That corner we just don’t like
A steady trickle, just like a chinese torture, there’s no better way to define it. Our job, every given day, is to bring you the latest (if we’re good) news about the motorcycling universe, and a bit beyond. An usually happy universe, made of races, passion, motorcycles, accessories to make them better and more beautiful, of apparel to protect us, events, meetings. Every day in the last two weeks, though, the news we write talk about races that get cancelled, postponed, mutilated. Press launches and tests have all been cancelled at a steady, relentless pace.
In a few days we should have been reporting you about Benelli 752, Ducati Streetfighter V4, Moto Guzzi V85 TT Travel - and this are just the first launches that spring to my mind. Instead, all is still, silent - rightfully and logically so. But then, if we really understood how serious is this god-damned situation, why races are just postponed one after the other? Why, abroad, people still think that some races are feasible in a short while when just a little common sense would suggest that it’s completely non-realistic just to think about it? Is it just cynicism of the greatest magnitude, all in the name of a show that absolutely must go on? Maybe not.
The problem is fundamentally one of perception. It’s as clear as day - it’s what everyone here desires from the talks we had with our correspondents. From racers, team managers, the companies we talked to. In Great Britain or Netherlands for the MXGP, in Spain during MotoE tests, but all over Europe in general, we don’t see most of the safety practices that became so common, so fast in just a few days here. People get close, shake their hands, hug. The point is crystal clear. They are where we were two weeks ago.
There are two curves that are all the buzz now. Alas, they’re not famous corner of world-class race venues - and believe us, we’d love for them to be, because that would mean that we’d be still talking about that wonderful world of above. Those are the exponential and logistic curves, a graphic representation of the math supporting the study about the COVID-19 diffusion. Their layout offers us some hope to be close to, if not the end of the tunnel, at least the darkest hour before the dawn. Those are the curves that compare the diffusion of the damn Coronavirus, the contagion, when people interactions are free - the exponential one, that grows ever faster - and when, instead, containing measures are taken, under form of restrictive legislation like the one we are subject now - the logistic curve, on which at some point the growth slows down until it stops. The curve gets flatter, the contagion stops.
You see, if numbers tell the truth, we are just like a racer in the middle of a very bad slide, caused by a sudden change of grip in the tarmac. A racer that, left to his own devices, wasn’t able to dial the throttle correctly. A racer that didn’t notice that the exact same thing happened to the racer in front of him - maybe a chinese underdog - that was doing the same line just a few seconds ago. Maybe he was just too far to realize what exactly happened. Our racer has lost some tenths of the lap time. What is still out for judgment is whether he will recover the slide, or will throw himself in the gravel trap. Thankfully, it seems like electronics stepped in just in time. It retarded the ignition timing but that hasn’t been enough. Soon it will surely shut the throttle bodies, to try to re-align the wheels. But if the numbers are right, if the algorithm of the engineer that set up the slide control strategy has the right values, looks like we can make it. The lap time will suffer, but soon we should be accelerating on the following straight.
The other countries are the racers following us. Some are closer, some further away. Some of them is still braking, some are at the apex. Some think they have better tires, better electronics or a finer right wrist and does not give a damn, thinking that our scary slide is due to a lack of ability or preparation. And they will, almost inevitably, make the same mistake, although they still don’t know it. In the corner of our metaphor they're at the apex. In the COVID-19 curve, they're still on the exponential. The racers farther away have more time to think, and realize that statistically it’s quite unlikely for all the preceding racers to make the same mistake in the same spot. And they will begin to realize that there’s something wrong in that spot, on that line.
The time will come in which someone will begin to slow down and be careful. And probably, the race will be red-flagged, waiting for the marshalls to come out and drop some filler on the spot. Or for some medical researcher to patent a solution. In the meantime it would be good for us to learn something from the adrenaline released during the slide. To let the pulse come down to a steadier pace, and to thank god for the electronics, instead of thinking - like some do - that it doesn’t really do anything except making us slower. And let’s just think about how how sweet will sound the siren that will signal that the pitlane is open again.
