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EWAN McGREGOR: The race never ends.

A week after the last Grand Prix of the year, in early November,

the teams are out testing for next season.

Lap after lap.

Knees on the ground in the corners.

200 miles an hour down the straights,

looking for a little extra speed.

They're crazy.

They're gonna kill themselves.

Maybe.

But what about the buzz?

The babes?

The money?

In fact, since 1960, only one of the 500cc World Champions

has died on the track,

Gary Hocking.

He was testing a Formula 1 car at the time.

But they all survived their motorcycle racing careers.

How do they do it?

Why do they do it?

Week in, week out,

riding and crashing,

and riding and winning,

and always faster,

and faster

and faster.

At the beginning, when you try the first time the 500,

"Ah, fuck!"

[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]

I used to think all road racers were nuts.

You know, racing around a track at that speed.

Well, it's just like a video game

that has... the element of danger.

As a racer, you always have that in the back of your mind...

You always wonder, you know,

"When's it gonna happen?"

'Cause it will happen. You will fall off.

Speed is something dangerous

but very exciting.

The top speed is 314.

-MAN: Nearly 200 miles an hour? -Yeah, nearly 200 miles an hour.

It's good, huh? [LAUGHS]

For the first approach, you will think

this is a crazy sport.

By the end of the day, it's not that crazy.

Growing up as a kid, always thinking, you know,

"if I could ever just race motorcycles

"and make a living,

"that'd be the coolest thing known to mankind."

What do I like about GPs now?

The crumpet, I suppose.

This is a real war, these 16 races.

That's your job, and that's what you do

and you have to win,

or you know, you're out of your mind.

If you got second, you just wanted to kill everybody.

The sensation you have

before the green light is always the same.

It's always very, very strong.

McGREGOR: There are other international championships.

125, 250,

Supersport, Superbike.

But if you want to be the World Champion,

this is the one you have to win.

MotoGP, the fastest men

on the fastest bikes in the world.

♪ You want it badly

♪ You want it tangled

♪ I want to feel something more than I was strangled

♪ I fell in love with the sweet sensation

♪ I gave my heart to a simple chord

♪ I gave my soul to a new religion

♪ Whatever happened to you?

♪ Whatever happened to our rock 'n roll?

♪ Whatever happened to my rock 'n roll?

♪ She wants it hallow

♪ She wants it tainted

♪ She wants to feel something more than she was naked

♪ You want to hide away

♪ You scared you'll touch it

♪ I want to feel something more than I can ever take

♪ I fell in love with the sweet sensation

♪ I gave my heart to a simple chord

♪ I gave my soul to a new religion

♪ Whatever happened to you, rock 'n roll?

♪ Whatever happened to our rock 'n roll?

♪ Whatever happened to my rock 'n roll? ♪

[CROWD CHEERING]

McGREGOR: The MotoGP season runs from April to November.

Sixteen races in eight months on five continents.

The locations may change,

but it's actually all one and the same place,

a town that moves around the world,

populated by a couple of thousand highly-skilled professionals

in the grip of a shared obsession.

MAN: We all are just junkies, speed junkies.

McGREGOR: This is the routine.

Arrive Wednesday. Set up Thursday.

Practice Friday and Saturday.

Race Sunday. Pack up and move on.

At the start of the season, there are 24 riders.

At times, there will be fewer. Accidents happen.

Most teams have two riders.

Your teammate is not your ally.

He's the first person you want to beat.

The guy with the same equipment as you.

The race is a sprint. No pit stops.

Every man for himself.

Race distance is about 75 miles,

which takes around 40 minutes

when you're averaging over 100 miles an hour.

First place scores 25 points.

Second, 20. Sixteen for third.

All the way down to a single point for 15th.

But before you can think about winning,

you have to master the bike,

which in 2001, means the 500cc two-stroke,

the most brutal race machine ever built.

JULIAN RYDER: Anybody who can ride

a 500cc Grand Prix motorcycle

well enough to qualify for a Grand Prix grid is a hero.

Anybody. Because these things are

the most evil devices.

They are man-eaters.

If you treat them wrong, they will bite.

Well, you've got to be really careful

because the way the power is on the two-stroke engine.

If you open the power too early,

it just spins up and spits you off,

because of the weight of them

and the power that they have got.

They're pretty...

I think they're pretty evil in a way.

The two-stroke is quite a crude engine.

But for its weight,

it's a very, very effective power unit.

[ENGINES REVVING]

The 500 is another world.

The bike comes from another world.

Unbelievable, no? Because it's just sliding,

moving, a lot of power,

because just when open, impossible to control.

OLIVIER JACQUE: The acceleration was so fast.

I was used to racing bikes, 250. So...

So...

How you say? The landscape is going like this,

but with the 500, it's going like this.

It was throwing me around,

and it was hard to hang on to.

It was a real rough ride.

CARLOS CHECA: When the bike is working well,

the bike is doing what you want,

and you go fast, and you don't think on the bike.

It's just one. Your wheels are your legs.

It's a good connection. It's really a nice feeling.

It's nice. You know, it's...

There's not words that that can explain for the acceleration.

Now, I need more power.

TREVOR MORRIS: It just blows your mind

when you hear the rider say "No, my bike's slow,"

and you know how fast they are.

And yet they do complain,

because they get used to the power.

I started racing when I have 14 years old.

But I started to ride the motorbike

when I was four years old.

Yes, long time ago.

I've been doing it most of my life,

ever since I was five, six years of age.

My dad used to race speedway.

It was just a fun thing, I guess.

It was his hobby, and he enjoyed it.

And then, I guess as he had a kid,

he wanted him to ride a bike, too.

CHECA: My father was not so bad. My mother, for sure, no.

And then my grandfather, he had some money.

But he give me nothing for race. [LAUGHS]

He told me, "For study, I give you what you want.

"But just for bikes, I don't want to give you nothing."

LORIS CAPIROSSI: My mother is my manager,

but never see the race.

When the race is finished, I phone home and say,

"Okay, Mom. I finish third, four, five."

"Okay, I see the race."

All the time, my mother say, "Okay, Loris, go easy.

"Go easy. Go slowly."

But for my job, it's difficult to go slowly.

It's better to go more fast all the time.

I am here because

I have a son racing in the motorcycle... [LAUGHS]

In the Motorcycle GP that is named Valentino Rossi.

And I am a big fan of motorcycle

and a big fan of Valentino.

My mother was not very happy,

because she want I study and blah, blah, blah.

But now, come to see the races,

and yes, have a little bit of fear like all the mothers.

My mother, too, she say motorcycle is crazy.

VALENTINO: My father race also.

So when I started, she say no.

After Graziano, also my son.

But in the end, it's like this.

The motorcycle is a little bit hard sport.

To be... pay very good attention.

A lot of fun when you get it right,

but the other side of the coin isn't that great.

I touched a white line. It was very, very greasy.

It was almost like ice.

On full acceleration, probably about 135 mile an hour,

the bike just threw me off.

Went straight into a sand trap and then into a wall.

I broke my leg into around 17 pieces,

and my foot, my hand, my arm,

my shoulders, ribs.

Just a couple little odds and ends.

It's madness. I can't think of it any other way.

To enjoy riding a motorcycle fast,

to develop your skills

and to exploit them in competition is one thing.

But then to do it at this level,

this absolutely fearsome pitch,

weekend after weekend,

against other people who are quite as mad

and quite as good as you,

that's what I find fascinating,

and frightening and admirable about racing.

RYDER: The thing about motorcycle racing

is you can see a man at work.

If a guy nearly goes over the handlebars

at 120 miles an hour,

his body language tells you what just happened.

You can absolutely tell what's going on

just from the shapes these guys make.

DOOHAN: At 100 and, say, 60 miles an hour

or 260 kilometers an hour,

the bike really doesn't want to change directions.

It just wants to keep going straight.

You don't just turn the handlebars.

You've actually got to physically steer it

with your feet and your body

to actually make it change directions.

If you just turn the handlebar, the tire will turn,

but the bike will keep, actually, straight ahead.

Doing the car racing that I've done,

I always felt like,

"If I could just move around in this seat a little bit,

"maybe I could change the handling of the car."

But, you know, it's a 3,000-pound car,

and you're not going to affect the handling of it very much.

Whereas, a Grand Prix motorcycle,

sliding your butt back two inches in the seat,

you know, affects the nose weight

to the rear end weight a ton on a motorcycle.

Motorcycle racing, the rider is probably 80% of the equation,

whereas in, say, Formula 1, in cars,

I would say that the car is 80% of the equation,

and the driver is 20.

The biggest difference comes from the rider.

If they're in a good mood

and happy with the set-up of the bike,

they make a great difference to the actual lap time,

compared to what we can do with adjustments.

I think 90% of motorcycle racing is between the ears.

GRAZIANO: I remember Valentino begin

to test motorcycle before the bike.

I think he was two years old or two and a half probably.

I was not able to teach nothing.

No, no, no, no time.

I was only able to get Valentino with me

to know the riders,

and to know the bikes and to know the sport, yeah.

When I tried to teach him something,

he looked me in a strange way.

And I understand that he want to do

all alone, every time.

I started working with Valentino

at the beginning of 2000 or the end of 1999,

after it was clear that Mick Doohan was not

going to resume his career after the accident.

Valentino had already won the 250 World Championship

and was keen to step up.

The moment I started to work with him,

it was very clear that he had

extremely good education in his younger years.

The Doctor because... [CHUCKLES]

I don't think there is a particular reason.

But is beautiful and is important, The Doctor. [LAUGHS]

And in Italy, The Doctor is a name

you give to someone for respect.

It's very important. The Doctor is important.

[CHUCKLES]

SHEENE: Biaggi is a good rider.

You know, on his day, he's really good.

It's just a matter of finding his day.

I could be wrong, but I just don't think

he has what Rossi has.

He's quick, but he's not quick everywhere.

And when the bike has a problem,

a lot of the times, he can't ride around that.

In the smaller categories, he was brilliant.

SCOTT: He's a very, very complex character.

He's a very interesting man.

Max Biaggi's mother abandoned the family

when he was, I'm not quite sure how old.

It just isn't something anyone talks about very much.

But she abandoned him as an infant.

I would think you could take it as a read

that that's going to have a very severe effect on your psyche.

It's driven Max to be an extraordinary perfectionist.

He's terribly punishing on himself

when he's less than perfect.

It's also left him with a distorted sense of proportion.

I think he's definitely a product

of the press PR machine

that his team and sponsors generate,

and perhaps he's believed it a bit.

BURGESS: It's common knowledge

that Max and Valentino are

completely different types of people.

Regardless of what sport they're involved in,

they're probably never going to ever be friends.

As far as Rossi's concerned,

it's been going on for a long time,

since, I think, even before he started racing.

He was a Capirossi fan.

And Capirossi and Biaggi were racing,

so he just naturally, as a fan,

didn't like his hero's rival.

Then there's a personal animosity,

and there's a great personality difference between them.

And that's just grown and grown and grown.

And Biaggi made an interesting remark.

He said that, "Rossi's been racing against me

"even when he was on a 125 and I was on a 500.

"And I've only been racing against Rossi

"since he came into the same class."

They've got all sorts of different reasons to... [CHUCKLES]

Biaggi is Roman. Up market.

Likes the film stars and football stars.

Lives in Monaco where you're supposed to if you're, you know...

And Rossi, seaside boy.

Grew up as what the Americans, I believe, call a paddock brat.

Biaggi certainly didn't.

SCOTT: I think it's really Biaggi

who drives the rivalry,

and Rossi plays with it. Rossi exploits it.

Rossi's quite clever in that way.

RYDER: I thought Max was out of order.

I thought he was well out of order.

Okay. Rossi was going around the outside,

which was a big ask.

And Max was probably quite legitimately drifting out.

And he may have thought... I don't know what he thought,

but he shouldn't have done it, in my view.

SCHWANTZ: It looks like he's trying

to elbow Rossi off the track,

and that's probably what Rossi translates it as.

When you stack two motorcycles side by side

on the same foot and a half or two foot of pavement

that they're trying to race on,

a lot of times you do stuff with your body

to keep parts of the motorcycle from actually hitting,

so that you don't get a handlebar locked

with somebody else and fall over.

So, in Biaggi's defense, I can see him

maybe trying to get off the bike a little bit

and looking like he's actually trying to elbow Rossi

more than he was actually trying to do.

Maybe Valentino was taking more of a risk

than he really needed to.

Again, trying to make a point.

"Well, it's Max. I'm going to go around the long way."

Um, Max wasn't having it, was he?

No, it wasn't pretty.

To have actually been there, and seen it,

and know what the frame of mind was

between those two guys at that given time,

you know, maybe it was Biaggi

just trying to be a bully or an idiot.

It was deeply cynical,

I thought, and immensely entertaining.

And how much more entertaining

when Rossi went past him and flipped him the finger afterwards?

This is the stuff of great racing.

It was certainly...

I don't think it was as dangerous as it looked.

Though I don't think it was completely safe, either.

It's wonderful. They need to be careful

doing things like that intentionally

'cause someone can get hurt.

But, you know, rivalry's good. That's what racing's about.

It's about winning, which means

some poor sod has gotta come second.

In the end, Rossi has the last laugh of him, anyway, doesn't he?

ROE: That's Italian rivalry as well, isn't it?

BENNET: Oh, yeah.

Unbelievable, wasn't it? Especially with Biaggi,

'cause it's just a big media thing to him, isn't it?

Because Max always wants to be in the limelight, doesn't he?

He wants to be on the front of magazines,

and he wants everyone to think, "Oh, yes, that's Max Biaggi."

Well, he has been over the years,

especially when he was 250 World Champion,

he was like Italy's darling, you know, for bike racing.

But since Rossi's come in,

he's stomped all over his ground, hasn't he?

And I don't think Max takes that very kindly.

And that's just Italian temperament, especially from Max's side.

I don't think so much from Valentino's side,

because he seems to be pretty laid back.

I would imagine Rossi doesn't really take...

too bothered about it all, actually.

No, it's like he just enjoys

-riding the bike. -That's right.

He just comes across as somebody who's trying to enjoy himself.

ROE: You don't ever hear any stories

-of him complaining about things or... -BENNET: No.

ROE: He's just there to enjoy himself

and do the best job he can.

And he does do a very good job of it, doesn't he?

Oh, I mean, he's the best out there,

-isn't he, at the moment? -Quite right.

It's really Rossi, when he arrived from his paddock,

and Biaggi was the Italian icon,

and Rossi started, basically, just taking the mick.

Deflate it a little.

Um... And it's grown from there.

MARTIN: This young Valentino Rossi's come along

who's more of a character.

There's definitely a couple of very clever people behind him.

He stopped out on the track after winning the 250 race,

and dived into the toilet and come back out 30 seconds later.

Everyone was cackling to themselves, laughing.

Max, at one stage, was rumored to be dating Naomi Campbell,

and I think it had something to do with that. I'm not really sure.

The Italian guys could probably tell you.

They just have a chuckle and don't say a lot.

[LAUGHING] The inflatable doll episode.

Let me think. Now, at the time,

there were reports linking Biaggi

with Naomi Campbell, I seem to recall.

Typically shallow celeb stuff,

which one suspected was probably

serving the interest of each of their careers

more than any personal thing.

And Rossi picked up on this, or his fan club did.

And when he won a race, they got an inflatable doll,

dressed her in a rugby jersey, as I remember,

but with the name Claudia Schiffer on the back.

And he went around with Claudia Schiffer on the back.

So, you had to know about the Biaggi thing

to appreciate it, but everybody did, so...

I think the story is very easy about me and Max.

We... we... We don't like... [CHUCKLES]

I think is normal, no?

To have somebody you don't like.

And one for me is Biaggi. And one for Biaggi is Rossi.

So, it's okay. I think we fight for the same target.

McGREGOR: At the start of the 2001 season,

the real threat to Rossi is arguably not Max Biaggi,

but Garry McCoy.

In 2000, his first full season on a 500,

McCoy won three races, more than Rossi or Biaggi.

He also developed

a spectacularly different way of riding the bike.

I'm trying to remember which race it was.

We had a slow motion picture of smoke pouring off a back tire

in qualifying, I think, in Portugal or South Africa. I can't remember which track.

We thought, "What the... is going on there?"

But you realized it wasn't an accident happening,

or an engine blowing up, or steam leaking off an engine.

It was a tire spinning so much,

going, say, 65 miles an hour faster than the front tire.

It was just lighting up and laying smoke.

And that's just ridiculous.

You can't do that on a racing 500 motorcycle unless you're Garry McCoy.

It was about two-thirds or three-quarters of the way through the first year.

Suddenly, you saw McCoy riding quite differently

and he gets it sideways on the brakes,

and sideways all over the place,

and it worked.

Really. And it was the way not to ride.

Everyone was saying he shouldn't be sliding around too much.

That's old-fashioned. Don't need to do that.

-How good was that? -Very good.

He revolutionized it. He really changed everyone's thinking.

KENNY ROBERTS: I mean, Garry adds a different dimension

to the Grand Prix.

Um, at times, I think he's over the limit

in terms of the way he has to ride.

McCoy is a little bit looser than a lot of people. [CHUCKLES]

He has good bike control,

but I don't necessarily think it's the quickest way around the racetrack.

It's difficult with people like that sitting on the sideline

saying, "You slide it too much and whatever."

I mean, just look at the race in South Africa.

It was sideways everywhere, and I won the race.

So I can't really say that's the slow way around.

COMMENTATOR: That unique slipping, sliding style brings victory.

SCOTT: McCoy's strange wheel spinning style

brought up a huge breakthrough

in understanding of how tires work people hadn't realized before.

They thought that if you spin the tire,

that's what makes it get hot, which is true.

McCoy proved that if you spin it a lot,

only the surface gets hot.

But if you can't spin it, instead of the surface getting hot,

the whole carcass of the tire heats up,

and the carcass of the tire gets hotter,

and that damages the tire much more than just being a little hot on the surface.

McCOY: The crowd loves it,

and if I can win races doing it, I'll just continue.

ROE: I've known Garry since '98. I know him really well.

He was riding for Shell Advance at the time, for Jeff Hardwick.

Getting from a 125 onto the 500, it was a big...

physically, it was a big shock to him.

But he just trained quite a bit,and he got used to it.

Then he broke his leg at Czechoslovakia

during Sunday morning warm-up.

Touched the back of Mick Doohan on quite a fast right-hand turn

and ended up breaking his leg.

So that was the end of his '98 season.

And then, he ended up

not doing anything after that for a long time.

He ended up going back to Australia

and doing few bits of part-time jobs, I think,

for his dad and what have you.

McCOY: It was all a funny deal. It left me without a ride,

and I just sort of gave up on racing.

And I thought I'd get a normal job,

and, you know, stop breaking bones,

and started putting up roller doors.

At that time, we were looking to replace somebody,

and I believe it was Hamish who said,

"Well, gee, what about Garry McCoy? He rode a Honda twin last year.

"He broke his leg and had a terrible year.

"And he might be just the thing."

JAMIESON: He did half of '99, all of 2000.

So he's been, like, two years on the bike,

which is still a relatively short time

compared to a lot of his competitors.

He is improving a lot.

BENNET: You see these big slides he does on the TV,

and, I mean, some of them are big ones.

And he comes in the garage afterwards,

and we may be laughing, "Did you see that?"

Well, he's done it and forgot it,

or didn't even notice he'd done it.

-You know, doesn't he? -ROE: Aye, he does.

He doesn't talk about it or nothing. He's not big-headed.

-ROE: He never brags about things, does he? -No, no, not at all.

-Just gets on it and rides it. -BENNET: Not at all.

McCOY: Yeah, I used to do Speedway,

and a bit of dirt track and motocross.

A lot of, you know, dirt background.

I feel comfortable on the bike doing that.

Just sort of rolling the throttle, playing with it.

Obviously, if you just hold it full throttle,

it's just gonna, you know, wheel spin itself silly.

So you've just got to sort of roll it off a bit

and try and transfer a bit more weight to the back.

And that's it. It's easy.

[LAUGHS]

GEMMA VOCES: I never think he's going to crash. I don't like to think that.

And then if he crash, the first thing I see is

if he is walking or if he is still on the floor.

You're just caught up with the moment,

and the concern for his initial safety

and purely the personal thing.

He's got up. You know he's okay. That's the main thing.

He's walking. He seems to be okay. Oh, he's holding his wrist.

You can see the fracture here on this bone.

And it's not a big injury, but the problem is on the joint.

It's a serious one because it affects your ability

to ride the motorcycle so severely.

It's fundamental to your grip of the handlebars,

and especially under, sort of, braking,

all the force that's thrown onto the handlebars.

Your own weight demands a lot of strength from the wrist,

and basically, a broken scaphoid destroys that.

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

MAN: The smallest accidents can have fearful consequences

and the most extraordinary 180 mile an hour

end over end into the gravel trap.

People get up and walk away.

JAMIESON: We always like to try and understand why it happened.

When a rider's riding well and the bike's working good,

everything's working good together.

So you're getting close to the limit of the performance of everything.

Then there's a certain risk. You know, where is the limit?

In that case, Garry went over the limit.

You know, he was a little bit quicker than he'd been

previously into a particular corner.

And a combination of factors.

The tire was quite new, hadn't been used so much on the left hand side.

Adjustments we were trying to the bike,

just pushed it over the limit and he crashed.

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

That kind of crash is the worst.

Uh, at least, I was, uh, lucky.

Never get a big injury.

Nothing broken. Just pain everywhere.

This is stable because we never feel it.

Before, then we are in the sky and you feel it,

and you say, "Okay, it's too late. You cannot do anything."

We have a lot of protection.

We have protection here, we have protection here, we have protection here.

Every time we try to improve the leather.

Because when you have the big crash,

you understand that what is the problem and you try to fix it.

Shinya Nakano's Gauloises suit made of kangaroo.

The thickness is 1.1 millimeters.

Kangaroo, yeah, because the weight is half weight

than compared to the cow.

Half weight and, uh,

maybe two or three times more strong.

TROLLI: 'Cause Shinya comes out with some ideas.

He suggests a different kind of padding inside.

By the hips section, uh, different thickness,

we test it and it worked out pretty good.

And now we pass it over to other racers.

The back protector, I invented it in 1973.

I made it, and the end of '77,

I gave it to Dianese to copy.

I formed, uh, the plastic part

with old visors from a helmet

and I formed it so that it would bend forward

but it wouldn't bend backwards.

TROLLI: The things that the guys wear help.

But fundamentally, you haven't got to hit anything.

And that's where the design of the tracks

and to a lesser extent, the air fence. Um, but mainly it's run-off.

CHECA: For example, in Japan one time,

I crashed 270 kilometers per hour and I was sliding,

but nothing happened.

ROBERTS: Virtually all the Grand Prix tracks,

you have so much run-off room that

it would be a freak accident to get seriously injured.

Where when I first came to Europe, that wasn't the case.

There were some racetracks where you would get seriously killed,

uh, if you fell off.

CLIFFORD: If a rider ran off the track,

he was... A good chance he'd hit the side of the house

or a telegraph pole or something like that.

All that has gone. They're all purpose built racetracks now

or with a lot of clear road at the side.

And, you know, there's a very good chance

if the rider slides off, he just slides across the grass,

into the gravel track, gets up and walks away.

It's the nasty kind of awkward falls

that Garry, like the one that Garry had,

where he's thrown into the air and he falls awkwardly.

RYDER: Of course, it's a dangerous sport,

but when you get

to this level in any sport,

it's amazing how many people are playing football,

sprinting, cycling while injured in some way.

Top level sportsmen are very rarely at 100%.

You know, there was times that I, you know, I was riding with broken bones.

We all have. Broken bones in my hands and in your feet

and, you know, ribs and cracked stuff.

So, you know, you just, you just suck it up.

And you just find ways to, uh,

ride around the stuff.

I rode with a dislocated wrist for the last four laps.

I'd been swung up in the air on the bike,

and I came down and my chest, actually hit my wrist,

and knocked the lunar bone out, and my hand was like this.

I was downshifting and upshifting without the clutch,

but I ended up finishing fourth,

so that's the extreme that people go to.

That's the risk that we're willing to take.

SCHWANTZ: I broke my arm mountain bike riding

just before the start of the '94 season,

so I had that to come back from and fell off in Holland

and dislocated my wrist, and I guess for some reason,

maybe being the world champ from the year before,

um, I felt like I needed to continue and try and race

instead of just leave the sport,

go get my wrist fixed like I probably should have done.

A rider is not a normal people.

When you broke a finger,

and, uh, if you are a normal people

and you need to go to work or something is normal,

you stay 20 days...

in your house, you see the television, drink coffee is okay,

but all the rider want... want go.

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

CLAUDIA CHERICI: After his crash in '92,

Mick Doohan risked to lose not just his leg, but also his life.

His two legs had to be joined together for one leg to nourish the other.

30 or 40 days afterwards,

he wanted to try again to get on a bike.

His wounds were still bleeding.

RAINEY: When I saw him in Brazil,

I was just amazed that he was even there.

You know, the way he looked, the way he was walking.

I did ride the second to last race, did score some points,

but it wasn't enough.

And Wayne Rainey went on to win the Championship.

Dr. Costa did say it was silly, but he was willing to do what I wanted to do.

And if it worked, it would have been fantastic.

He saved my leg from being amputated.

Without his input into my life, and, you know, I wouldn't have a leg.

So let alone the, uh... Let alone five world championships.

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

Dr. Costa was one of those guys that grew up with all of us.

[DR. COSTA SPEAKING ITALIAN]

CHERICI: He is a specialist in orthopedic traumatology,

rehabilitation and sports medicine.

SCHWANTZ: Having that common person there at every event,

knowing that if something happened to you,

you were gonna have him to look after you,

makes such a big difference.

And a lot of people see him as maybe he does a little bit too much

to help racers get back to racing.

But every time I got hurt, he always asked me,

"Kevin, what do you wanna do?"

He gives you your options. Proper medical.

Maybe motorcycle medical we should call it.

SCOTT: Well, he's a doctor of philosophy as well as a doctor of medicine.

And he's got some unusual opinions. [CHUCKLES]

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

SCOTT: Costa's absolutely blatant about his methods of practice and treatment.

There's no secret about it. He'll use any possible

new medical method he can dream up

or get his hands on to fix them up and send them out there.

Costa is, uh, very, very special.

He understand it's possible, is a risk sometimes,

and for sure, if Costa say is better you don't race,

it's better you don't race.

McGREGOR: June, 2001.

It's been a month and two races since the operation to repair McCoy's wrist.

Fracture is here, and you have a clip.

If the body is strong enough, okay, he can race.

If he's not, no way.

JAMIESON: The lowest point is now when they're injured

and it's not a straightforward injury, so there's waiting.

Is he going to ride at the next race?

We're in a great position this year,

in as much as Garry is very competitive,

the bike and the team are working really well together.

This year, it's all there, in my eyes.

You're looking towards winning the championship.

McGREGOR: The Catalan Grand Prix is the sixth race of the year.

Valentino Rossi leads the championship with 91 points

after three wins and a third place,

but he fell in the last race, the rain-soaked Italian Grand Prix.

Max Biaggi took third in Mugello

and won the previous race in France.

The gap between him and Rossi is now just 21 points.

After crashing out of one race and missing two more,

McCoy is 13th in the standings with only 27 points.

You get a total of four hours and 20 minutes' practice before each race.

Two hours on Friday and Saturday,

and 20 minutes on Sunday morning.

The afternoon sessions on Friday and Saturday

are timed qualifying.

The fastest riders in qualifying start the race at the front.

About 150,000 people will come along to watch.

It's a Yamaha Diversion and it's the biggest I can afford.

-My bike is... This bike is the best. -It's a race.

COMMENTATOR: Welcome back to Catalunya.

They're all superstars, even the one at the back.

There is a feeling special.

Well, what we find around.

-Do you understand what I mean? -Yes.

Motorcycle people are good people.

Just resetting the traction control.

TOBY MOODY: Noriyuki Haga, on behalf of the Red Bull Yamaha squad,

in the 14th place.

I'm looking forward to a good, hard, combative race.

He had a crash yesterday, Nori.

He forgot they changed the gearbox.

Already I think seven or eight helmets have been destroyed.

He crash sometimes so we made enough spare for him.

No fear, no fear whatsoever.

-There's a faller. -It's a West. Now that hurt.

If you fall, dangerous in your body.

I think what I like best is the, the risk that, uh, riders take.

[COMMENTATOR SPEAKING ITALIAN]

COMMENTATOR: Valentino Rossi!

We're on board with Max Biaggi

looking at the throttle on the brake as he leans into turn one.

MAN 1: I like this sport for velocity.

The sport is very dangerous.

MAN 2: The turn, the corner, it's exciting

to, to pass the corner with a motorcycle.

A little bit of chatter in the front corner entry.

McCOY: When you go through the chicane, and you gas it up,

and throw it on its side, it's like...

Valentino Rossi is going to win.

McCOY: This is a tough corner for my wrist,

'cause we're in fifth gear, going pretty quick,

and then braking really hard, late,

and then into a left-hand, sort of, hairpin.

Well, it starts off as a hairpin and then it just doesn't seem to end.

It just goes all the way up until you get to the top of the hill.

You tend to lose a bit of traction out of here.

[INAUDIBLE]

MOODY: We are just beyond the halfway point

in this 500 CC warm-up session.

Barros is fastest. From this man on screen, Kenny Roberts.

Max Biaggi is third.

Valentino Rossi, who will be starting from pole, is fourth fastest.

McCOY: It's still a little bit too early.

It's only been a month since, uh, since I'd done the scaphoid,

and normally they're, uh, you know, one of the worst bones to break,

and it's still not fully, uh, recovered.

MOODY: The results from this warm-up this morning,

Barros fastest, ahead of Sete Gibernau,

who's gone faster than his qualifying time.

Rossi will be starting from pole.

We weren't even sure he could ride this weekend,

and he did two days of practice

and it's obvious that his wrist is healing.

And we know that in a couple of races' time,

he'll be right up there battling for the lead again.

PHILIPPE VIDAL: We don't want Garry for two or three points in this race.

When he'll come back, it's for the win, the victory.

[AIR HORNS BLOWING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[ENGINES REVVING]

McGREGOR: It's a dream start for Biaggi.

Rossi is almost run off the track in the first corner.

He's pushed down to 14th place.

If only he'd stay there and Biaggi could win,

then Max would take the lead in the championship.

But Rossi feels like fighting.

[INAUDIBLE]

[ENGINES REVVING]

[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]

[INAUDIBLE]

[ENGINE REVVING]

[AIR HORNS BLOWING]

[CROWD CHEERING]

[INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENT]

Okay. Any questions from the floor?

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

Yes, thank you.

REPORTER: Max, please, would you explain

what happened, exactly, on the stairs?

Exactly. On the stairs when you were coming here.

Something happened in a fight.

[INDISTINCT SHOUTING]

I didn't see anything.

REPORTER: You have blood in your face.

-Me? -Yeah.

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

[AIR HORN BLOWING]

Maybe it's a mosquito.

[ALL CHUCKLE]

Any other questions?

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

After that, he wasn't seen as quite so black and white.

Um, Max wears the black hat. Valentino wears the white hat.

You know, people were seeing them as...

Mmm. You know, maybe it's not quite that clear cut

or whether people just enjoy it.

[CHUCKLES] Yes. Here we go.

You know, it's Rainey and Schwantz.

'Cause don't forget, Rainey and Schwantz have both said,

"The other guy was the only guy I ever deliberately tried to run off a racetrack."

And that's, that's as hideous as it gets when you're on a racing motorcycle.

McGREGOR: Wayne Rainey and Kevin Schwantz battled each other

in the World Championship for almost six years,

from 1988 to September, 1993,

and the accident that left Rainey paralyzed.

Schwantz was just kind of a...

He was a cowboy, you know, riding that thing.

I think he didn't like me first,

so that kind of made sense for me not to like him second.

So it went on from there

and it went all the way up until the end.

If I finished fifth and he finished sixth,

it's just like being on top of the podium.

Really, nobody else out there mattered.

And I think that comes back

from when we first started racing here in the States.

I guess maybe almost a hate for each other.

Wayne and I both talk about it now and he's like, you know, he says,

"I didn't like you."

He goes, "I didn't care if I ever saw you on the racetrack again."

RAINEY: I mean, we could go out there and bang into each other,

or race each other really hard, but you know, the last thing you want to do

is go and take your rival's hand,

somebody that's trying to beat you.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[CROWD APPLAUDING]

When I start racing in, uh, in my room,

where I sleep when I was maybe 18.

I had, uh,

Wayne Rainey poster with Marlboro Yamaha number two.

And, uh, a few years after,

I got that Yamaha Marlboro number two.

That's amazing, for me it's like a dream,

but he was my favorite.

And he is, he is anyway.

I'm always a special fan from Kevin Schwantz.

That period with Schwantz, Rainey, Doohan

and also Gardner, Kocinski,

and all was the best 500 of the last 20 years.

And all are my hero and I think is normal because, uh,

a little bit crazy, very fast. Races is always a battle, you know.

And yes, I like very much.

Kevin Schwantz is maybe more spectacular.

But when Rainey is...

is more champion you know, because Rainey drive with heart.

You know, this is strong.

Kevin is the fastest guy I've ever raced against without a shadow of a doubt.

Really, really fast. But he used to fall down a lot.

SCOTT: Schwantz and Rainey were the double act, you know.

Each made the other greater.

They had a fierce rivalry, which predated the Grand Prix and carried on.

And they each inspired each other and they'd practice

and they'd be vying for pole position.

And one would beat the other by two-thousandths of a second,

and you would say, "Well, that, you know,

"wouldn't worry about that," but it would be everything.

Two-thousandths and it's only practice.

It would be everything.

And one of them would sleep that night and the other one wouldn't.

It was great,

and Kevin was just such an entertaining rider. So gifted

and would try anything.

He had fantastic character.

But enjoyed it, you see? I mean, he's like Rossi.

He really conveyed the enjoyment of riding.

And that's what Rainey had lost.

He obviously wasn't enjoying it anymore.

And you might say the same with Biaggi.

He doesn't look as though he enjoys riding a motorbike.

Whereas Rossi plainly loves it.

And Schwantz is the same. He loved it.

[DR. COSTA SPEAKING ITALIAN]

[ENGINES REVVING]

[CROWD CHEERING]

SCOTT: Funnily enough,

last year, when Biaggi was really getting made a fool of,

often as not, by... by Rossi,

in some strange way, he gained a sort of dignity in it.

I don't think that he's...

ever gonna beat Rossi, though,

because Rossi has a tremendous mental strength and stability,

which Max doesn't.

He's on his nerves, Max.

You can see it in his eyes, the way he looks.

The way he relates to people.

Oh, that's not a rivalry at all.

I haven't seen Biaggi win anything.

You know, I'd like to see

Biaggi win because he's on a Yamaha.

Rossi's on a mission

and he's got these guys covered.

He doesn't have a rival.

His level's so high and everybody else

is not close yet.

So, it's probably going to take a rider

that's not involved in the series yet to race Rossi.

LINDA HOPKINS: He was probably about 10 years old.

He saw Kevin Schwantz carrying the American flag

'cause he'd just won a championship.

And he looked at his dad

and he said, "Dad, I'm gonna do that."

AL LYONS: I first met John when he was nine years old.

He came out for a mini road race

at Adams Kart Track, John and his dad, Roy.

Uh, John started racing for me.

Uh, we supplied his bikes.

And, uh, right off the start, I mean,

he was that one-in-a-million rider

that everybody always looks for.

It's pretty fun 'cause, like, I'm young and they're big.

And I'm, like, doing good against them.

SUSANNE HOPKINS: We always did desert riding

on our motocross bikes

ever since we were little kids.

So that's how we started, and then John started racing.

His father raced in Europe years ago.

I mean, when he was 15.

I believe that his dad won the Isle of Man.

LINDA: He won the Junior TT's there when he was 15 years old.

SUSANNE: He was too young, so they disqualified him.

He didn't race after that.

I begged him not to race.

And that's why I've been behind John 100%,

because I know that my husband could have

probably gone out there and done really good.

LYONS: Well, the first time he was on the Willow Springs track, the big track,

he was only 12 years old.

I mean, he was only 85 pounds on a 125,

and it was with Dave Aldana and everybody else on 750s.

Uh, before the day was over,

there was a lot of riders coming up,

asking John to help them, at 12 years old.

You've got to be smooth

and consistent on the asphalt to win.

John always put on that extra little bit of effort,

I think, in road racing

because there weren't that many kids around.

LYONS: So that's when John Ulrich really started taking a notice.

New Year's Day, '99, I think it was,

I got a phone call from Linda Hopkins.

When Roy was really sick

and just before he died, he said to me...

He'd talked to John

and John said that he was gonna do his best in his racing,

and he promised his dad that.

And he also said

that if I ever needed any help,

to go to John Ulrich,

because he trusted him.

ULRICH: She wanted to know,

is it true that he couldn't have a road racing career,

if he was finished in road racing.

LINDA: There was no money and he needed to advance.

ULRICH: I went out and I got this Aprilia RS250,

because they were going to have this Aprilia RS250 Cup series.

It was new in the United States that year.

We flew him to Road Atlanta

for the first race in the series.

And, you know, I knew the kid was pretty good, okay.

But I didn't know how good he was.

He was running around in third place,

two laps from the end of this race.

Now that's pretty good. He's going to win about $750.

And I'm figuring, okay, we're going to about break even on this deal.

Next thing I know, he wins the race.

So we took him to Loudon, New Hampshire,

a notoriously difficult racetrack,

and put him on this 600,

and again, he was instantly fast,

qualified in the front row for the 750 Supersport race.

I'm sitting in the pits

thinking about what has just happened.

We've just taken this kid,

we've taken him from one type of motorcycle,

put him on a complete different motorcycle,

taken him to a completely different type of racetrack,

another track he's never seen,

and he's found a way to go way faster

than he should be going.

And my cell phone rings

and it's Peter Clifford from Red Bull Yamaha.

And what he says to me is,

"I need the next Kevin Schwantz.

"Do you have another Kevin Schwantz?"

And I, I said to him,

"I think I just...

"I think I've got one.

"I think I just found one."

CLIFFORD: John Ulrich is genuinely

the guy who discovered Kevin Schwantz.

So when he says that this guy is something special,

I took a great deal of notice.

ULRICH: Any reasonable expectation

you had for him, he leapfrogged.

In a lot of ways, he was like Kevin,

except we found him earlier.

When we figured this out about John, he was 16.

When we figured this out about Kevin, he was 19.

A good guy can ride a motorcycle fast,

whatever it is you give him.

But if you put him on a 500

and you give him enough time on that bike,

he's gonna be going about as fast

as you can go on that 500

within 12 months, 18 months.

This kid is special.

DESIREE CROSSMAN: He wants to get in the top 10 this year.

And then next year, he wants to go

even top five, if not the Championship.

VALENTINO: When you start to race,

you think it's possible you become the best.

All the riders think, uh, it's possible.

[ENGINE ROARING]

McGREGOR: 2002, the sound of a new era.

The game has new rules.

Two-stroke engines up to 500cc

or four-strokes up to 990cc.

In theory, they should be about equal.

On March the 9th in Catalunya,

in the final test before the racing begins in Japan,

the teams take to the track to find out.

SCOTT: Well, today is obviously a very important day

for Grand Prix racing in general,

the first time the new generation of machines

have been seen in public together.

This year is the first year of the MotoGP,

as they want to call it.

It's two separate races.

And next year,

I don't think there will be any two-strokes at all.

The two-stroke is igniting the mixture in the cylinder,

and it's producing power

every revolution of the crankshaft

twice as often as a four-stroke.

You can make more power

per engine size out of a two-stroke.

So a 500 two-stroke, theoretically,

is the rough equivalent of about a 1000cc four-stroke.

The four-stroke race bikes

that are now running in the MotoGP series

are gonna put that equation to, uh, to death.

[REVVING]

SCOTT: Looks like Honda has just come up

with something so good, staggeringly good.

All Yamaha and the rest can do

is say, "Well, how much did they spend?"

And clearly, a tremendous amount of money.

VALENTINO: The new bike is exciting.

It's good, more powerful, have 220 horsepower,

but the 500, for me, was more exciting.

This one is more sweet.

SCOTT: The two-strokes are a very fine edge,

but the four-strokes are more fun to watch,

because they're looser and wilder,

and they go sideways on the brakes

and bounce around into the corners.

And the riders get away with more.

[ENGINE ROARING]

They have depth to them.

They make the two-strokes

sound a bit lawn mower-y, really.

[HIGH PITCHED ENGINE NOISE]

[LOWER PITCHED ENGINE NOISE]

RYDER: The Moto Grand Prix bikes

are allegedly easier to ride

up to the 95% mark.

It's that last 5%,

it'll sort out the men from the also-rans.

SCOTT: The best riders will always win in the end.

They might not win by so much, though.

They'll find it harder.

I would say today, you can't run a MotoGP team for under $6 million dollars.

The salaries for a rider, the extremes are incredible.

If Rossi gets $5 or $6 million at the one end,

you might have a rider

that gets $100,000 at the bottom end.

So that's a huge number in a budget.

The second component, obviously, is the technology.

Do you lease it? Do you buy it? Do you make it?

And there's millions of dollars there.

And then there's the over-the-road costs,

team personnel trucks, airplane fares and so on.

And it's real money.

[CHUCKLES] It's, uh, definitely real money.

Rider-wise, we had Noriyuki Haga last year.

I guess he didn't achieve for himself

nor for our team the results we need.

He's not with the team anymore.

Probably a mutual thing.

Over the last couple of years, we've tested

John Hopkins, who's quite young.

He'll be 19 in the summer,

so we've run him at some short tests,

which you have to do to prepare for those days

when you don't agree with Noriyuki Haga

that he's going to stay for another year.

This one's a real good track.

I'm driving up the hill right here is real fun.

You're wide open around here,

around this right-hander,

just sliding it all the way up the hill.

You can do a lot more stuff on this game than,

you know, you couldn't really do on a motorcycle.

MAN: Oh, ow!

JOHN: You know, he came right down on his head.

You know, I don't know why he's

getting up and riding again.

-He should be sitting out for the day. -[MAN CHUCKLES]

Maybe the next day, too.

It definitely won't teach you anything

about riding the bike in general.

The only thing, you know, I'm actually

learning a whole bunch about

is, uh, is where the track goes.

JOHN: The bike reacts to your body position.

You're tucked down under the bubble,

staying as low as possible,

less wind resistance, pushing down

on the pegs, real hard braking.

Long, sweeping left-hander,

working your way on the throttle,

getting on it harder and harder.

You got to move real fast,

pushing down with your legs

and switch back over to the right.

Hang off pretty far to the right, using your body.

You've got to get over the front of the bike

to keep the front wheel down.

STEWART MILLER: You're braking from 180 miles an hour

to sometimes 40 miles an hour

in the space of 100 meters.

That's a lot of weight on the shoulders and arms.

Each track he brakes 1,000 times, 1,000 times.

Pretty much everybody now has a trainer

that follows them, pushes them

through the gym. They're athletes.

RYDER: Back in the late '70s, with Barry Sheene

and the young Kenny Roberts' idea

of a night before the race

probably involved a nightclub,

large amounts of alcohol, beer, cigarettes,

and getting home in a crashed hire car

at about 3:00 in the morning.

Kenny, who now makes his riders, you know,

eat pasta, drink orange juice and go to bed early.

They treat their diet, their training

the same as other absolute top level athletes.

Legs are a big part. I mean...

You got to drive straight from a hairpin,

get the thing hung out on your knee

and then from there just carry it.

SHEENE: They use their knees a lot more now.

Like Valentino, as an example, you know,

he'll get through a set of knee sliders

in half a day sort of thing.

Kenny Roberts' era,

that's when you really started to see the body

play more of an active role

in what the motorcycle's doing.

Before that, it was sitting on top of

the motorcycle and bending it in

and, you know, you don't dare move on the thing.

ROBERTS: I got a lot of experience from dirt track racing.

When it's going sideways like that,

you have to have something planted on the ground

to keep your weight in the same position.

I raced indoor races on concrete

and I used to put Supertape on the bottom of your shoes

so the shoe would actually slide on the concrete,

so you could keep it underneath you.

But when I started dragging my knees,

you couldn't drag it with the leather

because the leather would catch

and jerk your foot off the foot peg.

And I started putting Supertape on my knees.

And it's just like, "Wait a minute.

"What are you doing?

[STUTTERS] "What are you doing?"

I mean, no one did it.

No one thought about it. No one did it.

It would have been somewhere around '72.

In 1973, I started riding a 750.

My brother-in-law, Paul Smart,

was very good on a big bike.

So I said to Paul, "You know, this thing,

"as soon as I get it over sideways,

"it sort of drags on the ground."

He said, "Well, hang off it more."

I just rode and let my knee hang out.

And then sometimes it'd touch on the ground.

If your knee's on the ground, obviously,

you can adjust your weight with the knee.

You'd know exactly where the motorcycle's at

because you're controlling the back wheel

with the throttle and lean angle.

And I'd like to steer the bike with the back wheel.

And I could do it on some racetracks

and do it fairly proficiently.

The rear wheel steering thing didn't really happen

until Kenny had retired from racing.

You know, the rear wheel steering thing

started when the radial tires came in.

Barry steered the motorcycle with the front wheel,

and I steered it with the back wheel.

So, it's two different theories of riding.

Yeah, he used to slide the bike.

The bike used to step out and that.

Yes, that happens to everybody.

I don't think he really understood it

because he never really got there with it.

He was two-time World Champion, as I said.

So who's gonna show him anything different?

It's not like some Yank's gonna come over here

and say, "Oh, this is the way you need to ride."

It started when the horsepower

exceeded the abilities of the tires

and the riders had to find

other ways of continuing to race fast,

especially over a long race distance.

It required a different kind of skill

which favored all the American dirt trackers.

That gave rise to the whole era of American champions,

'cause they were schooled in that art

of being able to ride the motorcycle

when it didn't grip the road anymore,

when every time you opened the throttle, the back wheel would spin

instead of driving them forward.

And you had to slide it to go around the corner.

And that's receded a bit

with the improvement in tires,

but it still holds good, I think,

yeah, especially towards the end of a race.

That's when you see the good guys really show up,

is when things are getting tough

and the bikes have developed problems

and they've got to ride around the problem.

McGREGOR: At the Catalunya test,

Hopkins completes over 100 laps,

twice as many as most of the riders.

He falls once but is unhurt.

McCoy's bike, on the other hand,

hasn't turned a wheel,

because McCoy isn't here.

At the last test, two weeks earlier in Portugal,

he was the fastest man on the track.

McCOY: The temperature was dropping.

It was quite windy that day.

As I went into the corner,

the back started to come around on me

and it kicked back a bit.

I ended up on top of the bike.

I landed on top of the screen

and then I sort of fell off...

Well, fell onto the ground on my feet

in front of the bike with my right leg.

Um, I felt the bike hitting me in the back of the leg.

Yeah, and they had to go from under the kneecap,

put in a big titanium rod.

It's through the whole tibia.

That's where they went in with the pin.

Screw here. Screw there. It's pretty clean.

Well, there's just, like, three screw holes down there.

This year we've done so well in testing.

We've been first everywhere and doing it easy.

And then you have one little fall.

It's my first fall of the year.

I've had a few thoughts in my mind, anyway,

of, you know, how long is this going to last

or how long is my body going to last?

Hopefully, it's going to be a few more years yet.

And do the best I can and hopefully, one day,

or this year, I'll win a World Championship.

BENNET: It's disappointing because,

again, Garry's doing so well,

and then it all went wrong

for want of another word, didn't it?

These sort of things happen, don't they?

And you've got to accept them, anyway.

-Part of the sport, isn't it? -That's right.

It's a fast, dangerous sport,

tarmac's pretty hard stuff.

BENNET: You know, they knock themselves so much,

that in the end, the old body's going to say,

"Whoo, I've had enough of this."

McGREGOR: The 500s are in trouble,

as much as 10 miles an hour slower

than the four-strokes in a straight line.

They can't hope to match the raw power of the bigger bikes.

-It goes in there, then... -Yeah.

-That's how that fits. -Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

McGREGOR: However, wind tunnel tests

carried out by Red Bull Yamaha

indicate that there's more speed to come

from better aerodynamics,

maybe as much as 10 miles per hour.

At a secret test in Valencia,

with the first race just three weeks away

and Garry McCoy laid up in hospital,

it's down to John Hopkins to find out

how the new design performs on the track.

That looks like it'll turn a little more into the corner.

It definitely leans harder.

-Okay. Mmm. -Faster.

With the standard fairing,

there's quite a lot of lift at the front.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, I used to race myself.

That's how I got involved in this.

I wasn't good enough to cut it,

so wasn't interested.

If I couldn't win, then I didn't want to do it.

INTERVIEWER: Why were you not good enough?

What were the things that you think

you need to go really fast?

Balls.

Equipment. Money.

And I didn't want to continue being an also-ran, so...

I would rather be here

as a mechanic in the World Championship

than messing around at home.

When you stand on that pit wall

and Garry goes past you

at 160, 170 mile an hour,

and you could actually put your hand out and touch him

and the hairs on the back of your neck

stand on end,

that's a buzz.

CROSSMAN: I was talking to one of his mechanics.

Next thing, you know, we heard the bike give out

and then we saw dust in the air,

and usually John gets right up.

But we didn't see him get up.

I jumped on the scooter

and everyone jumped in the van, so I was a little behind.

I was a little nervous.

JOHN: I was going for a good lap

and everything was going good.

Out of the sharp one, I tried to get on it

and it just came out, flicked, flicked me back.

I mean, it flicked me so fast

I didn't even know what happened.

Next thing I know, I'm up in the air

going straight down towards my head.

And I landed on my head

and skidded around a little bit...

and then was pretty dizzy, had to lay down for about 10 seconds.

When you're floating through the air,

sliding across the ground at that speed,

there's nothing really you can do.

If you try and stop yourself from flipping,

going that fast,

I mean, that's when stuff's gonna break.

You gotta sit there and pretty much just take it.

Take the beating.

McGREGOR: It wasn't the aerodynamics that upset the bike.

Hopkins' crash was just another reminder

of the 500's vicious nature.

[DR. AMADEO ROCHE SPEAKING SPANISH]

CLIFFORD: I would say we've ended up

with more questions than we have answers

and that's not, unfortunately, the unusual.

DAN WELBURN: I expected to see an obvious

improvement in speed, straight line speed,

and, uh, for one reason or another,

I don't know why, it hasn't gotten any quicker.

McGREGOR: Hopkins has two weeks to recover.

By then, he will be 10,000 miles away

in Suzuka, Japan.

At Suzuka, he will have four hours and 20 minutes

to learn the hardest track of them all

and qualify for the first Grand Prix of his life

with no new aerodynamics to help him.

But at least he won't be riding with a titanium rod in his leg.

[ANNOUNCER SPEAKING INDISTINCTLYOVER SPEAKERS]

[ENGINE ROARING]

JOHN: It's really hard to get a feel for a bike,

though, with the wind.

I'm really fighting the wind out there.

It's really windy and the wind's sort of pushing you.

McCOY: It didn't seem too bad mid-corner.

Especially out of the hairpin, coming out of that second left.

JOHN: Yeah.

New tire, please.

JAMIESON: As you answer any criticism of the bike

by an adjustment by improving something,

by finding a better tire or more horsepower,

the rider then takes it to the next level

and makes it worse again.

You know? And that's basically what goes on.

No, not really gripping like it should, I think.

MAMOLA: We just saw a cloud of dust.

Then we saw him standing there. First thing we do is,

we try to find out whether or not they're injured,

and I knew he wasn't because he was standing there

like this against the hay bale.

The attitude is like, "Boy, I just screwed up."

JOHN: Cold tires.

Trying to put in a real good lap

and the wind was blowing really bad,

and just a number of things all equaled up

to one big slide and then a big highside.

To go 100%, 102%,

whatever it took, I could do it for three laps.

I could always plan on going three laps faster,

but no more than three laps.

You're usually racing around 90%, 95%.

DOOHAN: It was a big crash today.

And it's just one of those things.

Again, you're pushing at the limit

and, uh, you know, he said he had

a little lapse of concentration and that'll do it.

MAMOLA: When he left the seat of the bike,

he was probably doing about

125 miles an hour and accelerating.

All of his gloves had been worn down

to basically nothing,

trying to slow himself down before he hit the guardrail.

It shook him up a bit.

I mean, it would shake anybody up, believe me.

SCOTT: It's been a while since he has been down.

So, yeah, I think it'll sober him up a bit, you know.

You start to feel invulnerable, don't you?

Especially with the kind of adulation

he gets all the time.

SCHWANTZ: It does kind of take that

"I'm invincible, I'm bulletproof, uh, you know,

"I'm 10-foot-tall" mentality.

ROBERTS: In motorcycle racing,

you convince yourself that you're Superman.

You get this kind of glow around you that

you think that you're never gonna be hurt.

And I used to spend half my time

trying to say I'm not really that.

Sometimes, your press and what people say to you gets overwhelming.

You just get to believe

that you can just make that thing stick,

and you can make it slide

and you can make all these things happen

any time you want.

And sometimes you can't.

You've got to constantly remind yourself

that you are human,

because, you know, God, "I just messed up a little bit

"and didn't quite do it."

You know, Wayne's accident was really nothing spectacular.

RAINEY: But that day, I was just off a little bit.

I was struggling,

but I'd been in that situation many times.

So, it wasn't nothing new.

It was just an error on my part.

I just got in a little bit too hot,

carrying a little bit too much corner speed,

so I had to really bank the bike over

really hard to keep it on line.

And, uh, when I just opened the throttle,

it stepped out.

And it was just an easy...

It was an easy, uh, crash, you know.

I mean, 'cause, like, it stepped out

and I fell off the side of it,

and I was, like, sliding with the bike

across the track,

but when I went off the track, I hit a curb

and it kind of sent me up in the air,

and then I landed in the gravel trap

and it had speed bumps in it for the F1 cars.

And at that time, uh,

that's what we were using in motorcycles.

As soon as I hit that, it started setting me off,

so then I, you know, I didn't have any control

over how I was landing or where I was gonna land and...

TAD PILATI: He has no feeling

from the center of his chest down.

Uh, he's being held in a hospital near Rimini.

He's in stable condition

and, uh, the next 48 hours

are going to tell us everything.

RAINEY: Now all the sand traps are smooth,

but sometimes it takes a...

You know, big incident to get something changed.

Being World Champion was the ultimate,

but after I won it, it was time to do it again.

Looking back, I wish I'd have stepped back out of it

and said, sometimes, you know, you've got to get beat.

I didn't let myself think that.

It was just something that, uh, I was addicted to,

and it took a... You know, it took a big accident,

uh, to take me out of that situation.

SCHWANTZ: Quite a while after the race at Misano,

I was in my motorhome,

I looked outside and there was a bunch of journalists

and TV cameras and all kinds of stuff

sitting at the door of my motorhome.

I thought, "What's going on?"

So I walked outside and they said,

"Hey, you hear you won the World Championship?"

And I said, "Do what?"

I said, "There's still three races to go."

And that was when they told me of his injuries,

and I was probably as shocked as anybody

to hear the news.

VALENTINO: I'm superstitious, yes.

80% of riders have some superstitions.

I understand it may be stupid, but it's like this. [CHUCKLES]

Some actor and actress are superstitious

and do nothing of danger.

No? So I think it's normal.

A rider, when you go on the bike, you risk.

And I think it's quite normal.

We've got another five minutes to go

before the start of this MotoGP,

the four-strokes versus the two-strokes,

the second official qualifying session.

That's what happened yesterday,

Capirossi from Rossi, from Ukawa, from Roberts,

being the provisional front row.

Some of the muscles that have faded away, I need them.

It makes it a bit difficult to hang on.

MOODY: Valentino just about to come out of the garage,

and he's had two crashes this weekend.

He had one yesterday morning. He's had one this morning.

He was lucky yesterday.

He saw God yesterday. He was frightened.

There's been so much talk about the Yamaha M1,

the four-stroke that you're looking at, being a disaster,

not being up to what they'd hoped.

BIAGGI: I feel I cannot ride 100% with this bike.

Our people realize

where the problems are and they know.

Let's, you know, hope that

they can create something different and more competitive.

I don't know where he gets his excuse book,

but I wish I had one of 'em when I was racing.

RYDER: There's Capirossi. He's now on pole schedule.

MOODY: Now this is the Valentino Rossi bike from last year.

He's sitting up! There's a problem!

Somebody's down! Somebody's down! It's another Red Bull!

-McCoy! McCoy! -It's another Red Bull!

RYDER: It's McCoy.

MOODY: It was McCoy and McCoy is down!

And McCoy is on the racetrack and he's not moving.

That's why Loris Capirossi had to sit up.

We can see the accident from our commentary box

and there you see it on screen.

He's gonna be put on the stretcher.

The yellow flag's obviously being waved.

[ANNOUNCER SPEAKING JAPANESE OVER SPEAKERS]

McCOY: So I started to brake and tried to get it back

and the back had lifted up.

The wind must have pushed it around.

I saw the dirt come.

Well, he's a determined old fellow. Yes, he is.

Very determined.

I mean, the thing is, you don't want him to hurt himself any more.

VALENTINO: This pole position is, uh,

more important for me than normal,

because it arrives after two crashes

and I'm very happy.

DEBBIE IRVINE: He was really on it.

He would have been maybe a second off pole

had it all come together.

Then on the last section

where he crashed yesterday, he lost it all.

[RAIN PATTERING]

[ELECTRONIC MUSIC PLAYING]

VALENTINO: This time when I wake up,

I say, "Fuck."

MAMOLA: I was petrified of the rain.

I used to look in the top of my motorhome that had a sunroof

and I used to pray that it wouldn't rain.

SCHWANTZ: I used to love the rain,

because I felt like it made my motorcycle

exactly the same as everybody else's,

and at that point, it turned into a rider-to-rider battle.

[ENGINES ROARING]

CROSSMAN: I just told him to stay on the bike.

He'd done it a million times. There's no reason to worry.

JOHN: I really just got ahead of myself.

Ran it wide and then it was so slick that

I expected to, you know, keep it up and it just went out from under me.

McCOY: I couldn't get the right position with my leg.

The movement in the ankle

just didn't seem to be there, really.

One of the screws for the pin in my leg seemed to be coming out.

In the end, it was really painful.

I had to cut a hole in my boot

so that the screw could stick through it a little bit,

uh, just to take that pressure off.

I make, uh, websites.

-I am, too. -Oh, yeah?

My hobby, uh, motorcycle.

This week... [SOBS]

This weekend's a very, very wonderful time in my life.

[SOBBING]

I want to see you again.

You... you... [SOBS]

Thank you.

-Take it easy. Go watch the race. -Yeah.

Thank you.

JOHN: I was charging too hard.

Went in a little wide and cut the front.

Bike was still able to go so I just brought it back into the pit.

First time, he just got straight back on the bike.

And the second time he came in, we changed the fairing.

He'd lost his foot peg.

And the gear changer was loose.

We replaced a couple of brackets while we were at it.

And then he went out.

[ANNOUNCER SPEAKING JAPANESE OVER PA]

[ENGINE ROARING]

Enough other people fell off that he finished in 12th place.

CLIFFORD: Well, it was different.

It was an exciting way to start a Grand Prix career.

I would imagine he isn't gonna continue like that.

-What have you done to the motorbike? -[JOHN LAUGHS]

IRVINE: I can't remember anybody coming in and having repairs done

and going out and managing to finish so well.

So, it didn't go as planned.

My first GP, I'm really happy about it.

Two crashes and finishes in the points, that's a pretty good job.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[LAUGHTER]

I promised I'd bring it home today,

so I guess I gotta bring it home.

LINDA: The race was red-flagged on the 21st of 28 laps due to rain.

John Hopkins, 11th place,

World Championship classification, 15th, 14 points.

I've never been away from him this long and,

you know, and I worry about him.

He called me at six o'clock this morning,

probably about 15 minutes after the race.

So, that was good. He was all happy.

LINDA: I'm gonna fly to Italy on the 29th of May

to go to Mugello.

I've never seen him race one of these bikes.

McGREGOR: The Italian Grand Prix in Mugello

is the fifth race of the season.

From Suzuka, the teams moved on to South Africa,

Spain and France.

After four races,

Valentino Rossi has three victories

and one second place.

Max Biaggi has finished only two races,

taking ninth in Spain and third in France.

John Hopkins has scored points in every race,

with 11th his best result so far.

As for Garry McCoy...

The real disaster is the fact that Garry's leg,

instead of getting better, actually got worse.

Not only had the accident in Estoril broken his leg,

but it also shocked an old ankle injury

and that caused bone spurs to grow.

He had another operation

to clean out the misplaced bits of bone

and is now left with a six-to-eight-week recovery

following that operation,

which was done just 11 days ago.

It's really feeling quite good,

but, you know, I think the Championship's over for us this year.

[MOTOR SPUTTERING]

[ZOOMING]

MAN 1: Rossi! MAN 2: Biaggi!

MAN 3: Rossi! MAN 4: Biaggi!

MAN 4: Rossi! MAN 5: Biaggi!

[CROWD SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY]

VALENTINO: Impossible. Especially in Italy.

Is, uh, impossible from '97.

[CHUCKLES] Different life.

Have, uh, good point and bad point.

When you go to some place, "Ah, Valentino, I like you.

"I see the races.

"You are the best. You are the number one."

And it's okay. One day, two days is okay,

but after, it starts to become...

starts to become work.

McGREGOR: At Mugello,

Yamaha has a new chassis for Biaggi's bike.

He's immediately faster than he's been all year.

And so without the benefit

of any new parts for his bike, is John Hopkins.

JOHN: She gets a little scared sometimes

when she's in the stands at races.

She has to watch with her eyes shut, I guess you could say.

LINDA: I kind of watch him on the straightaways.

I don't like it when he's leaning over all that way

and he's sliding around.

We've had two bikes top 200 miles an hour today

at that spot just up there.

That's quite a landmark.

Here's a bit of a thing.

Yamaha technicians have been on the outside ofthe final corner this afternoon.

The quickest man exit speed at the final corner this afternoon

is the Honda V5 of Tohru Ukawa, 235 kilometers an hour.

Second quickest, Max Biaggi, Marlboro Yamaha four-stroke,

232 kilometers an hour, three K's less.

Quickest two-stroke, John Hopkins.

[CLAPPING HANDS] Bang, bang, bang.

227 clicks all day.

DOOHAN: Amazing.

In reality, this year he shouldn't really be judged.

He should just be let to ride, no pressure.

But already he's impressing a lot of people.

VALENTINO: For me, John Hopkins is a talent.

He's good. Fast.

First year with the 500 is not easy for anybody.

JOHN: Everything's starting to come together.

I'm actually really starting to find my strong point towards the other riders

and that's under braking.

I'm finding myself a real late braker.

Plus, this is the first track that we went to in the series

that I've actually had time on before we came here.

That does help, knowing where you're going.

McGREGOR: In Friday qualifying,

Hopkins is seventh fastest in only his fifth Grand Prix.

The fairy tale ends on Saturday.

He runs out of road in final qualifying

while his rivals find more speed.

At the end of the session, he's down in 13th place.

And then he gets a bad start.

[ENGINES ROARING]

-[MOTORBIKES ZOOMING] -[CROWD CHEERING]

Seventeenth.

McGREGOR: Up at the front,

it looks like Biaggi's in the mood for a race.

I think it's a rivalry that's good for the sport.

Biaggi really needs to step up

to make it continue to be a rivalry,

because Rossi's got his name and his number, his address,

car license plate.

He doesn't just have his number on the racetrack,

he's got him beat in all different categories.

Watching Rossi, yeah, he follows, follows, follows.

Four or five laps from the end, he goes. He checks out.

I don't think that's gonna be the case forever.

It's just, I think Honda happens to have

a little bit better motorcycle than most right now,

and they've got the best rider.

[CHEERING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTERING]

Ahh, I'm so proud of you.

JOHN: All in all, it went really good.

Got a 12th.

So can't be, uh, disappointed with that.

I was aiming for the top ten.

INTERVIEWER: What about Catalunya? You've tested there.

JOHN: Yeah, I like that track.

So, yeah, I really look forward to going there and racing.

JOHN: The lady, well, that symbolizes the trophy girl.

You win a race, there's the trophy girl.

You got the checkered flag.

You want to get to the checkered flag first.

She's holding the American flag.

Born in America. I'm an American citizen.

The British Union Jack, as her dress,

symbolizes my whole family's from England.

I was the only one born in the U.S.

[ENGINE REVVING]

[SPEAKING ITALIAN]

MARK NEALE: Valentino, is it your first time here?

-Yeah, uh, in this track? Yes. -NEALE: Yeah.

Do you think they'll invite you to come again?

[CAR CRASHING]

For sure, no. [LAUGHS] The first and the last.

No problem with the crashed car.What crashed car?

VALENTINO: This is my sport and my first passion,

to ride the bike.

But to drive rally car is... I like very much.

Maybe in the future is possible we change.

Now I go quite fast.

So if I stay at this level

for another two or three years, is okay. We stay.

[AIR HORNS BLOWING]

McGREGOR: At the IRTA test in March,

Hopkins' best lap at the Catalunya circuit was one minute, 46.4.

Over one-and-a-half seconds slower than Rossi.

Since then, his bike hasn't got any quicker.

But as he shows in the final minutes of qualifying, he has.

JOHN: I knew it was a really good lap,

and you see the big screen over here,

and the big thing with all the timetables and I got around, you know,

three-quarters of the lap and I see 21 on top and wow.

So, yeah. I'm pretty happy.

CROSSMAN: My heart just stopped.

I was, like, jumping up and down. Tears were coming out.

Oh, man. I didn't think he would do it that fast.

McGREGOR: For a few glorious moments, Hopkins is number one.

Unfortunately, there are still three minutes of qualifying to go.

And in that time, he's bumped down to sixth.

No matter. He's made his mark.

[ENGINES REVVING]

He took tenth in the race. His first top ten finish.

Valentino Rossi won,

as he did two weeks later at the Dutch Grand Prix,

where Hopkins finished seventh.

Then, in qualifying for the German Grand Prix,

Hopkins fell at high speed and broke a bone in his hand.

He missed the race,

but was back on the bike a month later in the Czech Republic.

Valentino Rossi went on to win 11 Grand Prix and the Championship.

Max Biaggi challenged him only occasionally,

winning two races and finishing a distant second overall.

John Hopkins completed his rookie season

in 15th place,

scoring points in 12 of the 16 races.

The last line of 500cc two-stroke history

was written by Garry McCoy.

Back to full fitness at the final race in Valencia,

he put a two-stroke in the front row

of a MotoGP grid for the last time.

In 2003, as Barry Sheene predicted,

there will be no more two-strokes.

McCoy, like everyone else, will be on a four-stroke.

McCoy crashed out of the Valencia race without injury

and victory went to Alex Barros,

who was given a Honda like Rossi's

for the last four Grand Prix.

He won two of them, leading some to ask,

"What would have happened if he had started the season on a four-stroke?"

A week after the last Grand Prix in early November,

the teams are out testing for next season.

The race never ends.

But for every rider, there comes a day

when he must face the fact that he can no longer do this.

What happens then?

RAINEY: It's 100 degrees.

It's the 29th of July, '02,

I'm out here playing in my kart. [CHUCKLES]

With Eddie.

I think we're in hell.

No, we're at Willow Springs and, uh, what is it, 100, 105?

And, uh, I'm very hot.

I got into karting, kind of, right after I retired.

Ricky Johnson, a motocross rider, friend of mine,

he had one,

and I got out there and it's just awesome.

And then Wayne got hurt and I thought, well,

this would be kind of a neat thing for him.

We could put hand controls and get him to try it.

RAINEY: I thought, "Are you kidding?

"I can't put a helmet back on

"and go out there and drive a kart and..."

"Aw, come on. Come on. Come on."

So I finally went out there and drove and I went, "Wow, this is fun."

The next thing I know, he's out there racing.

Now I'm out there chasing him.

BOY: He's smoking them, Rex.

REX: Uncle Wayne's smoking everybody.

After my accident, I ran the team, had the team.

ROBERTS: I know it was tough for him

to actually give up racing.

I reached a level where I said,

"I don't want to do this anymore."

He never reached that level.

And tragically, the accident was before he was at that level.

[DR. COSTA SPEAKING ITALIAN]

SCOTT: He's been released from his demons.

They're demons that drive these people.

Now he will look back on his obsession

and find it as hard to understand

as I did at the time,

or normal people did at the time.

[MAN SPEAKING ITALIAN]

In '95, in the rain, at Suzuka,

I rode around that entire race looking at stuff

that I had never seen at Suzuka before.

Guardrails in certain spots and, like,

"Whoa, man, I'm slowing down."

And then, the flight home from Japan,

Wayne Rainey sitting me down

and saying, "Kevin," he goes,

"you look like you're not having fun."

He goes, "You're supposed to be having a good time out there."

And he goes, "And if you're not,"

he goes, "you need to stop."

I was pretty worn out

and I didn't have the motivation of Rainey being out there.

I think there were just too many cards in line

for me to say,

"You know, it's time for me to go."

DOOHAN: Pushing the machine and yourself.

Seeing how much you can get away with.

That was what it was with me and not to say I'm mad,

but, you see, I was enjoying racing.

I love motorcycles.

Winning was great, but it was a bonus.

I just wanted to see how much I could actually get out of myself,

and how much I could get out of the motorcycle

and how long I could continue to win for.

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[ENGINE ROARING]

LINDA: They say, "Why do you let your son do that?

"He's gonna kill himself."

It's given him meaning. It's his life.

It's something he believes in.

JOHN: There's moments on a bike

when everything just comes together.

You connect with the bike completely

and just, the track, everything flows.

I mean, you could ride 10 to 40 laps

and just hit the same mark every time.

'Cause when it's on, it's on and it's the greatest feeling.

[SOMBER INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING]

[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]

I've been on crutches twice in my life.

Once when I was 13, racing a bike.

And once when I was 40.

Near my home and Kenny Roberts' house in Spain.

I was run off the road by a truck,

and my foot hit a post

and I spent 35 days in the hospital

and had a four hour operation

and had to wear an external fixator,

where pins are coming out of your leg and all that kind of stuff.

It was kind of ironic that

[CHUCKLES] I go through 28 years of my life racing,

and then on a scooter

I get pushed off the road and have an accident.

My message to anybody that rides on the road, um, you know,

that has any kind of a desire

to go fast around the corner

and maybe put their knee on the ground

is don't do it on the road.

The road is not a circuit.

Keep the speed down a bit because you never know, you know,

if there's a bit of dirt or oil or whatever on the street,

anything out there, or a dog or whatever.

Wombat, kangaroo. [CHUCKLES]

Just go somewhere

and find a local track day and go out and, you know,

do a couple track days a year

and just take out your aggression on a racetrack,

where everybody's out there doing the same thing.

Why risk your life on the road?

Because it's more easy, simple to go on the track

and be more safe.

Now the bike, it's possible, you buy are fucking fast.

Suzuki have 150 horsepower and Honda has 140.

And it's incredible.

I like to ride a bike on the street.

I have a CBR and I always ride, but need to,

especially need to stay every time concentrated

when you ride, because it's dangerous.

It's dangerous, not only you,

but all the fucking idiots drive the car,

because they don't...

look at the bike.

Because with the car,

it's bigger than the bike, so, no problem.

-I have a scooter... -INTERVIEWER: Yeah.

-Two-fifty scooter, big scooter. I enjoy, huh. -[LAUGHS]

But, uh, when I ride a scooter,

I wear always gloves and helmet and a big jacket.

I think I'd find myself...

having some trouble with authority

on a motorcycle if I ever got on the road, so...

I just choose not to.

But, uh, yeah, the safety issue plays a big, big part

in me choosing not to ride on the street.

What would I say to guys that want to go fast on their own bikes? Um...

"Make sure your medical insurance is up to date."

INTERVIEWER: Do you ride a bike?

No. It's far too dangerous, isn't it?

[LAUGHING]