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Of course we all loved going to Paul Ricard in the sunshine and next to the so blue Mediterranean but sometimes we so called journalists can get things out of perspective. The French MotoGP Grand Prix at Le Mans is a prime example of our somewhat one eyed opinions based on what suits us while totally losing what the event and MotoGP is all about. 

To be fair there are plenty of reasons not to enjoy Le Mans if you are working there but the event is not about us, it’s about the fans and they just love the place. Over 100,000 are expected to pack the legendary Bugatti circuit on Sunday and most of them will have been partying all weekend. For many years the French Grand Prix was drifting. Average crowds, lack of entertainment at the circuit causing problems in the town and a general feeling of the racing out on the track was enough to keep everybody happy. It was not and so they did something about it.

This weekend it could not be a greater contrast – the place will be buzzing. Rock Concerts, public autograph sessions and rider appearances, stunt shows plus the fun fair with the obligatory dodgems and big wheel gives the place more the feel of a festival until the serious business of racing gets underway. A French rider starring in the premier class where a certain Johann Zarco has propelled the popularity of the sport in his home country. After all, the last French premier class winner was Regis Laconi 19 long years ago and Zarco has reignited a flame with the French sporting public.  

Sometimes you have to forget your own problems and look at the bigger picture. I can assure you we were all fed up with the random road closures around the circuit that make the journey in a nightmare. Nobody enjoyed having a big under the influence Frenchman jumping on the bonnet of your car and then exchanging pleasantries when you protested when you left the circuit after a long day. Then there was the weather but there is nothing anybody can do about that.

Although better known for the legendary 24 hour car race, Le Mans will stage its 31^th Motorcycle Grand Prix on Sunday. That first 500cc race back in 1969 was won by Giacomo Agostini as he lapped the complete field. One thing we can guarantee in the 27 lap race on Sunday is that will not happen again. The weather – we can offer no such guarantees.

Le Mans may not be everybody’s cup of tea but those 100,000 fans on Sunday will not be drinking tea, I can assure you of that.

There’s nothing like those special celebrations between Phillip and Peter Oettl after the Moto3 race in Jerez to get the old eyes watering. A father celebrating with his son after his first ever grand prix win never ceases to make me feel good and emotional. Unlike many other sports grand prix motorcycle racing has produced few successful father and son grand prix winning combinations. If the sport is not tough enough already the pressure and expectations heaped on the son of a grand prix winning father must be like a lead weight in his leathers. Of course Dad can open a few extra doors, especially in the early stages, but at some point the comparisons stop and the son has to stand on his own two feet.

Like it or not many sons are just not like their Dads who sometimes just can’t understand why. In other cases they are just a chip off the old block and you recognise all those familiar traits shown at least two decades earlier. Kenny Roberts Senior and Junior seem very different characters off the track while Graziano could only be Valentino Rossi’s Dad.

Without a doubt the most difficult steps to follow must have been if your father had been killed racing which, perhaps for the wrong reasons, increased their status to legendary proportions. Twenty years ago I worked closely with Formula One World Champions Damon Hill and Jacque Villeneuve. Graham Hill had been killed in a plane crash and Gilles Villeneuve in a grand prix and I probably more than anybody at the time, to satisfy the insatiable needs of the media and sponsors, had to constantly ask them about their legendary fathers. Like it or not they were being compared, but both in very different ways followed their own paths to World Championship success. It must have been so tough at times.

This has only happened once on two wheels. Les Graham was the very first 500cc World Champion in 1949 but was tragically killed at the TT in the Isle of Man in 1953. Fourteen years later in 1967 his son Stuart returned to the Isle of Man to win the 50cc race for Suzuki and the 125 cc Finnish Grand Prix at another road circuit in Imatra before turning to four wheels for further success.

There must have been something special in that 1949 air because the very first 125 cc Champion, Italian Nello Pagani, who also finished second behind Graham in the 500cc class, also produced a grand prix winning son. Alberto Pagani won three 500cc grands prix in the late sixties and early seventies but probably the toughest act to follow was the daunting task of Pablo Nieto. Pure bad luck and mechanical problems seemed to form an impregnable barrier to that grand prix win but finally in 2003 he won the 125 cc race at Estoril in Portugal. At last a father and son win to celebrate with his 13 times World Champion Spanish legend Angel, who certainly had learnt the art of celebrating 90 grand prix victories over the last three decades.

Stefan Bradl went one better than Dad Helmut by winning the 2011 Moto2 World Championship. Twenty years earlier Helmut had finished runner–up in the 250 cc Championship winning five grands prix that year but the only father and son to win world titles remains in the very firm grip of the incredible Roberts family. Kenny Senior the brash outspoken genius who changed the very face of grand prix racing and Kenny Junior, who shunned the limelight.

What a racing family. Chalk and Cheese off the track but cheese and cheese plus a few biscuits on it.

Imagine having a corner named after your good self to celebrate your career. It must be the ultimate accolade but the timing is vital.  At Jerez they go to town with the corners around this superb MotoGP venue. Why not celebrate the World Championship successes of Sito Pons, Jorge Martinez, Angel Nieto, Alex Criville and Jorge Lorenzo at the home of the Spanish Grand Prix? The only problem is what corner to give your name to and the timing of the ceremony.

The collective likes of Pons, Martinez, Nieto and Criville collected an impressive 22 World titles between them and more importantly had hung up their leathers before the naming ceremony. Five years ago Jorge Lorenzo, who at the time had won four World titles and made his grand prix debut at Jerez 11 years earlier, had the infamous turn 13 named in his honour.

This was the tight left hander into the finishing straight that had produced more drama and controversy in one lap than some other motorsport championships produce in a complete season. It took just three days for the newly named Jorge Lorenzo corner to reap its revenge and bite its new owner on the bottom. Let’s be honest he’d had plenty of warning.

They still argue about 1996 in this part of the world. Local hero Alex Criville declared the winner of an epic battle with World Champion Mick Doohan by the circuit announcer. The problem was there was still one lap of the 4.423 kms circuit remaining. He’d jumped the gun big style and the ecstatic Spanish fans climbed the fences onto the track to celebrate with their man. As they approached the dreaded turn 13 both Doohan and Criville had to almost weave their way through flag waving fans. When they arrived at the final corner of the 27 lap race, circuit announcer please note, it all kicked off. The two riders touched, Criville went down and Doohan won the race. Criville remounted to finish fourth and the crowd was angry, very angry not that it fussed Doohan one little bit.

Fast forward 19 years. No wrong lap timing by the circuit announcer this time but yet again a Spanish rider coming off second best at turn 13. Valentino Rossi and Sete Gibernau had long ceased their early friendship and this was a classic duel with a real personal feel. Same old story, last lap turn 13. Rossi up the inside on the brakes, they touched or perhaps clashed. Gibernau ran onto the grass and Rossi won the race. Gibernau stormed up pit line to register his annoyance and Rossi, with 25 precious Championship points, just smiled.

It was about as inevitable as a Doohan grand prix win that Lorenzo would not escape the wrath of turn 13 the weekend he took over its stewardship. Of course it had to be the last lap and this time a fight for second place with the new kid on the block Marc Marquez. They touched; Marquez grabbed second behind Dani Pedrosa and a steaming Lorenzo was third.

Having a corner named in your honour must be so special. Rossi and Marquez will surely be bestowed such an honour but wisely they will wait until they have turned their last wheel in battle. Also they will make their choice of corner a number one priority.

We could think of a few but not the same one for sure.

It only seems like yesterday all you had to do was whistle and they would arrive in their droves from across the Atlantic. Those halcyon days of Kenny Roberts Senior and Junior, Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson, Wayne Rainey, Kevin Schwantz and Nicky Hayden are a distant memory. So what are they going to do about it? Ask Wayne Rainey.

 Some people are just born warriors. While most of us turn our backs and walk away when the going gets tough ,warriors whatever the circumstances, face and then act on whatever lies ahead.  A different breed to usual human beings.

Nobody who was at Misano on September 5th 1993 will ever forget the day. The afternoon a supreme athlete and World Champion was at the very pinnacle of his talent. The terrifying fall in the Misano gravel trap that brought a devastating end to a career and life as Wayne Rainey knew it. Television pictures of the fall still haunt the grand prix paddock. Rainey the three times World 500cc Champion chasing his fourth successive World title after 24 grands prix wins that started at the British Grand Prix five years earlier, confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life. 

Roll the calendar forward 25 long years to the Circuit of the Americas in Texas this weekend and the third round of the 2018 MotoGP World Championship. It’s been a tough barren time for American racing on the world stage. It’s unbelievable that there is just one American rider Moto2 competitor Joe Roberts in the entry list in all three MotoGP classes, even for a grand prix on home soil

Wayne was there in Texas supervising the second round of the fourth MotoAmerica series that surely will re-start that production line that brought some many Americans to enlighten the world stage. Six years ago American national racing was on its knees. The usual problems of money and politics had engulfed a series that was once the envy of the World. Rainey, who already given so much to a sport that had thrown at him the very pinnacle and lowest pit of despair, decided it was time to do something about it. Together with the likes of Paul Carruthers, son of former 250 cc World Champion Kel and mentor to Kenny Roberts when he led the American charge into Europe, they planned the MotoAmerica project. It’s been tough and Wayne admitted at the weekend that they were still a few years away but an American rider back into the entry list had been achieved. They are moving forward and who better to be at the helm.

After the Misano accident Wayne returned to the paddock a couple of years later to run the 250 cc Yamaha team. Despite being paralysed from the waist down he raced karts with his old mate and adversity Eddie Lawson. He was heavily involved with MotoGP returning to the magnificent Laguna Seca circuit near his home in California and with American racing on its knees he decided he would not let it die.

It’s been a long hard road for Wayne with life changing circumstances none of us could ever imagine but when you are a warrior that is what you do. He will turn American round and without a doubt there will be another American World Champion even if takes a bit longer than Wayne would want. 

Wayne Rainey has faced the ultimate test and came out a true warrior. He will do it again.

Never has anybody deserved that ultimate accolade of being inducted a MotoGP Legend than Randy. The problem is finding enough space to tell you why because he ticks every box apart from one.

Randy will not thank me for reminding you he is the first non World Champion to join the exclusive club but in so many ways this makes his election even more special and richly deserved. His passionate dedication to the sport, rider’s safety and the Riders for Health charity, his ability to fight back from adversity, loyalty, stubbornness, a true family man and for being one of the funniest men I’ve ever met will do for a start.

The record books can’t tell the real story. Thirteen 500cc grands prix wins, more than World Champions Marco Lucchinelli, Franco Uncini and Kenny Roberts Junior, brought him a heart-breaking runner – spot in the World Championship on four separate occasions. He was a brilliant grand prix rider who certainly ran out of luck at the wrong time and found himself racing in a golden era of rich talent especially from his very own homeland. From the moment the brash freckled faced Californian teenager arrived in Europe we knew we were in for fun and games on and off the track.

On the track I remember that first grand prix victory on a rare visit to Zolder in 1980 followed with a victory at the British Grand Prix. The much televised save of the Rothmans Honda in Italy and two brilliant wins in Assen. Off the track Randy was the undisputed World Champion leading the way in an era of paddock parties, wrecked hire cars and  wild Sunday night celebrations before moving on to place your life and body on the line at the next race.

In 1987 we arrived at the party town of Goiania in Brazil where the outcome of the World Championship was to be decided. Randy had won in Japan, France and San Marino and still had a slim chances preventing Wayne Gardner taking the title. It was the first ever grand prix in Goiania and the night before the first day of practice the riders, sitting round the swimming pool, were asked to judge the Miss Brazilian Grand Prix competition. We were surprised not to see Randy on the judging panel but when a freckled faced ‘lady’ appeared on the catwalk dressed to the nines with a full face of make –up we realised why.

 It was especially tough for Randy when he retired. No World Championship to celebrate and no rich rewards for his glittering career after some disastrous investments by others. He fought back in the same way he had ridden those awesome 500 cc two-strokes. Randy spearheaded the Riders for Health campaign to combat disease in Africa with the same passion and single minded approach that had made him such a great rider. He is worthy ambassador for companies involved in MotoGP, an inspirational riders mentor and does a superb job riding the two-seater providing the ride of a life time for those lucky Ducati guests. Most of all his love of the sport that has brought him such a roller coaster of emotions has never once wavered and that wicked sense of humour and fun is never far away. 

 Randy Mamola a true friend and MotoGP legend.