MORONEY
MAYBE STAGE A VIRTUAL MOTOGP AT LOCH DOWNE?
Words: Roger Moroney
Alex Marquez won the inaugural virtual MotoGP race – will we see more of it?
S
o there I was, wondering what today would
bring. Certainly not a repeat of yesterday’s
heroics in the garden as there was a dreadful
south-easterly low pressure system thing edging
in off the Pacific toward the usually clement
eastern seaboard. Painting was also askew, as
enamel paint does not align with damp and cool
air, plus the fact it was the outside window edges
I was planning to sand off and freshen up. I also
remembered I had no turpentine and in the
current darkly titled situation of “lockdown” the
shops that sold the stuff were not considered to
be of the “essential” variety. Besides, I’d used
the last of it to top up the gin bottle as you can’t
get that either.
So there I was, in some strange Scottish high-
water district called Loch Downe. This is a most
surreal time, and likely the only time we of these
lands have taken up that strange old tradition of
crossing the days off a calendar. “That’s day five!”
I called out to no one, as the missus was hanging
the washing in the garage and the cats were
huddled on the back step watching the dark
clouds roll toward us.
“Twenty three… or so… to go,” I added. So what
to do. How about maybe watch a DVD, or see
what Netflix had going? There was some movie
rolling across the flat screen landscape and it
was about a prisoner. A prisoner in… solitary
84 KIWI RIDER
confinement. “Ha!” I snorted with disdain. “You
bloody deserved it… we didn’t.” So it was back to
the book shelf, and I sifted through the scores of
standing items and came across good old
Graeme Crosby’s “Larrakin Biker” tale. I read it
avidly when it came out and now I’ve started
reading it again because it is like his abilities on a
bike… very, very sharp, and always entertaining to
spectate upon. Plus he also bought me a drink
once… or twice.
This time last year, however, I would have likely
been dwelling on how the MotoGP season had
sparked off, and I would have been sussing out
the calendar to see what was up next. We would
be a couple of rounds in by now and I had $20 on
Valentino Rossi to finish in the top two… I should
have bought a case of Export Gold instead, but,
hey, one must put a penny or three on one’s
Italian idol. But, while the world battles this
mutant flu thing which was created by illegally
hunted wildlife in China (there’s nothing they
can’t export) the MotoGP is not a lost cause. Not
quite. For technology has stepped on to the grid,
probably to the disgust of the engineering
crews, but, hey, a race is a race. So the MotoGP
management drivers decided that despite the
world being placed in a village full of padlocks
(Lock Town… groan) they would piece together
some racing. Virtual racing, where the lads would