All eyes will be focused on the title decider in Barcelona this weekend, while all hearts and thoughts will be with the people of Valencia. So often sport can consume your life and block out what you do not want to hear. Sport can also bring people together in times of grief and sorrow and contribute both collectively and individually to provide support and practical help. Grand Prix Motorcycle racing has never shied away from understanding, caring and supporting. Sometimes on a massive scale such as the Motul Solidarity Grand Prix this weekend and the 35 years of the Two Wheels for Life campaigns. Sometimes just acts of individual kindness have meant so much. Sometimes just being there has brought relief and hope for the future to broken communities.
I remember that first Riders for Health Day of Champions at Brands Hatch in England back in 1989. Inspired by Randy Mamola and Andrea and Barry Colemen. It was the start of something so big that nobody, perhaps with the exception of Randy, could ever have envisaged the future. The sport and especially the riders and teams, have never wavered in their support and generosity for the people in Africa by providing lifesaving healthcare and transport. Re-named Two Wheels For Life the organisation, now the official MotoGP™ Charity, goes from strength to strength and is an example to every sport of just what can be achieved, if you care enough.
Understandably these massive charity efforts receive the publicity they deserve. Sometimes acts of individual kindness and care go almost unnoticed. MotoGP™’s only visit to the Interlagos circuit on the outskirts of San Paulo in Brazil was on a wet September weekend in 1992. It was miserable in every way. The track so unsuitable for motorcycles, the chaotic organisation and the abject poverty around the city and especially surrounding the circuit. The paddock was so upset by the appalling state of the occupied mud-lined hut favelas that overlooked the track they did something about it. A collection was donated to a local charity. Perhaps a drop in the ocean but a demonstration that at least somebody cared about them.
Valentino Rossi visited Aids victims at the height of the pandemic at Welkom in South Africa, and the fact that MotoGP™ just went there did so much to help an area on its knees. A town of 200,000 people left with so little. Surrounded by abandoned mine-shaft headgear and slag heaps with the demise of gold mining. Jammed roundabouts of people early every morning hoping to be picked up for a job. MotoGP™ brought some hope and especially for the young people working at the circuit in so many different capacities. Hope was perhaps even more precious to them as charitable cash. It was such a tragedy when Welkom staged its last grand prix with the historic Rossi/Biaggi duel in 2004.
Twenty-one years earlier I stood at Arrivals at Johannesburg airport in turmoil. I questioned what I was doing there. This was South Africa gripped by the apartheid regime and so why was Grand Prix motorcycle racing prepared to race there? Four days later as we flew home, I knew exactly why. We broke every apartheid restriction at every opportunity. The paddock totally ignored all the rules. We upset the rulemakers, but I think brought some joy, hope and even fun for the future which was a rare commodity for the majority of the population.
In 2011 the Japanese Grand Prix was postponed after the earthquake and resulting tsunami in March. A new date was scheduled in September but there was genuine concern about a radiation leak at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. After much deliberation the Grand Prix went ahead and what a welcome we received from the Japanese nation. It was the first major sporting event to be held in Japan after the disaster and the fact we were prepared to take their advice and travel there meant so much to them. Yes, some riders would only shower in bottled water and less radiation was registered at the circuit than in Bologna, but everybody made the trip.
Motorcycle racing has always cared and being able to help through the sport we love makes it very special. We must never forget.