Our Catalunya edition of the Smackdown is between Takaaki Nakagami and Darryn Binder. Which of them is the new Top Gun movie, and which is the woke tripe that it’s annihilating at the box office? Let’s find out.
Barcelona
Most of the Spanish riders seem to be from Barcelona and its nearby towns, but the Asparagus brothers grew up a few minutes away from the circuit. It’s a fast and slippery track, and the scorching hot weather didn’t make things any easier on the tyres (or brain cells in Aleix’s case).
Taka vs Darryn
Our two Smackdown contestants this time are Japanese rider Takaaki Nakagami, best known as the token Japanese rider in MotoGP, and South African Darryn Binder, best known for being a total lunatic.
Path to MotoGP
Taka went to Europe to ride in 125GP, but ended up going back to Japan to race production machines. This turned out well as he won the Suzuka 8 hour for a team that was probably called something like Dynamite Noodle Stratosphere. Taka then switched to the Moto2 championship, taking 2 wins. Promoted to MotoGP, he has taken 1 pole position and no podiums. He literally always gets overexcited and crashes when he’s running higher than about 6th.
Darryn started out in Red Bull Rookies like his much more talented brother Brad. Darryn then spent 7 seasons in Moto3, racking up 3 pole positions and 1 victory. In addition to this deeply underwhelming record, he gained a reputation for overtaking moves that mostly involved having a massive crash and taking out about 5 riders. The younger Binder’s surprise promotion to MotoGP was celebrated in the paddock with as much jubilation as Pride Month in Qatar.
The Race
Taka lined up in 12th place for the race, directly behind Luca Marini. This was hugely exciting for him, as the lanky Italian’s arms and legs are the longest and stringiest noodles that anyone’s ever seen. Taka was visibly salivating as he looked at them on the grid. Motivated by this noodle mania, the Japanese rider got a fantastic start.
Things went a tad wrong in the braking zone when he managed to crash all on his own. His bike torpedoed innocent bystander Alex Rins, breaking his wrist. Taka then started acting like a Glaswegian on his 3rd bottle of Buckfast of the afternoon, and decided it would be a good idea to headbutt the back wheel of a moving motorcycle. He selected the Ducati of Pecco Bananas and slammed his face right into the tyre, nearly getting his head ripped off in the process. After a bit of hospitalization Taka will recover, unlike the hapless Pecco’s title chances. The Stewards Panel decided to take no action against Taka for this insane kamikaze attack.
Darryn continued his recent run of acting like anyone but Darryn Binder. Starting from 23rd on the grid, he rode a sensible and mature race. His 12th place finish was 32 seconds behind race winner and lead Yamaha rider Fabio Quartarararo, but Darryn was still the 2nd Yamaha finisher. For the second race in a row, he humiliated the factory Yam rider Franky Morbidelli by beating him over the line. (The formerly cool Franky is now so disastrously mopey that he has to eat his meals with a wooden spoon after the Yamaha team confiscated his cutlery just in case).
The younger Binder might not have deserved his chance to race in MotoGP, but he’s sure making the most of it.
The Future
Taka is probably on his way out of MotoGP, to be replaced by the next young Japanese hopeful. He’ll remain in good standing with Honda though, so they’ll find him a bike in some other class. When a Japanese rider wins the 8 hour, they’re pretty much set for life with that manufacturer, no matter how much they start to suck in later years.
Darryn now has the advantage that he’s going pretty well on a MotoGP bike and is gradually improving. That’s always good because even if someone was great in the smaller categories they might turn out to be an underperforming whinger in MotoGP. (Not meaning Raul Fernandez in particular, but y’know…) Incredibly, Bouncing Bomb Binder is starting to look like a safe pair of hands.