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rachelxxraucous · 2 days

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okay mig did in fact release episode one of his podcast featuring franco morbidelli and i listened to it with the auto-generated english subtitles. this is the interesting info i gleaned... please refer to your local italian for whether or not it's all 100% true.

his head injury: he said that in general he's not scared to race now because you're just so used to racing and it's what you've done your whole life, but he was a little worried going back for the portimao GP that he would be slower there because of what happened with the training fall (when he knocked himself out and had a severe concussion that meant he missed all of pre-season). after his first lap of the circuit in free practice he looked for himself on the timing screens and looked at the bottom expecting to see himself down there and didn't see his name so he thought his transponder had broken! then he realized he was actually at the very top and that's when he knew he would be okay racing at portimao because he'd accidentally gone the fastest of anyone on the very first lap of the weekend.

his relationship to brazil: his mom always worked hard to keep him connected to brazil and she stayed in close touch with her family there (he's like, i grew up in internet cafes because my mom was always going there to talk to her family). when he was 10 years old and starting to really get into motorcycles, she took him to brazil with her because she wanted him to experience "another story" and see other possibilities for his life. he had a great time and became really close with his cousins and their friends, but he started to miss motorbikes so she brought him back to italy.

recently she went back for her 60th birthday and called him to tell him she was going, and after he hung up he thought and then called her right back and said "mom i'm coming too." he went for 20 days back to the favela that his grandparents live in outside recife, which he loves and feels like an important part of him even though it's so different than tavullia. he said of his friends "who are still alive" most weren't around but he made amazing new friends just in those 20 days.

moving to tavullia and training with vale: his dad moved him to the tavullia area in 2008-2009 because he realized that is where franky would have to be if he wanted to be serious about riding motorcycles, he couldn't get the same training in rome/his dad didn't have the same contacts there from his own riding career. his dad talked graziano into letting franky train in the famous quarry and then eventually he started training with carlo, vale's trainer, and vale and marco simoncelli.

when his dad committed suicide (franky refers to this as "and then the thing happened that happened with livio [his dad]") vale, graziano, carlo, and albi, the whole VR team, took him under their wing and "embraced me even more" and did their bests to make him not feel the difficulty of this really difficult moment, and according to him it worked.

other facts: he has a poster of ayrton senna above his bed that his mom first put there when he was born and now he always has to have it hung there.

mig teases him by saying "what's the passion of the last two weeks, vegan again? surfing? anime?" implying that franky always has a new interest or hobby. franky starts to answer and say that he's been listening to an explanation of the Divine Comedy and mig immediately is like okay we can end here --

in 2020 he was upset about everything happening in the world (doesn't get more explicit than that but he's talked before about it being related to racial equality, etc) and so he wanted to make a special misano helmet that spoke to that. he worked with aldo drudi to make a helmet based on spike lee's Do the Right Thing, that also says "equality" on the back, and spike lee saw it/heard about it and liked it so much he called franky and they had a really cool conversation.

#franky morbido #franco morbidelli #motogp

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rachelxxraucous · 2 days

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some important things i got from the mig babol

franco is an optimist. like. a fucking big optimist.

he moved to tavullia after elementary school, around when he was 10 years old (which might be why his accent isn't that strong)

after the firt run of fp1 in portimao he went back to the box and started checking his times from the bottom of the table. after a bit, when he couldn't find his name, he thought there was a problem with the transponder (he was first)

he grew up watching old vhs tapes of kevin shwanz his dad had recorded, in particular one when they racing in brazil

he has a poster of ayrton senna above his bed, and has had it since he was born, when his mum put it there

he has the award of "pesarese dell'anno 2017" in his bedroom

after his special helmet in mugello 2020, spike lee called him

mig called him "franco passione due settimane" because he tends to get interested in new things for a brief moment of time. there was vegan franky, surfer franky, anime franky. now he's watching the divina commedia narrated by roberto benigni

he went to brasil three times in his life: one when he was born, one at ten, when his mum understood that bikes were becoming something serious for him, and tried to show him something else (after some time franco told her that he was missing his minibike, so they returned to italy) and last year, for his mum's 60th birthday. from the way he talked about it, it seemed to be a pretty important experience for him

his dad was also a rider, and they moved to romagna because he knew that the only way of making racing a carreer was living there. he basically got all the mechanics he raced with to work and help franco

they put him on a 125cc gp aprilia bike at eleven, in sardegna

after his dad passed, the vr46 guys basically adopted him, to let him feel the difficulty and harship of that period as little as he could. and he said it worked

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rachelxxraucous · 3 days

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MISANO 2023 | Dani Pedrosa in his garage after warm-up.

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rachelxxraucous · 3 days

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Dani in Jerez, 2024 (via)

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rachelxxraucous · 3 days

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One of my favourite interview from Dani has to be 'La Caja de DAZN'. This is an out of the box interview were DAZN asked close people to the riders to give them important objects to allow them to talk about the rider's career. The rider's can talk as much or as little as they want and sometimes, one object can have more than one meaning.

Those are the objects in Dani's box and what it meant.

That glue represents Antonio (he's a carpenter). It meant his job and the money they need for Dani to compete. It also represents Dani's origin as a rider and the passion for bikes that share. The first bike, the miniature bikes to play...

This represents Basilia and a period of time. Apparently people saw Dani on the street an remember Dani as the Colacao guy. The story behind the add is real. Basi has been the person to stay with Dani the whole time he has been in the hospital.

Dani is not very fan of football, but he's a Barça fan. The importance is in the detail that this shirt belongs to Iniesta. In a Catalan GP Dani wore a racing boots with Iniesta's name due to Alpinestar doing a special edition related to the World Cup. Dani choose Iniesta due to his values in and out of the pitch.

This also helped to talk about his retirement. How he needed it, but he still misses it.

Dani's 125cc winning shirt (2003). Dani says people still have it and show it to him.

They mention that Puig told him that after 5 years with the same bike it was time for Dani to finally win the championship (or something) with this bike. They always had it present in their mind.

Dani explains that the 2 stoke bikes and the learning curve. First it was learning how the two strokes worked, then how to be fast and do the proper setting of the bike and on top of that the process to get the 'good' parts. So when you do the good results you get the parts. According to Dani, currently riders all have the same materials properly set up.

This represents both 250cc years (and championship) Dani did. For Dani is a glorious period of time. He had no pre-season and no real training that winter break. Added with his short stature and lack of weight, people weren't really expecting a lot, but Dani settled very well with the bike and the category. He did so well that he actually won the first race.

He also confesses that he has this bike (250cc) at his house.

It's also mentioned his rivals in that category. In 2004 it was Sebas Porto and in 2005 it was Jorge, Casey and Andrea (Dovizioso)

And not so well know detail of this bike is that there was a special sticker that was Puig's idea (yes Puig had a big hand and influence in young Dani).

Dani didn't reveal what it was, but it was something between Alberto and his dad. What people though that C.N.O meant Centro Nacional de Operaciones (National Centre of Operations), but Dani said is not really that, it's close but not that.

Do I need to say this is a mini-replica of Jorge's X-Fuera helmet?

This bring us back to 2005, when Spanish media sometimes talked more about 250cc (and Dani-Jorge battles/rivalry) than MotoGP. Dani notes that their 250cc rivalry moved and shifted when they moved to MotoGP. For him, in 250cc it was them (managers and riders) talking to the media and responding through the media more than track rivalries (not that it lacked), but in MotoGP in was more on track than media.

Dani confesses that for them sometimes it wasn't about who was going to win the race, just to be in front of the other because they had other rivals on track such and Vale or Casey.

This took a trip to memory lane where Dani explains how he and Jorge meet, then become rivals and finally friends. They also explain the infamous handshake in Jerez 2008.

This is tape to explain the injuries. They mention the one in Australian GP in 2003 when he broke both ankles. Dani is a rider that didn't crash a lot, but unfortunately, he broke every time they did.

This lead to Dani's neardy side, which is that he apparently calculate the number of crashes per year he had. According to his data, he did it 2-3 times per year test including (5 or 6 the year he crashed the most). And for half of those crashes he ended up in the hospital (Poor Dani had to have surgery twice a year). In comparison, Marc his teammate at the time crashed more than 30 times and only once or less did Marc need surgery.

At the end of his career, Dani was mostly affected of the collarbone, but at the start it was mostly extremities (hand and feet).

This is a phone, but the important isn't the phone itself, it's the Movistar logo on it that can't be seen. This brings us back to Dani's origin. When Dani's family didn't have enough money for Dani to keep going in bikes and then the add of the Movistar Joven Activa Cup appeared in their life. It was a promotional cup with DORNA's approval and the support of Movistar as an sponsor.

It was Antonio who encouraged Dani to send the application despite knowing Dani didn't have the age for it, but it was the only way for Dani to stay riding motobikes and not change to bikes. That was the ladder to took Dani to MotoGP.

When Puig proposed Dani to move from the Cup to CEV, Antonio told Dani to not accept and do a second year in the Cup to win more experience and not suffer from his lack of height and experience, but Dani decided that he wanted to move to the CEV.

They reveal that Dani raced with the number 26 in his first year in the World Championship (2001).

This is the film 'The last samurai' which allows us to know where the 'little Samurai' nickname comes from.

When the film came out, Dani went to the cinema to see it, and a scene left an impact on him. Added to the message and values that the film had, let him to the samurai path. He also was riding for Honda that they are like that, so it ted nicely.

This is an orange, and is just there for the colour orange. it's supposed to be the moment to talk about KTM, but Dani also wanted to talk about Repsol. Dani started his career racing with the colour blue (his favourite), but since he moved to MotoGP, the orange has followed him.

Dani talks about how an objective have to be followed by the appropriate tools, and how KTM has been growing since their objective have been growing too.

Golden wings to represent Honda. Dani has been racing with Honda his whole life including the Movistar Cup and the CEV. For Dani it always has been Honda because all the big names and his idols have been there. There wasn't any other team for him.

Even his leathers in minimotos where the Repsol replica!

That is a piece of titanium, and Dani's first tough is that the metal is there because he has so much inside him. But no, the meaning of this object is because Sete (Gibernau) used to call Dani Titanium because Dani was small and strong; lightweight and tough/hardy.

The nickname made the aparence for the first time when Dani broke his ankles in 2003. Sete has holding a piece of paper with it.

'Titanio' Pedrosa mejorate pronto. Estamos contigo - Titanium Pedrosa get well soon. We are with you.

From then on, every time Sete and Dani had an event together, both raced in the Movistar team, Sete called Dani Titanium.

Ernest ventured to ask Dani if his life would have changed had he become MotoGP World Champion. Dani said yes (no hesitation) and explains that some colateral things would have changed, but doesn't further elaborate. When asked of if he still feels as it's missing, Dani said that not at the moment, but he felt it in the past. And that he had to digest and work on accepting it.

Source: La Caja de DAZN (DAZN's box).

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rachelxxraucous · 3 days

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just saw this marc's interview post race https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGexSpxo3/

and he said that he was feeling shy on the podium but he also wanted to dance and give a little show so there were two options: drink the whole bottle or put the helmet on, and he put the helmet on

i love that at no point was “don’t pelvic thrust in front of hundreds of people including your most bitter of rivals” an option <3 didn’t even enter his messed up little noggin

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rachelxxraucous · 3 days

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the fear of losing this : rosquez, amnesia fic pt. 2 / 2k words (pt. 1 here)

Marc in hospital, Vithas, Madrid. Need you to fly out — serious. From Álex Márquez.

Valentino blinks blearily at his phone screen. It’s — fuck, what, like 2am? He sits up, brain struggling to heave itself online, and reads the message again.

Marc in hospital.

Need you to fly out.

From Álex Márquez.

Unease starts to curl around the butterfly of his lungs. Álex is texting him. He knew Marc had crashed the other day, gone down at a dirt track somewhere in Madrid. But nothing beyond that — no updates as far as he’s aware. So for Álex to text him, to ask him to fly out, seriously, in what world — it must be bad. It must be absolutely catastrophic. He squints against the bright white of his screen, fingers tapping out a reply. A question, a request for more information, anything.

His heart mutters shut up, just book the ticket. His head sees it differently.

CALL ME FOR MORE INFORMATION.

Álex’s second text buzzes the device in his hands. The urgency starts to set in now. Pictures spinning in his head of Marc in a hospital bed, Marc hooked up to tubes and wires, and yeah, he fucking hates the guy, but — but.

He presses call.

It almost rings out. Álex picks up right when Valentino’s about to give up.

“Listen,” he rushes, voice hard, fraught with anxiety. “I — I can’t explain it well enough over the phone. Marc is —”

“Is he dying?” Valentino asks, heart starting to beat a battle-rhythm against his ribs. Álex lapses into silence on the other end.

“No. No, he’s fine — physically, he — can you just come out? I would not — I do not want to be asking for this. Surely you understand what that means.” He hushes towards the end, and then a second voice says something that Valentino doesn’t catch. “I am, Papá, just let me —” he trails off, phone moved away from his mouth. Valentino slides out of bed, kicking his feet into his slippers and standing as he waits for this secondary conversation to end.

“Are you still there?” Álex asks. Valentino lets him stew in silence for a second, chewing on his thoughts.

“Yes. What the fuck has happened?”

“Just — put your ego aside for a fucking second. Please. Will you fly out?”

Valentino’s eyebrows shoot up at that. Awfully fucking snotty for someone asking him to fly to a whole other country for a man he doesn’t even speak to. He tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. Marc isn’t dying, and his father is there, and — intrigue starts to gnaw at the edges of his mind. There’s something lean and barbed beside it; something like unwelcome concern. He sighs.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Okay,” Álex breathes, relief and disappointment warring in his voice. “I’ll tell you everything when you get here, okay? Just — it’s important. It’s really important.”

“Yeah, alright,” Valentino mutters, yanking his bag out of his cupboard and kicking it open. He hangs up, and the silence he’s left in starts to fizz at the base of his neck. He pictures Marc pale, weak in a hospital bed. Begging Valentino to forgive him for 2015. The image makes him a little bit sick, for some reason.

He steps off the jet in Madrid three hours later. He messages Álex once he’s in a taxi, and again when gets out at the front of Vithas Hospital. It’s almost 6am, and the sun hasn’t even begun to rise. He’s got his hood up, sunglasses on and cap pulled low, even in the dark, shadowed under the face of the hospital. Valentino turns at the whoosh of doors sliding open, and Álex appears through them. He looks like shit. Valentino starts to think maybe Marc actually is dying. He shoves his hands deep in his pockets as Álex makes his way over. When he stops in front of him, Valentino peers down at him through the dark of his sunglasses.

“Marc’s got amnesia. He’s lost about ten years.”

Valentino blinks because that — he wasn’t expecting that.

“He thought — he thought he was in 2014. Uh, his yesterday was 2014, on a boat with you. And he doesn’t — he can’t understand why you aren’t here, because he thinks that — and the doctor has told us we just need to keep him as stable as possible. If he gets upset, or confused, everything could just get really fucking bad, it’s already fucking bad, but just. We —” he breaks off, and thank fucking God, because what.

Valentino takes his sunglasses off. Álex’s face is scrunched like he’s trying not to cry.

“What, so he — he thinks that we…”

“Yeah.” Álex sounds bitter. Hurt. “We — he thinks that you are still together. That you’ve been together since 2014.”

Valentino goes fucking white. Nausea rushes up his throat. Yeah, they had gone to Colombier in 2014. And then the next month, Marc had come to the ranch and — everything had gone to shit. He blinks back the memory, flashes of Marc, tanned and lax, spread out like a cat across the deck. The ocean jewel-blue around them.

“Why the fuck would you tell him that?” he whispers, voice rocky. Álex goes tense, looks at him like he knows this is a lost cause.

“It’s bad. It’s really bad, okay, and the best thing we can do is to not disturb Marc’s head any further, to not confuse him, and — I’ll pay you. To go along with it. Seriously, whatever it takes. I just — it’s a matter of weeks, or months, and you know I would not ask you if it wasn’t this serious. You know I don’t want to ask this.”

Valentino drops his eyes to the concrete. He hears Álex’s throat click.

“I. Sorry I made you fly out. I’ll cover your tickets, just. Yeah,” his voice dips, hard with resignation. “Send me the invoice.” He turns on his heel, and Valentino snaps out of it.

“I’ll do it,” he says, voice low, almost a whisper. When he looks up, Álex is staring at him with his mouth open.

“Are you serious?” Disbelief colours his tone.

“Yeah. He just have to crash out of the next race he leads, let my guy through.” Álex doesn’t laugh — but it seems close. Probably only a matter of his extreme distaste for Valentino keeping the sound at bay.

They leg it through the hospital, Álex rapid-fire explaining what Valentino should expect.

“He’s, he, like, is in love with you, or something,” he mutters, dodging around a pair of nurses. “Just, be fucking nice, and try and pretend, or act normal, just don’t confuse him.”

Valentino hums. What the fuck. Yeah. Okay. Act normal. They slow in front of a white door, and Álex rests his fingers on the handle.

“Seriously. If you fuck this up our mother will kill you.” He pushes the door open, and Valentino’s heart skips. He would prefer it not do that.

The room is dark, bar a lamp on a table in the corner, casting everything in deep shades of yellow. Marc opens his eyes at the noise, turns his head to the sound, and his face lights up like the sun. Valentino’s stomach flips, and he stutters on a breath. That look on Marc’s face. On thirty-year-old Marc’s face. It’s like he’s in a parallel fucking universe. Something enormous swells in his chest, threatening to unseat his heart. Álex closes the door and the mood in the room shifts completely. Roser covers her mouth like she’s going to be sick. Marc’s friend, whatever his name is, shoots daggers at the opposite wall. Julià drags a hand over his face. And Marc just beams at him. He doesn’t know what the fuck to think, what the fuck to do. So he just stands there, staring at Marc, bandages wrapped around his head, black eyes, dark circles. Blood matted in his hair. Julià stands up and clears his throat.

“Let’s all go get something to eat, hey.” Everyone files out, and just like that, Valentino’s alone with Marc. He feels like his world is collapsing. The joy on Marc’s face falters, smile flickering in the corners when Valentino doesn’t move to him. He catches the slip and jolts, remembering the desperation on Álex’s face outside. It’s bad. It’s really bad, okay.

He moves quickly, nervously, closing the gap till he can sink into the chair beside Marc’s bed, and Marc’s face lights up all over again. His hand is on the bed, fingers flexing like he wants to reach out, like he hasn’t quite figured out if he’s allowed to. Valentino bites the bullet. Whispers, “Hey,” and takes Marc’s hand in both of his own. He’s tentative, fingers closing gently around Marc’s knuckles, because this is wrong. The light of Marc’s smile shining on Valentino — it’s wrong. It’s not something he deserves, and Marc just doesn’t know that yet.

Neither of them say anything else for a while. Marc seems content to just blink down at their joined hands, smiling softly. Valentino’s teeth grind in his jaw. This fucking sucks. He feels — he feels bad, and. That’s. Fuck.

“Sorry it took me so long to get here.” He chokes out eventually. Marc’s eyes leap to his face. “I’m sorry, Marc,” he forces, and God, there’s more emotion in that than there should be. Voice cut up and bleeding. Marc tilts his head, eyes round and confused.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

Valentino swallows back a curse.

“Does it hurt much?” He can’t help himself, squeamish at the blot of red he can see on the bandages, but curious despite it. Marc hums.

“Dull. Like a headache.”

“Ah.”

Light trickles into the room, and Valentino twists over his shoulder to watch Marc’s family and friends filter back through the door. The look on their faces, horror and sadness and white-hot anger at the pair of them, at Valentino’s hands wrapped around Marc’s. It puts a spear straight through his chest. This is their boy, and Valentino had been the one to fuck him up all those years ago. And now they have no choice but to let him back in.

Valentino twitches, moves to pull his hand away and stops short, realising. Marc’s eyes dart to the movement, wide and surprised. Valentino bites his tongue.

“Marc, give us a second with Rossi — Valentino and the doctor, okay?” Julià says, eyeing their joined hands. Marc nods, eyes going all sad when Valentino stands up, and Jesus Christ. How is he going to do this. He’s ushered from the room with Roser and Álex in tow, hands still warm, tingling like they’d been pressed against the hot hood of a car. They walk a few metres down the hall, till they’re reasonably out of earshot of Marc’s room.

When they’re stopped, all eyes turn to Roser. She takes a deep breath and her face falls into something hard.

“You have no idea how much you hurt him. And now he is injured, and I wish — I wish so much that we did not need you here. Because he can’t — I can’t go through that again.” She doesn’t threaten him, but it’s sufficiently implied. He looks around at Marc’s family, the varying degrees of hate and disgust on their faces. The wound runs deep. You do anything to hurt him again and your life is over.

He swallows the guilt that rises like bile in his throat, nods his head jerkily. Looks Roser in the eyes when he says, “I understand, yes.”

Back in the room, Valentino feeling very much like he’s been shaken up and set back down, they make a plan for getting Marc home. Álex will drive the pair of them back to Marc’s house. Valentino will have some more of his stuff sent out, because he’d only packed a single jacket, his toiletries, pyjamas and an extra pair of boxers. And Valentino will just — fucking move into Marc’s house. Just like that.

He stands off to the side while the family organises Marc’s discharge, signing forms and making calls and taking an armful of supplies from the doctor. Every time Marc catches Valentino’s eye, he beams, face split in this secretive grin like they’re organising a sleep-over as teenage lovers and not a home-stay as a severely concussed man and his arch rival. Valentino can feel himself spinning out. He’s fucking exhausted, and the shock is really starting to set in, and every time Marc looks at him it sinks the knife a little deeper into his chest.

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