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batsplat · 22 days ago

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about 2007 motegi, i’ve really thought a lot… when valentino congratulated casey on his title, he specifically mentioned his championship t-shirt. from my observation there wasn’t anything particularly special about it, it might just be valentino’s joke

but casey really cared about valentino’s actions… he not only wanted valentino’s verbal congratulations but also asked just like why didn’t you come shake my hand!!! i should get the same treatment as nicky!!!😠

(vaguely following on from this and this post) oh I remember the shirt, it's actually one of my favourite bits of niche valentino/casey lore!! valentino isn't JUST being a facetious dickhead here, his name is literally on casey's 2007 championship shirt as one of casey's heroes:

isn't this crazy?? I've never been able to find a great source for the actual list of names, so god knows how exclusive this club was... apparently casey also had the names of his ducati crew on there, which is a nice touch tbh. but he had valentino's name on that shirt!! given how by this point he was already mad at valentino for switching up towards him, it's such a funny choice to make. literally nobody would have questioned his exclusion! you're competing against the guy! idk, I love it when casey does something just a little unexpected like that, really makes you want to poke at the guy to figure out what his deal is. and pleasingly, we do also have an actual clip of valentino commenting on the shirt:

Yes, like I say before, it's a great pleasure that one of my fans wins the world championship - so I think half is also mine!

look at his smirk. insufferable. just a fantastic dynamic they've got going on, isn't it

but I did NOT know about casey complaining about not getting a cooldown lap handshake. and. lol?? casey?? come on. some dignity, please. I can't believe they actually got valentino to respond to that. reminds me of a similar-ish 'controversy' from 2010 about how jorge was accused of deliberately ignoring future teammate ben spies coming to congratulate him on the cooldown lap, as like... a form of sophisticated mind games ig. at least there it wasn't actually spies complaining. you can tell that even casey upon reflection probably decided this wasn't a legitimate grievance by how he's not brought it up again since... valentino did have a pretty nightmarish motegi race for annoying tyre-related reasons, so was understandably not in a great mood, and he was not in fact the defending champion... so like. I checked the footage and reckon valentino probably could have worked a little harder to get over to casey, but also this is obviously an extremely petty thing to complain about

and while we're talking petty, the ghostwriter of casey's autobiography thinks that casey was also pissed at valentino at the next race in phillip island for *checks notes* having a special helmet design at casey's home race? incredible scenes

literally started off the infamous phillip island streak with a spite win. your regular reminder that casey says in his autobiography that he doesn't use his rivals to motivate himself

and motegi 2007 is ofc also the table football race. a flyover stretch with fascinating interpersonal vibes, truly

so late 2007 is when casey really starts going in on how valentino had cooled off towards him AND talking about not liking valentino's tone in the press, that valentino wasn't as complimentary of him as he'd been at the start of the season... which might be true, but casey wasn't exactly a shrinking violet either when answering questions about valentino. as an example, this is how he's talking about valentino in july of 2007:

"This rule is not good and we need more tyres," Rossi said earlier in the week, "The problem is for the show because, at the end, it is the tyre that decides the race." "At the beginning of the season, Valentino and the others were all for the new tyre rules," Stoner points out, "but, as soon as they don't win, the rule is crap. I've had my bad races this year, especially in Germany, and I'm not complaining about the tyre rule. "They can moan and whinge about it as much as they want, but it shows that [Michelin] has had such an advantage in the past. This season, they cannot bring a tyre in just for the race [and] it's a matter of relying on the company that supports you to do a good job."

"moan and whinge" steady on casey

valentino over the years has talked about this rivalry far less than casey has... which includes not being all that interested in diagnosing when things soured interpersonally between the two of them - beyond saying a couple times in 2010-12 during the pettiest phase of the feud that casey hadn't gotten over laguna. mostly this isn't that big a problem because valentino's side of the rivalry is so much more straightforward, but it's still obviously not ideal. it's that relative scarcity which makes the following interview answer from 2009 one of my other favourite tidbits:

"He bases his sentences on the results. Even at the beginning of 2007 he was giving me a lot of compliments, then, after winning the World Championship, he started with heavy criticism."

isn't it lovely that casey thinks valentino switched up his tone towards him because casey started winning, and valentino thinks casey switched up his tone towards valentino because casey started winning... just nicely mirror each other, don't they. such good foils

so taking all these pieces of evidence together... you get a really nice sense of how casey by end of 2007 was all over the place wrt valentino. he misses valentino being as friendly to him as in years past!! he liked valentino congratulating him by rubbing his head in qatar 2007 :) enough to mention that parc fermé interaction THREE TIMES in his autobiography!! doesn't appreciate not getting his hand held after sealing the title :( is increasingly surly that whole year about how nobody is giving him enough credit for his successes :/ is building on a reputation already established in 2006 for being rather an outspoken character when it comes to complaining about everyone in complaining range... but also has an issue with valentino being rude about him in the press :| but still puts valentino on his championship shirt on his list of heroes <3 like... buddy. what is going on here

part of what's going on ofc is that casey takes offence incredibly easily and valentino can be a pretty offensive character. now, again, I really don't think valentino was doing that much in 2007, but obviously my standard for 'valentino being reasonably respectful to rivals' is probably rather different to 2007!casey's standards. it's the malice casey reads into valentino's actions that I reckon is mostly misplaced... like yeah sure valentino distances himself from championship rivals, but. y'know. that's pretty normal behaviour. the fun thing about 2007 is that knowing valentino's entire feud history, you're sort of primed to read it as valentino being the aggressor... but if anything, casey is generally openly ruder towards valentino than vice versa. now obviously, valentino at this stage is a lot better at the subtler, under the radar nastiness that must be infuriating to be subjected to... but y'know, at the end of the day valentino still isn't openly attacking casey. and when discussing this rivalry, it's crucial to acknowledge what an extremely prickly character casey is - that's what makes it so enjoyable!! even better, he's an extremely prickly character who is very ready to make enemies but is ALSO kind of weird about valentino rossi specifically

and yes, having a valentino rossi complex is basically part of the job description if you're a motogp rider of a certain age. still, always important to acknowledge that all of valentino's feuds with younger riders involved guys who were already A Bit Weird about valentino going into the rivalry, which inevitably affected how those respective rivalries ended up laying out. what's so fun about it is that all three of them express it in completely different ways - from jorge's somewhat deranged level of dedication to analysing valentino's every breath, to marc's overenthusiastic commitment towards imitating valentino and beating him and also throwing himself at him at every opportunity, to casey's rather more repressed approach where he's simultaneously extremely sensitive to any possible offence on valentino's part while also kind of wishing they could be friends...? or something? I don't even know what casey's after! doesn't help that he's subsequently retconned this period where he like... kinda looked up to valentino, sure, and respected him and all that - but certainly no mention of putting valentino on championship celebration shirts. so we still have quite a limited amount of evidence at our disposal, but I would gently suggest that casey's cool, composed 'didn't even care who I was beating' rhetoric doesn't quite match up to reality. and casey thinks that valentino got more critical of casey because he was losing and valentino thinks casey got more critical of valentino because he was winning... and the thing is, they're both going to be somewhat right!! attacking rivals from a position of strength is actually kinda part of both of their preferred MO's - it's a similarity between them that plays into how casey at times gets to play the valentino role in this rivalry. so yeah, casey will have almost certainly gotten even mouthier once he could get away with it. but equally, even though valentino wasn't escalating hostilities by his standards, even just his natural process of distancing himself a little from his direct title rivals and getting a tad snarky about them in the press wasn't exactly being well received by casey. and thus they can both say with some justification that the other rider was a lot friendlier towards them at start of the year, and both will have reacted to this in a way that helped further gradually ramp up the level of hostility. lovely stuff

still, you do have to come back to how imbalanced this rivalry was wrt how emotionally invested the pair of them were. having a firm grasp of their dynamic in 2007 is key to understanding how the whole thing subsequently played out, in part casey was less guarded and just a little more likely to let a few things slip... valentino wants to beat this challenging new rival, but I reckon he's mostly being sincere in that his main frustration in 2007 is feeling like he's not even able to fight casey at all for bike/tyre reasons. it's a rivalry he generally enjoyed when they were actually going at it! a comfort zone rivalry that really isn't all that emotionally messy from his side. even if he'll maybe still imply casey's compliments of him were never sincere, seeing how they dried up over the course of 2007... or perhaps joke about casey putting his name on his championship winning shirt, how at least he's losing to a fan... something fun about how valentino is always aware of that idolisation dynamic and is capable of playing with it, just a little. even with casey

whereas for casey, this isn't a game. casey really enjoyed valentino being nice to him and is ever so sensitive towards valentino pulling back. casey thinks valentino isn't giving him the credit he is owed and escalates his rhetoric in response. casey puts valentino's name on his championship winning shirt and then complains valentino didn't hold his hand. poor casey... it'd all be easier if he just didn't care, but that's the one thing he could never quite manage

#the casey scholarship happening on this blog in the current month is revolutionising the field imho. brave strides are being taken #i just love this sport so much man like how has valentino managed to give us so many completely unique spins of the idolisation dynamic #full credit obviously to the other halves of those respective dynamics for also being completely off their rockers #//#brr brr #heretic tag #kwisatzworld #batsplat responds #casey low key done an excellent job at the pr war b/c you will NOT find many out there aware of just how much he was looking for head pats #again. they hated jesus because he told them the truth #2

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