Motegi & the rider's refusal.

Have you read Toby Moody's Autosport report http://plus.autosport.com/free/feature/3685/why-motogp-has-to-go-to-japan/?
You should, if you have even the slightest interest in Motorcycle racing, you really should. Toby, quite rightly, has pointed out that the riders are employees, which is correct, but I think there is a caveat. Yes, they are employees, but they are employees that have been trained, for the greater part of their lives, and all of their careers, to believe that they are the best in the world. They are forced to make instant decisions upon which their very lives depend, and they are, by absolute necessity, supremely confident in their own abilities and opinions.


We will see if they are just employees when Honda sacks Stoner and Yamaha sacks Jorge. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I think if it does it will disprove Toby's point about them being employees. I suppose a small bonus for Ducati would be that if some of the Japanese employees don't go, they'll probably get a bike on the podium!


I absolutely agree with Toby when he's says that the whole paddock owe a debt of gratitude to the Japanese factories, without them there probably wouldn't be the motorcycle racing that we have today. But when you ask a racer a question, don't be surprised at his answer. Rossi seems to be playing his cards close to his chest, but then he is famous for using the media to his advantage, whereas Stoner, and to a lessor extent Jorge, are well known for wearing their hearts on their sleeves. I feel  that if they don't back-down, and they continue to refuse to go to Motegi, some of the fault should lie with the media for asking closed questions, knowing full well that these guys are not scientists or linguistic masterminds.


Hopefully, the independent report will come back saying that Motegi is safe, and that someone will explain to the riders what the report actually means. Toby provided some radiation comparisons in his article; I wonder if this had been presented to the riders before they were asked the question about whether they would go to Motegi, if their answers may have been a bit different?


I really don't want you to think that I consider Toby to be an idiot, he is far and away more knowledgeable about this subject than I will ever be (and can construct a sentence so much better than me as well). He demonstrates every race weekend his love of this sport, and every other weekend (if you follow him on twitter ) his love and knowledge of practically every form of motorsport, he is also a lot closer to all of the riders than I could ever hope to be, but I think on this occasion, unusually, he might have missed a point. Perhaps some of the lower order teams can afford to sack riders, I'm not convinced that the bigger teams will, especially when you consider the sponsors, who will be loving this whatever the outcome.