It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of just about everyone crashing at some point or other.
The three main title protagonists all hit the deck in the French round of World Supers.
Toprak
The reigning World Champ’s crash was all on his own. He messed up his braking and got the bike about as crossed up as you’ll ever see a motorcycle. Any other rider would’ve ended up highsiding over the nearest grandstand and comically crashing through the roof of a burger van like local hero Inspector Clouseau might do. The computer in Toprak’s leathers certainly feared for its life as it set off the airbag.
However, thanks to the Turkish star’s epic bike handling skills, he managed to turn it into a simple run off into the gravel and low-speed tip-over. The Yamaha wasn’t badly damaged (mostly because it isn’t festooned in idiotic, marketing scam aerodynamics) so Toprak was able to hop back on and battle through the field to salvage a few points.
Johnny Rea
The Kawasaki rider’s crash came from sneaking a millimeter too much at the final chicane, clobbering the kerb with the side of his bike and firing himself into orbit. The green machine was extremely battered, and Rea had to use all his old motocross skills to hammer the bars back straight. Still, he had to return to the pits to let his mechanics have a go a beating the bike into shape.
Despite being a lap down, he started putting strong moves on riders who assumed he was battling back through the field like Toprak had. They weren’t happy to find out that he was just fannying around to see how long his tyre would last.
Alvaro Bautista
The miniature Spaniard was the unluckiest of the three title protagonists as his crash wasn’t of his own doing at all. He was flat-out rammed off the track by Johnny Rea. Pretty much the first that Bau-Bau knew about it was when he was suddenly tumbling through a gravel trap next to his trashed bike.
Luckily, Ducati instil their riders with a fierce sense of paranoia, so Alvaro went around telling everyone who would listen that Rea had deliberately taken him out and should’ve been black-flagged and banned. This seemed a bit silly as it was sheer dumb luck that Rea didn’t crash too during the bungled overtake. The authorities gave Johnny a long lap penalty in the next race.
Toprak took Rea’s side and called it a racing incident. Of course, in Toprak’s book a good overtake is one where nobody departs the scene in an ambulance and a great overtake is when both riders actually stay on track.
Realistically, the crash was Ducati’s fault. They make a bike that’s a rocket ship in a straight line and perch one of the grid’s smallest riders on top of it. Every time Bautista arrives on a straight, he shoots off into the distance like a monkey riding a Scud missile. The only way to pass him is to make a dodgy lunge on the brakes. If the Bolognese factory don’t want Bautista to get rammed, they should feed him some pies and build a more well-rounded bike. Then people could make more sensible overtaking moves on him.
Toprak Makes a Pilgrimage
They say that if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain. So it was appropriate that Toprak made a pilgrimage to the British Superbike round at Cadwell Park, a racetrack he’d only seen on TV.
Cadwell is an insane, and therefore awesome, circuit. For a start, it’s narrower than the perimeter roads around most MotoGP tracks. The first part is a fast and scary blast through open parkland with loads of elevation changes and not much runoff. The second part is a crazy rollercoaster ride through woodland, as if some lunatic had found a mountain bike trail and covered it in tarmac.
And in the middle is a big hump in the track called The Mountain. The only place you’ll see people actually jumping superbikes.
Toprak was allowed out to do a few demo laps. On the third lap he had both wheels fully off the ground. Total legend.
His team-mate Andrea Locatelli was also out on track, but didn’t go as crazy as the Turk. In fact, he seems to have been scared silly by the experience as he was completely anonymous in all three races at Magny Cours.
Former MotoGP rider Tito Rabat also showed up at Cadwell, but didn’t do any laps. It was thought that he might race, as he raced a few weeks ago in the BSB round at the very fast Thruxton track. Hilariously, Tito took one look at Cadwell Park, flew home to Spain and hasn’t been seen since. He’s probably hiding in a closet, rocking back and forth and shaking like a leaf.
Anyway, the next World Superbike round is in Barcelona. It should be highly entertaining to see all the battles unfold between the title contenders. Right now World Superbike has more needle than Trainspotting.