Mat Oxley, to the point, as ever!

[tdm34]

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/motorc...

[dibblecorse]

How does he ever get off that high horse of his?

[trickywoo]

dibblecorse said:

How does he ever get off that high horse of his?

You’ll be in a minority supporting nepotism in an organisation like this.

[hepy]

Mat knows.

[Rob 131 Sport]

To be honest he’s a good writer when he sticks to motorcycles and not politics.

[Zarco]

I like him.

[Rob_F]

I think they're fair points, but tonbe honest I want and love the close racing. So what do you do?

[hiccy18]

I think it's correct to criticise the organisers when there are several deaths, and several more narrowly avoided: Salom's death was inexcusable; Vinales and Rossi nearly met untimely ends in the same weekend Chantra and Nagashima had a horrific accident; Moto2 @PI was bad but could easily have been a lot worse: if you put your mind to it there are literally numerous examples where a threat to safety was obvious, without the need for hindsight, yet nothing was done.

We all enjoy close racing but safety has to be primary so that means pursuing all avenues whenever possible and not shrugging shoulders when a need is identified. Seems like it takes death or near death for improvements to rider safety to be thought about, which is like a step back to the '70's. Replacing a safety officer with a family member sounds like a major step back, but if Aleix Espargaro and Jorge Viegas think he should be given a chance and is very suited to the role then hopefully he'll bring some improvements.

[Kawasicki]

hiccy18 said:

We all enjoy close racing but safety has to be primary

Does it?

[hiccy18]

Kawasicki said:

hiccy18 said:

We all enjoy close racing but safety has to be primary

Does it?

You mean that some of the enjoyment comes from the element of risk? I can get that, but I don't want to watch people getting killed or seriously injured for my pleasure, it's not a blood sport. Something like the accident that happened to Marquez is, I guess, part of the sport, but when particular problems are identified, and are addressable, then yes, safety has to be primary.

[carinaman]

Mat Oxley said:

Motorcycling is a wonderful sport and its world championships should not be a family fiefdom.

Is it a sport? Like F1 and Soccer it's a business?

[smifffymoto]

carinaman said:

Mat Oxley said:

Motorcycling is a wonderful sport and its world championships should not be a family fiefdom.

Is it a sport? Like F1 and Soccer it's a business?

The article read like it’s becoming a cartel.

[Drawweight]

My thoughts are being a retired racer as Franco Uncini isn’t really necessary. After all he retired from racing nearly 40 years ago. His relevance to modern day racing is slim.

What is needed is someone who listens to the riders. They are the ones who are out on track and at risk. If it turns out to be nepotism then as long as they do a good job then so be it.

There are racers and there are racers. Some will accept a higher risk than others but a consensus amongst the riders is a better choice than one individual.

[freedman]

hiccy18 said:

I think it's correct to criticise the organisers when there are several deaths, and several more narrowly avoided: Salom's death was inexcusable; .

In what way are you blaming the organisers for Saloms death?

[_Neal_]

Must admit other than "nepotism is bad" I didn't see the point Oxley was getting at. If someone was coming along with a raft of ideas to make the racing safer, and they were being ignored in favour of some key guy's nephew then fair enough that's awful. But that's not the case.

[hiccy18]

freedman said:

hiccy18 said:

I think it's correct to criticise the organisers when there are several deaths, and several more narrowly avoided: Salom's death was inexcusable; .

In what way are you blaming the organisers for Saloms death?

They ignored the riders concerns over safety. A recap (from memory):

The riders complained about the corner on the Thursday and on the Friday morning the Riders Safety Commission protested about the conditions and, very vocally, requested using the F1 layout; even Rossi complained which was unusual as he usually took no part in the Safety Commission believing that it achieved nothing. The request was over ruled by the organisers. Practice went ahead on the existing layout and, in the afternoon session, Luis hit the bump the riders were concerned about and went into the barrier the riders warned about; to compound what would have been serious injuries the bike went in after him and crushed him against the barrier. For the races the organisers decided it would be best to use the F1 layout that the riders had requested before practice had commenced.

Subsequently the bump was repaired and the barrier that couldn't be moved further back because of space limitations was moved further back so the normal layout could be used again. That the riders picked up on the problems before a session commenced asked questions of the process of assessing circuit safety.

[_Neal_]

hiccy18 said:

They ignored the riders concerns over safety. A recap (from memory):

The riders complained about the corner on the Thursday and on the Friday morning the Riders Safety Commission protested about the conditions and, very vocally, requested using the F1 layout; even Rossi complained which was unusual as he usually took no part in the Safety Commission believing that it achieved nothing. The request was over ruled by the organisers. Practice went ahead on the existing layout and, in the afternoon session, Luis hit the bump the riders were concerned about and went into the barrier the riders warned about; to compound what would have been serious injuries the bike went in after him and crushed him against the barrier. For the races the organisers decided it would be best to use the F1 layout that the riders had requested before practice had commenced.

Subsequently the bump was repaired and the barrier that couldn't be moved further back because of space limitations was moved further back so the normal layout could be used again. That the riders picked up on the problems before a session commenced asked questions of the process of assessing circuit safety.

That's horrendous. Thanks for the info. If Oxley's point is that nepotism is more likely to make this sort of stuff happen, then it's impossible to disagree with him.

[poo at Paul's]

trickywoo said:

dibblecorse said:

How does he ever get off that high horse of his?

You’ll be in a minority supporting nepotism in an organisation like this.

He likes to think he knows how it should always be, but some of his stuff he writes and posts is nonsense. His political stuff is so blinkered, the fact he posts and writes about it, makes you wonder about his objectivity on motorcycle racing matters….and then he comes out with stuff that you read and think, huh….wtf are you on about?
He makes a living following the greatest bike racing roadshow on the planet, but doesn’t half seem to moan about it all a lot!

[poo at Paul's]

_Neal_ said:

hiccy18 said:

They ignored the riders concerns over safety. A recap (from memory):

The riders complained about the corner on the Thursday and on the Friday morning the Riders Safety Commission protested about the conditions and, very vocally, requested using the F1 layout; even Rossi complained which was unusual as he usually took no part in the Safety Commission believing that it achieved nothing. The request was over ruled by the organisers. Practice went ahead on the existing layout and, in the afternoon session, Luis hit the bump the riders were concerned about and went into the barrier the riders warned about; to compound what would have been serious injuries the bike went in after him and crushed him against the barrier. For the races the organisers decided it would be best to use the F1 layout that the riders had requested before practice had commenced.

Subsequently the bump was repaired and the barrier that couldn't be moved further back because of space limitations was moved further back so the normal layout could be used again. That the riders picked up on the problems before a session commenced asked questions of the process of assessing circuit safety.

That's horrendous. Thanks for the info. If Oxley's point is that nepotism is more likely to make this sort of stuff happen, then it's impossible to disagree with him.

And yet it all happened under the ‘existing watch’ so all seems to be a bit of a non sequitur, that it’ll be worse under new management so to speak, no?

Edited by poo at Paul's on Sunday 6th November 11:50

[stang65]

_Neal_ said:

That's horrendous. Thanks for the info. If Oxley's point is that nepotism is more likely to make this sort of stuff happen, then it's impossible to disagree with him.

Is it? To make this balanced we need far more detail on the subjects of the article, primarily why they are not suitable for the jobs. From what is written both are already working in the MotoGP field and are being promoted. Nepotism is bad if that's the only reason for giving the job i.e. there is no experience, they're not the best candidate. This is an article that doesn't establish that either way. Maybe it did but to do so was too many words and the editor took the detail out (possibly for legal reasons too) so Mat Oxley may have this information. It's very possible to disagree with the nepotism allegation with the lack of facts in the article. There are plenty of facts about the deaths, so surely we could have some about the subject's unsuitability and, as importantly, the people who would have taken the role if offered that were far more suitable?

I used to work in a business where nepotism was rife...and it either provided the star players or complete losers with little in the middle ground. I believe this is due to the whether the subject is interested, involved and learning from their "elders" in order to get an insight "outsiders" couldn't and is therefore ahead of the curve, or whether they get the role purely on name alone. Which way this will go depends on the actual circumstances.

It's odd that reporters are complaining about the close racing in MotoGP formulas and yet complaining about the lack of it in WSB though. What do they want?

Edited by stang65 on Sunday 6th November 12:05