Like most little boys he loves anything with wheels. It is not what some people might try to tell you about stereotyping the sexes. Before he could walk he just fell in love with anything – toy or otherwise – that had wheels.

So whenever they show the motoGP (think Formula One, only much more exciting) on the TV he watches it and has gotten more curious about it this season. The season is only a few races old but last weekend was the Spanish motoGP in Jerez. So off we set. His first live motor racing.

Little Samurai…

One of the top riders is also called Dani (Pedrosa) – a very small fella whose nickname is the Little Samurai. He  rides for the Repsol Honda team – one of the top two teams -.and is one of my favourites. I thought if we could find a T-shirt that simply said “DANI” and “26” (Pedrosa’s number) then our Dani could wear it. Sure enough we found exactly that and Pedrosa went on to win the race. Dani Pedrosa led from start to finish in a brilliant display of high speed two wheel racing.

Surprisingly our little samurai was not at all phased by the noise. He quite enjoyed it all. That was up until about lap 6 or 7. then he had a minor meltdown and cried. The reason? Rossi, the popular Italian rider was not having a very good race by his own high standards. He was languishing back in 7th or 8th place. Meanwhile Dani was leading the race and our little Dani had his shirt on. What could be wrong?

Dad’s Fault…

It turns out that his daft old dad had said that Rossi was his favourite rider. So, naturally,  my little samurai wanted to copy his dad. He could recognise Rossi speeding around the track from the action photos in the official programme. When he saw that he was not leading it was all over bar the tears.

Finally we calmed him down telling him that he should just clap each time the riders passed us and especially so for Rossi. We told him that all the other Rossi fans were not crying and that nobody can win every race.

At the end it still hadn’t dawned on him that the rider whose T-shirt he was wearing had won the race. He was more upset than his dad at Rossi’s poor showing. Then finally it sunk in and he was happy with the result..It was a long, hot, tiring day for the little lad but he enjoyed it and will be back for more in the future.

OK. These shirts cost enough so we bought the next size up.
As the saying goes “he will grow into it”.

 A little history…

It’s not just bravery. It takes a certain type of craziness to win these high powered bike races. Not surprisingly, of the 23 riders competing in the motoGP over half are from Spain and Italy. This has been the case for years. It seems that the craziness of the nation as a whole on the roads reflects well in the competition. In that case I wonder why there are no Greek riders? Hmmm…