#my intense sympathy for casey vying with my profound love of drama always makes the build up to that race very emotionally conflicted

[batsplat]

badly articulated thought that will be eventually expanded on when i properly post about that race but to ME there's something really unique about laguna 2008 in that it like... wakes you up. i do actually think the 2008 season is pretty decent in terms of watchability, the races aren't as awful as in some 800cc seasons and you do have some fun drama early on (thanks jorge), but it's still kinda... by the time you get to laguna, you've sort of been lulled into a false sense of security. the title fight has had some pretty sizeable momentum shifts but all of them feel pretty logical progressions. the rookie's campaign fell off the cliff, valentino got used to the new tyres, if ducati could fix the bike then everyone suspected casey would do his thing again... and given what 2007 looked like, by this point obviously the expectation is that casey might well run away with the title. or maybe not! maybe there'll be a gentle shift back in valentino's direction, who knows! but crucially it's all like... quite chill... the title protagonists get on Fine, valentino and casey sometimes peek out above the parapet and fire shots vaguely in each other's direction but it's all still pretty civil and restrained and you toss in a little valentino throwing an arm around casey's shoulder at donington to quiet the boos here and there and... it's just a different vibe. valentino saying he has a more normal relationship with dani and casey than past rivals and it's obviously true... and the thing is. usually when these valentino feuds have a big moment, you do kinda get some warning. often it's late in seasons where everyone is stressing out about the title fight and it sort of makes sense for things to get tense. often there's been a big flashpoint or two earlier that year. or you kinda know going into the race something might happen... jerez 2005 obviously, where him and sete already hated each other and it's the opening round and it's in spain. compare it even to something like catalunya 2009, which didn't necessarily cause a feud per se though it was obviously still a Big Moment in that season and also that rivalry... but there you kinda knew jorge and valentino might be fighting for the victory going off practise pace and also it's jorge's home race and also it's right after valentino lost his home race for the first time since the last ice age... like there's something in the air!! whereas what makes laguna 2008 so unique and so brutal is that there's NOTHING. nobody thought the race would be a contest! there's no real build up of tensions in the valentino/casey dynamic! watching the races before that is actually quite nice and comfortable and remarkably decent vibes between all the title contenders!! casey's doing the thing again! valentino's joking about needing a thirty second head start and that feels like a reasonable thing to say! and the thing is, it's a feud that is set up first and foremost through this single race performance which like... it is actually unique in that sense... valentino keeping the charm more or less still flowing in casey's direction while he's figuring out how to turn this title fight around again... so when valentino's big moment arrives, he actually manages to catch everyone unawares. including, most importantly, casey. obviously always important to note that the feud didn't start overnight after laguna and casey plays the traditional valentino role in that rivalry in terms of biding his time - but in the grand scheme of things... it's still all about that one race. and it just wouldn't have been anywhere near as significant if it had been a little less of a surprise