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Elbow Room Days of Thunder: Assen Style

Oct 20, 2009
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<p>By Ben Spies, Courtesy <a href="http://www.superbikeplanet.com" target="_blank">www.superbikeplanet.com</a></p><p>
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Silverstone was actually a good weekend for me, up until the crash.</p><p>
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It started out like every normal weekend that we've had this year, with horrible weather on and off. But I was really happy, because since I've been on the Yamaha GP bike, I've always felt good in the rain. Maybe not the best, but I don't mind the rain. At Silverstone we were good in the dry, and we definitely had the pace to battle for the podium. In the rain, I felt good too. We were fourth quickest in the morning warm-up. Then the race started. We went with a little bit different setup - not too much, but we changed the bike a little bit. In the race, there was quite a bit more water on the track, and we definitely went the wrong direction. Couldn't get any heat in the rear tire. We overlaid data from the morning warm-up to the race, and it was clear to see that when the bike would slide, the slide would start so fast it was just uncontrollable. I couldn't control it and neither could the electronics. It was really inconsistent and hard to ride, and I just struggled. It was really unsafe. I just started fading back, and I let Colin past, because I knew I was just holding him up.</p><p>
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I started settling into a rhythm. I had Nicky behind me and he wasn't closing the gap, so I was pretty content. Then I just made a mistake. I locked the front up on the brakes, and I hit a puddle, and hydroplaned. It wasn't really because of the rear. I just got caught out and I hit the ground at 160 mph and slid. I knew I was hauling the mail when I hit the ground. I was in fifth gear and way away from anything, so I was like, "Okay, I'll probably slow down before I get to anything." Then I realized where I was on the track, and sliding, and I was like, "I'm going to hit this wall head first."</p><p>
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I started trying to maneuver myself so I'd go in feet first, and hit the wall at a kind of diagonal. I thought there was something in front of the wall, but right when I was going to hit it, I saw it was pure concrete--it was pretty scary. I hit the wall going probably 25 mph and just stopped. I obviously felt the blow in my lower back, but then I had some numbness in my left leg and left arm. I couldn't get up, and had to go on the stretcher. When I complained about the numbness, then the neck brace and all that stuff came out. It was a little over-exaggerated, but they have to be careful.</p><p>
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I had a little bit of damage in my lower back and hip area and just had to rest the next couple of days. Once I got back from England and got back home to Como, I started exercising a little bit. I went out and pedaled a couple of times. It didn't hurt at all on the bicycle, when I'm sitting on my pelvic bones. But sitting in a chair, sitting in a weird position, I was getting a lot of pain. So I was actually worried going into Assen. "Man, these fifth-gear direction changes, sixth gear on the back section of the track, this might hurt quite a bit." As it turned out though, no pain at all on the bike. I've felt really good since then. It was just a lot of bone bruising, but it was pretty scary for a little bit. I wasn't too happy at all about hitting a concrete wall.</p><p>
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I had quite a bit of bruising on my right quad and my right arm because I was digging into the ground so hard to try to spin around. I was sliding so long, I had a lot of time to try to do that, which you normally don't. I probably hit the wall the best way that I could. It's just a bad situation, but that's what happened there.</p><p>
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Anyway, we got to Assen. Same weather as England. Misty, raining on and off, no quality track time. The first wet session I took it really easy, because I obviously had a little knock to my confidence from crashing in the rain at Silverstone. I got up to speed slowly and felt pretty good, but didn't push the envelope at all, and we just worked through the weekend to get the bike better in the dry and the wet, and I was quite comfortable. Qualifying went well for us. I was a little bit bummed, because I think we could've had pole. On my fast lap, I was up a tenth already in the first sector. When I got to sector two, Loris had just crashed and there were yellow flags, his visor was in the track, he was lying in the gravel, and people were running. It was a lot of commotion, and I lost a lot of time in sector two. That basically blew my pole lap. I was bummed at first, but mainly I hoped he was okay. I think it definitely cost us pole, but we were still in a good qualifying position.</p><p>
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Man when I was up on the podium looking down, not only my friends but all the fans were there looking up, as excited as I was ... I'm not the loudest personality in the paddock, but when they played the National Anthem, I was holding back a couple of tears, that's for sure.</p><p>
Going into the race, it was actually really hectic. The track was wet 20 minutes before the race, and then all of a sudden it dried out really quick. When we start the race, we always start with the second bike exactly the same as the first bike, so if I crashed on the warm-up lap like I did in Estoril, you can get back to the pits, get on a bike with the same setup, and you're all good. But it was one of those conditions where you want to have one bike set up and you don't know which way to do it, because it's drying, then it's wet, and you're guessing with the setup. I told them, "We have five minutes before the race starts. Okay, I'll go out on this bike with the rain tires and look at the track, and switch this bike over to dry. We've got to do it."</p><p>
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I went out and came back to the pits, and they're changing fork springs, swingarm link, and they were hustling. It was nuts. I got out of pit lane with 20 seconds to go to make the grid. They did a great job. Everybody was getting their hands dirty to get me out on the track. I felt like Cole Trickle in Days of Thunder--I was screaming at the guys. They did a fantastic job getting me out on the start. Then everything was mellow. I was really calm.</p><p>
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Then the race started. Simoncelli and I were side by side going into Turn 1, then Lorenzo came past, and I got back by him, and then that was pretty much it. We opened up a really big gap on the first lap. There's a Jumbotron on the back straightaway, and as soon as I came out of Turn 5, I looked, and I could see Simoncelli and Lorenzo running to their bikes. One of the reasons I passed Lorenzo into Turn 1 is that I wanted to lead into that first left-hander. I knew somebody was going to make a mistake. it just happened to be Simoncelli.</p><p>
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I knew those were the two guys who were behind me into Turn 1, so I knew I had a decent gap. So for the rest of the first lap, I pushed pretty much as hard as the tires would allow. I had I think 2.3 seconds on the first lap, and put my head down and got the gap up to three and a half or four seconds, then tried to stabilize my pace. Casey got up to speed, took a tenth out, then another tenth. I upped my pace to match his, and basically just kept him right at three and a half seconds. A few laps in, we started going a little faster and got the gap up, and held it at four and a half seconds for the rest of the race. Once he got a comfortable margin over Dovi, he backed off. That was pretty much it. It wasn't an exciting race, but it was the best ride I've had in GP. It was one of the easier ones - to set the pace and try not to make any mistakes. Thanks again to Yamaha and my team for giving me the bike that day. The bike was perfect. It was nice to lead. It was awesome, but it was very difficult to read "+3.5" and "Stoner" underneath that. Whoa. It's a bit unsettling, but we had to find a rhythm and race hard.</p><p>
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It was pretty funny, with about eight laps to go ... I'd been used to being up front and leading races in AMA and World Superbike, but never before in MotoGP. I hadn't won a race in a long time. I think House thought I forgot how to lead a race. Eight laps to go, I had about a five and a half second lead, and on my pit board below my gap, he put "OK" in big capital letters, like I could slow down and not take too many chances. I was in such a rhythm then, I slowed down about three or four tenths a lap, but I had to keep going pretty quick so I could keep my concentration. That was pretty much it.</p><p>
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On the last lap, the only thing that was going through my head was, "Am I leading this race? Is there anybody in front of me that I didn't see, or something? What's going on?"</p><p>
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That was my race in a nutshell. There was a lot of emotion coming over the line. The biggest one for my crew, but also, above all, it was just relief. Now that was done, I don't have to guess when it's going to happen or if it's going to happen. It did happen. It felt like a load of bricks off my shoulders.</p><p>
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With about five laps to go, when my gap back to Casey went to five and a half seconds, I thought about winning the race. He said afterward that his shoulder was getting tired and he kind of took a breather lap, and I put a second on him. The gap went up dramatically. I thought, "Okay. This is it. I've got this." And I slowed down, but then in my head I was like, "Big mistake. Just keep in a rhythm." I didn't want to do anything stupid by trying to go too slow and not concentrating. So I turned the pace up a little bit more. Not as fast as I'd been going, but just enough to stay in that rhythm.</p><p>
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On the last lap, going through about the last four corners - the last chicane where I passed Haga in World Superbike - that's when I turned it completely off and looked down and shook my head. "Man, this is actually happening." I came into the final chicane and I could hear the fans over my bike--it was pretty intense. To come across the line, even Lorenzo's crew, and my crew were hanging on the pit wall. It was huge.</p><p>
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It definitely hasn't sunk in yet. Some of it has, but for it to come there at that race, that track ... . All my favorite races have been at Assen. Watching Kevin and Wayne and all those guys duke it out. The oldest circuit on the calendar. My first GP win, my first year with the factory, the first race with the 50th anniversary colors, all the Yamaha greats were there. It couldn't have been scripted any better. For it to happen on that weekend was incredible.</p><p>
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Assen meant a lot to me even before I raced there. When I was a kid, I got all the magazines, I bought all the race videos and I'd watch them endlessly. From about '90 to '93, I can tell you anything that ever happened. One was at Hockenheim, when Kevin Schwantz passed Wayne Rainey on the last lap and did that crazy out-braking maneuver. There are a few races that I recall vividly, and many of them were at Assen. But all those dogfights, there were so many great races at Assen, from World Superbike to GPs. It's a track I've always looked at as being really historic, an awesome track for racing. I've loved going there the two times I was there. The fans are so good, because they're real fans of the sport. It's not like they're just there to support one rider ... the Dutch people have a respect for all the riders. I'm not saying that other countries aren't like that, but that's the feeling I get when I go there. They're die-hard fans of racing. To watch all the races I've watched, and then to get my first win there of all places, and that weekend with the 50th anniversary colors, all the PR stuff we did, to be a part of that ...</p><p>
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Just racing in MotoGP is a dream for any rider. To win a MotoGP race is the biggest thing you can do, outside of winning the championship - and to do it there, on that weekend, was incredible. It was a great way to bounce back after the way this season started for us.</p><p>
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Huge thanks goes out to Yamaha, my team, my mom - I wouldn't be here without her, there's no doubt about it, I wouldn't be racing. Tom Houseworth has been with me for so long and we've made steps together, me as a rider and him as a crew chief, Woody as well. It's a really good feeling for me and for everybody behind me.</p><p>
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Four years ago I never thought I would leave the AMA. Ten years ago I was a kid watching GP races and just hoping I was going to be able to race a street bike someday. From that to riding for a factory team, and winning now—it's priceless.</p><p>
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Here's a funny little story. I have a friend, Simon Essl who came over to see these two races, Assen and Mugello. Friday night about 9:15 we're sitting at the dinner table. It gets dark at about 11:00 there. So he said, "Okay, I'm going to go ride my bicycle around the track." I was like, "BS, you're not going to go ride your bike. We just ate dinner." He's like, "No, dude, I'm going to go ride my bike for a couple hours." I said, "Yeah, right. I'll bet you." He said, "I'll ride four hours." I said, "Okay. I'll bet you €1,000 that you won't ride your bike from ten at night until six in the morning." He's one of the guys who rides on my cycling team, so we both knew he could do it physically, but it was more of a mental thing. He'd been up since 7:00 in the morning, he hadn't planned on it, he didn't eat for it, he's by himself, he's in the dark, the weather was horrible, the laps get monotonous. At 9:15 we were sitting at the dinner table, and at 9:45 he was dressed and I'm making up bottles and energy bars for him. "You're going to really do this." "Yeah, I am." "Okay, you're taking a rain jacket, and I'm locking the door so you can't get in."</p><p>
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I went to bed and I woke up and looked at my alarm clock at 4 a.m. I opened the slider door of my motor home to see if he was asleep on the floor, and he wasn't there. He was out riding the track. "That little f***er is going to do it. I've been asleep for six hours and he is out there right now, and I'm going to lose € 1000." He did 220K on his bicycle around that 4.5K track--something like 59 or 60 laps. He was coming back from breakfast when I got up to take my shower ...he was just crushed, bloodshot eyes, and he slept 'til we woke him up for lunch. He had lunch with me and then I went out and raced.</p><p>
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Now, everybody at Yamaha and all my friends say that he's got to ride his bicycle for eight hours the night before every race. I lost €1,000, but I won the race.</p><p>
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Saturday night after the race we went back into Amsterdam and took in the red-light district. We didn't get back to the hotel until like 10:00 PM, because we sat in traffic leaving the track. Had a bunch of chocolate waffles, a whole lot of desserts, and celebrated. I got a text from my team manager, Maio, in the morning, saying that he didn't even sleep because he was so pumped up. Tom and I had sent texts to each other, congratulating each other and telling all the guys. He sent me another text in the morning: "It's pretty cool, huh, winning a MotoGP race?" Sunday morning it hit me a lot more than it did Saturday night.</p><p>
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Coming back to Como and just going out to eat a couple of nights—Kevin Schwantz is here for a couple of weeks—seeing the people in the city. The Italian fans and the community are so happy for me, it's amazing. You really realize how many people watch and genuinely care about the sport.</p><p>
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Man when I was up on the podium looking down, not only my friends but all the fans were there looking up, as excited as I was ... I'm not the loudest personality in the paddock, but when they played the National Anthem, I was holding back a couple of tears, that's for sure.</p><p>
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We're leaving for Mugello today, and it starts all over again. We don't forget about Assen, but we don't go to Mugello thinking we're going to do that again. It's another weekend, we'll give it 100%, and that's what we've done all year long. It's a great feeling that we put it all together at Assen and won there. It was a really special weekend. But I rode just as hard to my third place at Catalunya, and my sixth place at Qatar. All we can do is go to Mugello with good confidence, morale and momentum, and give it 100% as we do every weekend. The result will be what it will be.</p><p>
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I know people are going to start expecting more from me now, but all I'm going to do is keep carrying on with my business, and put it all together with me and the bike. I know now that when the conditions are right, I can win a MotoGP race - it's not impossible - and that's a big confidence booster.</p><p>
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I'm looking forward to seeing everybody at Laguna Seca and Indy.</p>

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