from his peers and the entire industry and I also watched him die at 24. I can't count the "NO's" I screamed that day.

The only thing that soothes my pain a bit is that 2 weeks before Greg died, at Laguna Seca where another driver died during Saturday practice, he said that if he had to go he wanted to go racing. Someone I know was with him when he said that.

Maybe you will find comfort in knowing that Marco didn't have time to suffer, the suffering is on us. He died being recognized as the one who was going to be the next Vale. That at least to me, means a lot.

Thanks for the post G99. Despite Moore's and Sic's obvious talent and future stardom, it's sad that we lost the opportunity to see their careers flourish.

Yes, it was Senna all over again for me. I was very upset for a fair while after Imola 1994 and I wasn't even a Senna fan, but had met Ayrton in 1991 and still have a picture of him and I up on my wall. My dad grew up in Europe in the 40s-70s (lived not far from Monza and Spa) and saw countless riders and drivers, of which a lot perished. Even he was shocked and visibly upset from Super Sics accident on Sunday. Maybe it's due to racing being a lot safer these days and we aren't confronted with death or the high probability of like the old days. But for anything to shock and upset my dad, I know it's quite full-on.

I was recently watching some F3000 races from the late 90s, Gonzalo Rodriguez obviously featured heavily in all of them. I didn't know much about him at the time, only that he was a rookie in CART. I was very torn with Greg's loss too, I really enjoyed CART in the 90s.