#oxley's so funny he never misses a chance to point out a marc and valentino link

[batsplat]

Halfway through his rookie GP season Valentino hadn't climbed a podium. He had come close - at Jerez and Mugello - but his next four races didn't go so well: crashes at Paul Ricard and Assen, a mechanical at Donington and a fifth at the Nuerburgring. However, Aprilia's Carlo Pernat had put his job on the line when he signed Vale, so he needed him to succeed. In August, Scuderia Carrizosa received boxes of factory-spec engine and chassis parts. The difference was immediate. At Austria's A1-Ring he finished third, 2.3 seconds behind the winner. He was still buzzing from his first trip to the podium (but no champagne for 16-year-olds) when his mother drove their campervan into the Brno paddock a few days later. On the Saturday he scored his first pole position, but he still wasn't fully confident. "I didn't expect to win the race but I was beginning to arrive in a good place, so I knew something was possible." The early laps were typical 125cc harem-scarem stuff, Stefano Perugini and the rest rubbing elbows and paint. On lap five Vale scrapped his way in to the lead but not for long. Jorge Martinez - the man Vale had brought down at Shah Alam - was on the charge. The veteran swept past and tried to make the break. Only Valentino went with him, starting a vicious duel with three laps to go. "The race turned into a big braking battle - who could brake the deepest, because Martinez was always the rider who could brake latest," Vale remembers. "After my win he gave me his hand and said, 'Fuck, you were strong!'." By then Martinez had a grudging respect for Vale, half his age. "At that time Valentino was a very, very aggressive rider, says the Spaniard. "He was very fast but also he had many crashes. Over the years in MotoGP we have seen many riders arrive who are very fast but also crash very much, like Marc Márquez. So we ask the question, will this new guy continue to be very fast but still crash too often, or will he change his mentality and concentrate more? "Around this time Valentino made this change, so in 1997 he won many races and hardly crashed at all. Also his character at this time was very different to most riders - the crazy hair and the victory celebrations - so he completely changed the mentality of the paddock." Valentino's lifelong right-hand man Uccio Salucci will never forget Brno 1996. "It was a fantastic weekend," he says. "During this period racing was a complete joke for us - we didn't understand how everything worked. On the Sunday evening we stayed in our camper and drank some beer with our parents. The next day Stefania [Rossi's mother] drove the camper and we went home to Tavullia feeling very, very happy."

^Rossi leads Martinez and Emilio Alzamora at Brno. Two decades later Vale was still fighting with Alzamora, who had become Marc Márquez's manager and mentor.

From Mat Oxley's 'Valentino Rossi: All His Races'

"I saw a young guy with dyed hair and earrings who was like Superman on the bike. I thought to myself: 'That's not for me.' At first it was a shock. In 1996 we had already clashed a few times. He touched me once, we had an argument. In 1997 Valentino Rossi made me retire. But that's not a bad story for me." "I had two reasons: one was that Valentino Rossi came and that had such a big impact. The other was that the manufacturers, in this case Aprilia, used me as an experienced rider as a technical test rider to get the bike right and then they gave the best material to Valentino. As a rider, that hurt me at the time. Later I regretted retiring because in 1998 Sakata won the title that I could have won. As a team boss, I suffered for the first two or three years after retiring because I wanted to jump on a bike and compete with my riders. That was difficult for me."

- Jorge Martinez (x)

We were a good team. And we had a lot of fun in that 1996 season. Or rather, I had a lot of fun. That was me at my craziest. I really was an absolute pest. I had no respect for anyone on the track. To me they were all the same, it made no difference if it was a veteran vying for the title, or a debutant like me. I just wanted to go fast, very fast, and if I saw an opening, I went for it. I wanted to overtake everyone, come what may. In other words, I made people uncomfortable. I was fast, but I made mistakes. Too many times I threw away decent positions. I think I must have fallen fifteen or so times that season. In the very first race, I got into an argument with Jorge Martinez. We were at Shah Alam in Malaysia. I was making my debut and had secured a spot in the third row. I started very well and I'm not sure how, but I somehow found myself alongside the leaders early on. I was cruising along somewhere between seventh and eighth position. At one point, Dirk Raudies was in front of me and Martinez just behind me. Raudies' engine seized up, and, to avoid him, I instinctively braked, changing trajectory. Martinez was unable to avoid me, hit me, and fell. That was the year in which Martinez, riding the "official" Aprilia, was heavily favoured in the race for the title. I had just upset one of the darlings, one of the "untouchables" of the world championship. I finished the race in sixth place and was quite pleased. In fact, everyone around me was pleased, we were all celebrating. Then, suddenly, I came face to face with Martinez and Angel Nieto. "Son of a bitch!" they shouted. "We're going to tear you a new arsehole!" That's when I realised they probably did not like me very much. So I slipped behind the mechanic, who was a big guy, using him as a shield. The two Spaniards were rabid, they looked as if they wanted to beat me up, so the big mechanic did come in very handy, as a deterrent. But I soon started enjoying the scene, rather than being frightened. The pair of them were absolutely furious, but they also looked so funny, in the way that only short people can look funny when they get really angry. And both of them were tiny, unintimidating in every way. I was not really worried at all.

Valentino Rossi in his 2005 autobiography, What if I had never tried it

he went on to beat jorge martinez for his first ever race win - from the rec list: