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Tag Archives: Ducati

Let the Right One In

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November 19, 2024
America, Auto Racing, Music, Politics, Rock, Sports
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The first time I got an inkling it had gone right, not left, was when a woman cloaked head to toe in MAGA gear boarded the bus on my ride home. I’ll leave aside the notable aspect that this was a bus in downtown Chicago after 11 at night: Sat alone all the way up front, I happened to notice over her shoulder from rows back that she was glued to her phone watching a map of projections that had the country awash in red. At such a remove and with my eyesight not exactly up to the task, it was impossible for me to tell which channel she was streaming, but to make the rest of my long ride home from Thalia Hall less mentally taxing — and taking in some very conspicuous context clues — I figured it was Newsmax.

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It’s Not Working

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June 25, 2023
Auto Racing, Sports
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I. On the Ground

It was like watching someone at a party explain why William Gaddis is great. Under that famously strong Dutch sunshine (said no one ever), Pecco Bagnaia again justified the common wisdom of what’s increasingly felt like a foreordained second MotoGP championship by controlling his second premier class Dutch TT victory from the front. It’s easy to see in hindsight how he drew in Marco Bezzecchi — the only other rider with a serious chance of beating him — just close enough before pouncing on Brad Binder and leaving Binder as a roadblock for Bezzecchi to deal with while he gapped them both; hell, it was easy to see in real time. We already knew the guy liked the place (a tattoo of the circuit layout on his arm in honor of his first win aboard a Moto3 Mahindra back in 2016 gives that away), but this one felt textbook to the point that merely seeing the result suffices.

Ever read J R and then try to talk about it with other people? That thing’s the sort of tedious masochism people will just yes you to death over because they don’t want to read it themselves, but also: They don’t really believe you because how could a book about a middle schooler amassing a business empire built on pennystocks told almost entirely in impenetrable dialogue be better than Lord of the Rings? It’s a boring discussion that would likely have you walking away doubting yourself because just listen to yourself.

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The Future Was Wide Open

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August 15, 2020
Auto Racing, Sports
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Tom-Petty-Into-the-Great-Wide-Open-Photo

It wasn’t an unusual meeting in that place. If you couldn’t find a conference room either because they were all booked or because the stupid names gave nothing away about which direction or floor you needed to go and it’d be too much of a hassle to try finding it, you squeezed onto one of the communal couches by the kitchen nearest you and had your meeting there, out in the open, often alongside other, equally self-important meetings. It’s strange to feel as if you have too many conference rooms and too few people, yet the rooms are never free and the people are disappearing.

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MotoGP 2015: Casey Stoner, Shadowboxing

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March 17, 2015
Auto Racing, Sports
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Right now, there is someone somewhere out there with wrists of God who walks among us. Maybe he’s sharing a favorite father-daughter moment. Maybe he’s napping on a boat or out hunting quail or quietly flexing to himself in a bedroom mirror or playing the absolute worst golf of his life. Maybe he’s thinking about a dragon tattoo or the implications of that new Kendrick Lamar record. Maybe he’s snorkeling.

The 2015 MotoGP season gets underway this coming Sunday. Persian Gulf winds will blow sands across the straights. The sun will bleach out the day before giving way to the pitch black of night. Powered by more than 450 million lumens, Losail International Circuit will come alive with the power of enough energy to light a city street from Doha to Moscow. Maybe a few hundred participants, hangers-on, questionable expats, and natives with the money will see it happen in person because that’s how motorsports works in the Middle East. And it’ll be enormously entertaining because, even sitting in an uncomfortable thatched chair at home, grand prix bike racing’s circus is a blast to watch. There’s no feeling in sports quite the equal of anticipation’s release.

And yet, it won’t feel complete. Casey Stoner may be doing a lot of things right now. You know what he isn’t doing? He’s not riding a motorcycle competitively. He may not be riding one at all. He may not even be thinking about it. And it’s our fault.
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