I hope many of you watched or have caught up with World Superbikes from Assen last weekend. Not only is The Cathedral of Speed one of the finest circuits on the calendar to ride, it provides plenty of close racing and unconditional on-track action thanks to its fast and flowing nature. And this weekend saw a certain amount of conspicuous off-track action, too.
To cut a long story short, Jonathan Rea had just completed a qualifying lap. Chaz Davies had just begun another. Rea was cruising. Chaz was still in beast mode and eventually came across the dawdling Kawasaki, which was very near (or on, depending on the rider) the racing line. The Ducati man took offence to Rea?s casual manners and mildly twatted the double world champ?s arm on passing. Needless to say, it didn?t end there. The antics reignited in Parc Fermé, where the two exchanged words and Chaz fired some fucks in. It was captured on live TV, all very awkward, aired to the world and punters relished the additional off-track entertainment. Anyway, this isn?t necessarily about that particular incident, who?s right or wrong (although Rea was clearly wrong in this case), or defending naughty riders. It?s about racers? red mist: a very particular and exclusive strain of the competition-induced wrath.
Events like Davies v Rea are what social media was made for. Of course, there?s a massive amount of sarcasm in that sentence, but this occurrence perfectly encapsulated social media?s hyperbole tendencies. And given toda...