Special Column - The Casey Stoner Story
06/11/2007
Someday, somebody will make a film about Casey Stoner. They won’t need to stretch the truth for a made-to-measure plot. The tale has a family rags-to-riches odyssey, unquenchable determination, and a number of spectacular high-speed crashes. And then in one single stride, domination of motorcycle racing’s supreme challenge.
At the age of twenty one, Stoner had done it all.
The character at the centre of this victory looks as young as he is: fresh-faced, and seldom far from the side of his new bride, fellow-Australian Adriana. Dressed in the red factory Ducati team uniform, Stoner is a clear and lucid speaker – about the championship and his race-by-race approach, his reliance on and gratitude to the Ducati team, and to the Bridgestone tyres, both of paramount importance. He was able to add the riding ability to make the combination unbeatable.
Then he continues, with a statement that reveals the quality of the steel inside the Stoner soul. “There’s been a lot of people in my life that believed in me, and a lot of people that didn’t. It’s nice that I can give the people that believed in me a gift, which is this world championship. And to show to the people that didn’t that we can do it.
“It proves that if you never give up anything can happen.”
Stoner’s main supporters have been his family – selling up and leaving home in Kurri-Kurri, New South Wales to take Casey racing in Europe: at 14 he was too young to compete in Australia. They lived the gypsy life, as the teenager rapidly established himself in England in Spain.
A fast track through the smaller GP classes brought several wins and a close challenge for the 250 title in 2005. And a rather bullish reputation for crashing. In his first MotoGP year, on a satellite Honda, Stoner reinforced it, with a total of 17 tumbles.
The significant thing was that the class rookie was frequently up front when it happened, always very fast, and never giving less than one hundred percent.
This is what Ducati noticed, though in fact Stoner wasn’t the first choice. Luckily for the Italian factory, neither Melandri nor Hayden was available.
Stoner’s championship year completely overturned his reputation as a crasher. “I’m the same rider as last year,” he said. “It’s just that I have the machinery and the tyres this year to make the pace without taking the same risks.”
The result has been phenomenal. Apart from piling up ten wins, smashing previous records for both Ducati and Bridgestone, Casey is the only rider in the series to have finished every race.
Stoner ended his first Ducati season as the new giant of the class; the man who humbled Rossi, and all the rest. (“Stoner is riding like a god,” said Rossi, after one defeat.) A couple of weeks after winning his first title, he turned 22.
It will undoubtedly be the first of many titles. Stoner may have started the season as a crash-prone underdog, but he finished it very much as top dog. He’s the man to beat in 2008.
Michael Scott has been reporting on motorcycle world championship racing for over 21 years, writing for newspapers and specialist magazines worldwide. His outlets include Two Wheels Only in the UK, Cycle News in America, Australian Motorcycle News and Cycle Sounds in Japan. Since 1991 he edited the prestigious Motocourse Annual