HRC just tweeted that '12 will be Stoner's last year in MGP

[Zaphod]

Wow !

If, for no other reason, that all this type of to and fro tripe ( including the omni-present CS vs VR debate) ceases in a few months, I'm glad he's retired.

Thanks for the brilliant displays of riding skill Casey, shame a lot of people couldn't put your comments and occasional outbursts to one side, shrug shoulders and say "Meh, people are people........" and chose instead to denegrate the memory of your ability by choosing to highlight the unimportant in an effort to quantify their own opinions of what is right and wrong.

You annoyed the crap out of me most times you spoke, but that probably only highlights my own short-comings more than yours.

Hope you catch a shit-load of fish, enjoy your family, eat and drink to your hearts content and live life to the full.

Maybe one day we'll have the pleasure of seeing you belting it out (and enjoying it !) around a piece of tarmac in the future. Two wheels or four, it doesn't matter.

.........I'll probably still turn the volume down when you speak though ! (again, probably my loss !)

Thanks for the memories.

[Rossifumi]

[quote="Tourn46"]

No no, I'm definitely not saying Casey is any less committed than any other rider, I am saing that his interviews could easily be interpreted as passing the buck over here and I believe that in the UK it's not what a lot of the fans want to see/hear.

quote]
No one moaned more than Fogarty! and he was immensely popular - pulling in 120,000+ to WSBK at Brands Hatch when WSBK wasn't even on terrestial TV. No nation has a monopoly on any type or charactaristic, good or bad.

[Squidpuppet]

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/News/newsresults/General-news/2012/May/may2212-new-mcn-may-23/

Just goes on and on , you can see the 'I quit' in inverted commas meaning it was a direct quote, something I have not seen or read about Stoner's announcement of his retirement

How do I navigate to that article? The link put me at their "home page" but I cant seem to get to that article.

[Squidpuppet]

I wasn't comparing Stoner to Hitler by any means

Backpedaling on this one is futile, I'm afraid. Pretty nasty comment too.

[Rusty Bucket USA]

OK, everyone has made their point and it's time to move on; back on topic, please...

[corinthian]

As far as I'm concerned the number one reason the British public has had a lesser opinion of Stoner is largely to do with the British press, which as a whole (and with various notable exceptions) I think has been and continues to be extremely unprofessional, not just in the context of Stoner but with the way they present and represent the sport. The fact that a blogger can step up and wipe the proverbial floor with them says as much about what the fans want and what they've had to put up with as it does about the quality of motomatters.

I've been living in Spain for 15 years and there has always been a healthy undercurrent of anti-Stoner sentiment here along with the praise and support, as there should be (along with anti-Pedrosa, anti-Lorenzo, anti-Crivillé, anti-Rossi. Unless you're Angel Nieto someone's going to take a crack at you). But at the same time I have been following the UK and English-speaking press during the same period and it's the British journalists who have been most vocal and constant in their early criticism and later damning with faint praise of Stoner, particularly wheeling out or alluding to the old chestnuts 'crasher', 'whiner', 'inconsistent', 'mentally weak'.

Let's leave parochialism to one side, as it is a given - obviously in the US Hayden and Spies will receive more attention, in Spain it'll be Lorenzo, Pedrosa and even Bautista, in Oz it'll be Casey Stoner in your breakfast cereal and so on. I agree that the UK press should sing the praises of each and every one of the UK's future and present talents (because if they don't, who will? ) But during this last year the British press, more than any other except the Italian, has continued to give significantly more attention and space on the printed page or during TV commentary to Rossi each race weekend than he has deserved, to the detriment of riders who have consistently beaten him all season and who in many cases have their own equally interesting stories to be told. Are the press afraid that if we're not reading about Rossi we'll stop reading? Could that be because they themselves never managed to get us keen on the other riders?

So much of the MotoGP story during the last five years has been about Casey Stoner. Now at the end of his career we have the eulogies, the praise, the support. But what if the press had backed him from day one? Back then he was fast, honest, outspoken, he brought competition and quality to the sport. He gave Bologna their biggest cause for celebration since their invention of Britain's favourite dinner. But in a sense a part of the press has encouraged us to hate and belittle the rider who has outridden all others during this period, and just like with anything in life (politics, work, football...) if you hate the people at the top then you can't help partly hating the activity as a whole. This can only be to the detriment of MotoGP.

End of rant.

[Squidpuppet]

Go out into your community and I'll bet you can find, pretty damn quickly, more than one example of this: the guy who runs the fishing-tackle shop who was a senior partner in some large corporation, the hobby-shop guy who was a senior government official etc.

It's funny you mention this. My community is one of, if not the Mecca for this in the USA.

A local coffee shop is open a whopping 17.5 hours a week. For breakfast only, 8:00-11:30, only Mon-Fri. Subject to change depending on weather and or fishing seasons. Owner and cook? Retired Los Angeles Police Department Captain. Waitress? His retired Lieutenant wife. The list of former metropolitan transplants seeking a "softer" lifestyle here is endless.

[Cam D]

As far as I'm concerned the number one reason the British public has had a lesser opinion of Stoner is largely to do with the British press, which as a whole (and with various notable exceptions) I think has been and continues to be extremely unprofessional, not just in the context of Stoner but with the way they present and represent the sport. The fact that a blogger can step up and wipe the proverbial floor with them says as much about what the fans want and what they've had to put up with as it does about the quality of motomatters.

I've been living in Spain for 15 years and there has always been a healthy undercurrent of anti-Stoner sentiment here along with the praise and support, as there should be (along with anti-Pedrosa, anti-Lorenzo, anti-Crivillé, anti-Rossi. Unless you're Angel Nieto someone's going to take a crack at you). But at the same time I have been following the UK and English-speaking press during the same period and it's the British journalists who have been most vocal and constant in their early criticism and later damning with faint praise of Stoner, particularly wheeling out or alluding to the old chestnuts 'crasher', 'whiner', 'inconsistent', 'mentally weak'.

Let's leave parochialism to one side, as it is a given - obviously in the US Hayden and Spies will receive more attention, in Spain it'll be Lorenzo, Pedrosa and even Bautista, in Oz it'll be Casey Stoner in your breakfast cereal and so on. I agree that the UK press should sing the praises of each and every one of the UK's future and present talents (because if they don't, who will? ) But during this last year the British press, more than any other except the Italian, has continued to give significantly more attention and space on the printed page or during TV commentary to Rossi each race weekend than he has deserved, to the detriment of riders who have consistently beaten him all season and who in many cases have their own equally interesting stories to be told. Are the press afraid that if we're not reading about Rossi we'll stop reading? Could that be because they themselves never managed to get us keen on the other riders?

So much of the MotoGP story during the last five years has been about Casey Stoner. Now at the end of his career we have the eulogies, the praise, the support. But what if the press had backed him from day one? Back then he was fast, honest, outspoken, he brought competition and quality to the sport. He gave Bologna their biggest cause for celebration since their invention of Britain's favourite dinner. But in a sense a part of the press has encouraged us to hate and belittle the rider who has outridden all others during this period, and just like with anything in life (politics, work, football...) if you hate the people at the top then you can't help partly hating the activity as a whole. This can only be to the detriment of MotoGP.

End of rant.

That was a really good read Corintian. We watched MotoGP/Dorna panic when Rossi looked like leaving a few years ago, because they had set it up that Rossi was MotoGP. It never occurred to me that the press had done a similar thing. Well thought out.

Something that has stood out to me is that Cal doesn't mind saying it like it is and to hell with what people think. He also likes to complain to anyone that will listen when thing things aren't right. For example - the brake issue/twitter and interviews. I really don't see that he is very different to Casey in the way he handles the press. I wonder if the British fans that Tourn's talking about will see Cal as "Bulldog-ish" or a whiner?

[Oscar]

I agree that the UK press should sing the praises of each and every one of the UK's future and present talents (because if they don't, who will? ) But during this last year the British press, more than any other except the Italian, has continued to give significantly more attention and space on the printed page or during TV commentary to Rossi each race weekend than he has deserved, to the detriment of riders who have consistently beaten him all season and who in many cases have their own equally interesting stories to be told. Are the press afraid that if we're not reading about Rossi we'll stop reading? Could that be because they themselves never managed to get us keen on the other riders?

MCN (online version) and Crash have led the pack in attaching themselves to 'anything Rossi', and equally to stirring up strong sentiment about any story that isn't Rossi-centic - and obviously Stoner has figured heavily because of what he's achieved. I doubt that has been because of a particular ethic intended to denigrate other riders but far more a lazy and totally venal intention to promote their commercial interests via hits on the site. The headline for so many of these articles has been, if one were generous, often inflammatory and very often downright inaccurate / misleading in the context of what was reported. The intent of these articles has been not to convey information but to generate hits - nothing more. To that end, a controversial character is a godsend and a fair deal of the apparent Stoner persona they portray is a useful confection. For that matter - so is the Rossi they portray, he's been used as a sort of media-mode clothes-horse, wearing the glittering gowns and beaming the photogenic smile. Tabloid press at its worst, and swallowed up whole by those who like that sort of thing.

That is absolutely NO anti-Rossi comment at all - the man is, amongst his other achievements, an astute businessman (though his choice of financial advisers lacked finesse) - and more power to him for that. The teacher who (I understand) told Rossi that he'd 'never make a living out of racing motorcycles' is probably up there with people who told Bill Gates to 'stop playing around with these computer things and get a proper job' (I'm sure there were some..) Rossi has used his exceptional talent for riding and his charismatic personality to develop an enviable business fortune and he has carried many along in his wake - Dorna and the motorcycling press included. Good for him, I say - we've all benefited hugely from that attention, the development of vastly better access to viewing and information etc.

Stoner is just a guy who rides a motorcycle blisteringly fast - not the only one, either. He has a conveniently awkward personality that can easily be twisted by a little 'constructive' reporting into creating a useful counterfoil to Rossi. Lazy journalism can take advantage of that more readily than for some others: Soup, for instance, has spent years poking sticks at Pedrosa but as a target he's just not quite 'large' enough (no pun intended - it's just that there doesn't seem to be enough controversial about the guy - other than the recent oopsy - to grab onto). Lorenzo has tried to grab a bit of the Rossi pie but there doesn't seem to be the room yet for others.

Pretty much all classical drama revolves around a 'hero' and a 'villain' and the struggle between them. More than one hero becomes confusing - though he or she may have sidekicks of far lesser stature - and usually a range of villains to be vanquished. That theme runs very deep in the human psyche, you can find it in texts ranging from 'Monkey Magic' through to the Bible. We have it in Rossi vs. Biaggi, then Gibernau, and most pointedly Stoner - because Stoner has been the only rider to convincingly best Rossi head-to-head in competition over a long period (and no, I'm not dismissing Lorenzo, he's almost there but it is Stoner's statistics that hurt the most).

Almost anybody who has been involved in a 'news' story has read the report/s and realised how far from the reality such reporting often is. A lot of the 'foil/counterfoil' stuff that has been dished up about both Rossi and Stoner is what has suited the purposes of the media, and if those purposes are commercial (read: clicks on the story), it is sensationalism and controversy that matters. Personalities have been portrayed in ways that suit the media purpose.

Such is life.

[corinthian]

Something that has stood out to me is that Cal doesn't mind saying it like it is and to hell with what people think. He also likes to complain to anyone that will listen when thing things aren't right. For example - the brake issue/twitter and interviews. I really don't see that he is very different to Casey in the way he handles the press.

True enough. Just in the last few pages of this thread we've seen examples of how good and how poor press coverage can be. That Mat Oxley article WayneG linked to was excellent. But how is it that Crutchlow can come out with the phrase “I completely agree with what he’s saying, he’s the only one with the balls to say it. We can’t say we think MotoGP’s shit if it’s turning to CRT because we need rides. All the riders think the same as Casey but they don’t want to say it” and then it trickles down to us through a single source? I at least haven't seen any further reference to that comment. From the fans' point of view, and I mean fans of any rider, this is as juicy a headline as we've had since Stoner's announcement and it should be screaming out at us from headlines in magazines and web pages across the biking world, not this “Stoner: I Quit!” drivel.

Stoner has been criticised for his comments about the current state of the sport. It appears that many of his opinions are shared by other riders (Rossi and Lorenzo have publicly backed him on a number of his more controversial issues in the last twelve months) as well as many fans. If the issue isn't fairly reported then it's tantamount to keeping us believing that it's just him, and he'll stop rocking the boat soon enough. It doesn't matter whether they are right or wrong, and it's not about the merits of CRT, TC, BS or the ECU, it's about reporting what is actually being said and thought by the people that matter in the paddock. We the readers are mature enough to decide whether we agree or not but we need to hear both sides of the argument in order to do so. For example this issue of corporate hospitalities in the paddock is fascinating, but why should it be up to the riders to cry foul, shouldn't we be hearing this from more sources who actually earn their keep reporting what is going on there?

[Cam D]

I've said it a heap of times - Jorge, Casey and Dani have made it that Modern MotoGP doesn't need, or have, a bad guy anymore. It just has amazing talent and I reckon it's great!

[tom]

Fantastic discussion!

[Hanuman]

For example this issue of corporate hospitalities in the paddock is fascinating, but why should it be up to the riders to cry foul, shouldn't we be hearing this from more sources who actually earn their keep reporting what is going on there?

Very good point, Corinthian.

We should be.
But since so many auto journos come across like they believe they're insiders, instead of being thrown lines by press officers...they're not going to bite the hand that feeds them. They're complicit in maintaining the illusions.

As for the hero/villain thing, I still remember the race at PI where hundreds turned up at the start of the straight with black flags to denigrate Max after he ignored them in a previous race.
Now on one hand, it was slightly amusing and at the lower level of the villain spectrum. But I was left amazed that people could be bothered waving that stuff, instead of gawping at a guy coming out of Turn 12, pinned, on a 500.
[And that was nothing compared to the mouth-breathers bagging out local 125 wildcards for trailing the field... ]

[Grahluk]

I think I'm pretty ok with Stoner's feeling & justifications to walk away. Other than him leaving (which is huge) I don't get all the continued hand wringing about it. He's emotionally tired of it, has a good life & is going to go pursue that. Good on 'em. Thanks for the memories. What's funny is this blown up to proportions of a Shakespearian drama where you have the virtuous idealist speaking truth to power against the venal cabal of media, public, racing body, & more popular riders. I say BS to that narrative. While #27 speaks his mind in the frankest terms & usually always makes valid points I don't hear it as the whole and undisputed truth. It's surely his undisputed truth but he only sees things from the point of view of Casey Stoner. What was it said in a recent soupkast? "I wish I was as certain about one thing in life as Casey Stoner is about everything that comes out of his mouth". His parting criticisms ring true as a laser on some aspects of racing these days but offer nothing on how they square in the real world on GP making it's way as a viable sport beyond the next year or so of races. The flack that he gets for his issuances for so long is not so much for content but delivery. As the old saying goes "It's not just what you say but how you say it". Some asked here & in other threads why people like Crutchlow, Edwards, or Fogarty could complain without attracting the same backlash as Stoner does. I say it's in the style they do it. They can say the same things but can do it in a likeable way or in Fogarty's case in a likeably villianous way. It's just a matter of style. I have no problems with how he conducts himself. I can see how his matter of fact and analytical manner is refreshing for some and for many others can come across as critical & complaining. No good guys & bad guys here. Just different strokes for different folks.

[Gustav O]

I think I'm pretty ok with Stoner's feeling & justifications to walk away. Other than him leaving (which is huge) I don't get all the continued hand wringing about it. He's emotionally tired of it, has a good life & is going to go pursue that. Good on 'em. ---snip --
I have no problems with how he conducts himself. I can see how his matter of fact and analytical manner is refreshing for some and for many others can come across as critical & complaining. No good guys & bad guys here. Just different strokes for different folks.

Great post, and I agree.

[Hanuman]

I think I'm pretty ok with Stoner's feeling & justifications to walk away. Other than him leaving (which is huge) I don't get all the continued hand wringing about it. He's emotionally tired of it, has a good life & is going to go pursue that. Good on 'em. ---snip --
I have no problems with how he conducts himself. I can see how his matter of fact and analytical manner is refreshing for some and for many others can come across as critical & complaining. No good guys & bad guys here. Just different strokes for different folks.

Great post, and I agree.

I second that.
I understand, but do not really buy into the whole fandom thing.
For me, MotoGP is not disimilar to reading a fantastic book or hearing some great music....I don't really have any interest in the author/musician beyond their professional offerings...and generally try to avoid any of the peripheral stuff of it lest it contaminate my enjoyment.

[Oscar]

Some asked here & in other threads why people like Crutchlow, Edwards, or Fogarty could complain without attracting the same backlash as Stoner does. I say it's in the style they do it. They can say the same things but can do it in a likeable way or in Fogarty's case in a likeably villianous way. It's just a matter of style. I have no problems with how he conducts himself. I can see how his matter of fact and analytical manner is refreshing for some and for many others can come across as critical & complaining. No good guys & bad guys here. Just different strokes for different folks.

Well put. As an almost humorous aside - MCN is running a story with the headline:

Cal Crutchlow: Casey Stoner’s retirement took b***s

When you read through the article, you can winkle those words out - but it's not actually what Crutchlow said:

Speaking to MCN, Crutchlow said: “I completely agree with what he is saying but he is the only one with the b***s to say it.
"He can say it because he is stopping but it is difficult for us to say it because we all need jobs for next year and if the championship is going CRT we can’t say this and that is s**t.
"We need to be here but Casey’s opinion is totally right and I agree with everything he said. I believe every other rider thinks the same, but they don’t want to say it.”

Ezpeleta will not be amused. I like Crutchlow's riding and I like his style - I hope he's not going to be put on a black list because of this (though his performances suggest he has transcended that, and good on the guy, it's nice to see a U.K rider doing so well, it's been way too long). The headline itself is not in any way antipathetic to Stoner - quite the reverse in fact - but go back a ways and MCN did much the same thing with less goodwill towards Stoner, and some people grabbed it without really reading the content. The world has moved on a bit..

[lebowski]

Great posts Corinthian.

I also agree that it is disturbing that it is only as a by product of his retirement that we hear that Moto 2 and 3 have no paddock space. If you have talent, are on a shoestring, but are not Spanish, then forget about making it in the big league. That door looks now to have closed. What do we hear from the journo's about this?

Nothing.

Not good.

[Gar]

I've said it a heap of times - Jorge, Casey and Dani have made it that Modern MotoGP doesn't need, or have, a bad guy anymore. It just has amazing talent and I reckon it's great!

GP still has a bad guy. He races in WSBK now

[WayneG]

You're not going to like this Oscar. http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2012/May/12052434st.htm

[Gar]

Here's one for Kevin: the sport will miss Stoner, but if Schwantz never said another word that was reported by the media, no one would miss it.

He clearly dislikes Stoner and there is no reason to make his personal prejudices public. I'm sure that Dean Adams couldn't wait to publish that, it's the closest thing to a breaking story that he's had, as far as I can remember, in 5 years.

[Rusty Bucket USA]

Pretty much all classical drama revolves around a 'hero' and a 'villain' and the struggle between them. More than one hero becomes confusing - though he or she may have sidekicks of far lesser stature - and usually a range of villains to be vanquished. That theme runs very deep in the human psyche, you can find it in texts ranging from 'Monkey Magic' through to the Bible...

This may be just me and my contrarian tendencies, but I hasten to point out that the biggest movie, now or in recent years, is about a team. The last biggest movie (series) was about a team of teams, based on literature that (I assume) is to be considered "classic".

Is this premise based on the idea that "people" can only track 2 figures at a time (if that)? If ever there was a sport that shouldn't need a hero and a villain, but should have appreciation for the presence of all of the leaders, it is this one.

Almost anybody who has been involved in a 'news' story has read the report/s and realised how far from the reality such reporting often is...

There is a lot in this. Here in the U.S., a group of 7 women can gather to "protest" a radio personality. At the pub across the street, 50 (or more) gather to watch the local baseball team play on television. Which gathering would be reported by the media as "a big gathering"? The same newscast will never mention a MotoGP race, not even either of the two events that happen in this country.

Stoner has been criticised for his comments about the current state of the sport. It appears that many of his opinions are shared by other riders (Rossi and Lorenzo have publicly backed him on a number of his more controversial issues in the last twelve months) as well as many fans. If the issue isn't fairly reported then it's tantamount to keeping us believing that it's just him, and he'll stop rocking the boat soon enough. It doesn't matter whether they are right or wrong, and it's not about the merits of CRT, TC, BS or the ECU, it's about reporting what is actually being said and thought by the people that matter in the paddock. We the readers are mature enough to decide whether we agree or not but we need to hear both sides of the argument in order to do so. For example this issue of corporate hospitalities in the paddock is fascinating, but why should it be up to the riders to cry foul, shouldn't we be hearing this from more sources who actually earn their keep reporting what is going on there?

The reality of a biased and one-sided media is not new, at all, but it's easy to forget that we are in a tiny little corner of the world where that is considered "foreign".

[Rusty Bucket USA]

You're not going to like this Oscar. http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2012/May/12052434st.htm

I don't know, because I wasn't there, but it seems to me Mr. Schwantz is not familiar with his own era... you would think he would know a little bit more about Eddie Lawson.

But overall, I think it's obvious he's missing the point. Was Schwantz criticized for everything he said and did? Was he routinely taken out of context to sell papers and internet hits? And, if I may be so bold, did he have anything to go home to? We all have a different limit for tolerating that kind of thing, and clearly Schwantz has a different constitution, even if he did face as much criticism (adjusted for inflation). Considering that he will not have as many race wins or Championship wins in his trophy case, you'd think he'd pause for a little perspective. At least he seems to have adopted a "live and let live" attitude.

Hell, I've seen Stoner smile, and I've never even been in the Paddock.

[WayneG]

I think Ian Wheeler summed the article up nice and succinctly on twitter - Sacrifice and suffering? F**k me, it’s racing bikes, not going over the top at the Battle of the Somme!

[MiniNinjaMk5]

As someone who was at that race at Donington 07, I feel there is something important that needs clearing up about that race. First of all, it's important not to try and rationalise it by saying 'well the Brits don't like Stoner because of x', because right there you have put more thought to it than most of the people who were booing him at Day of Champions and after the race. Put simply, the people doing this (and I saw this, so I can comment on it directly) were just scum/chavs. They weren't fans of motorbike racing, they were just lowlifes drawn into it by the Rossi phenomenon, GP coming onto the BBC and sensationalist reporting by MCN (which yes, was as bad then as it is now for putting words into the mouths of riders, and coming to inaccurate conclusions). They attended that year, perhaps one more, and then we won't see them again when the crowd level drops a few tens of thousand after that peak year.

On the old 'Motogpnews' website, the writer on there used to joke about the BBC commenatary coverage, giving quotes from the race by Charlie Cox and Steve Parrish, and just writing, "Rossi Rossi Rossi Rossi Rossi Yamaha Rossi Rossi Rossi Rossi Rossi Rossi Rossi . Yes this was OTT, but there is no smoke without fire as they say and there was definitely some truth to the parody. If you read most of the press coming up to that year, it was almost like Rossi was the main character in a game of Super Hang On, with all the other riders just faceless grey leather-clad roadblocks to be cast aside. Now anyone who followed Motorbike racing seriously knew that Rossi was just a human being like all the rest of them, but I'm guessing the people in the crowd giving grief have turned up expecting something like Days of Thunder with Rossi as Tom Cruise sliding his way through from the back of the grid to win by a lap. There was no appreciation of Stoner's amazing ride in crappy conditions, or of the other factors involved, or even basic manners that dictate you don't heckle a championship leader and someone who has just won a race and wrestled a 250BHP machine around a damp track.

So, I don't think British racing fans have any problem with Stoner. If anything, the opposite should be true as Stoner came through our own system as a youngster, and is close friends with some other British riders. I would hope Casey still has a close affinity with the UK, and understands that the minority of morons who were booing at Donington were more of an indication of the poor social state of the UK rather than of the bike fans themselves.