Wacky Dutch MotoGP round: Privateer rider wins, Marc Marquez ‘borrows’ photographer’s scooter


Wacky Dutch MotoGP round: Privateer rider wins, Marc Marquez ‘borrows’ photographer’s scooter

While NASCAR had the drama of a glorified shoving match and Tony Stewart securing what might be his last Sprint Cup victory, MotoGP was busy having its own drama on two wheels at the Assen TT Circuit in the Netherlands. I will personally cop to not having a huge understanding of motorcycle racing, particularly the technical parts of riding at speed, but I can tell you what with big money flowing into the series from Yamaha, Honda, and Ducati, it is incredibly rare for a privateer to score a win, but that’s exactly what happened at the Dutch round last weekend.

In the year of the underdogs—Leicester City in the English Premier League of soccer and Alexander Rossi in the Indianapolis 500—I’m not sure anyone would have picked Marc VDS rider Jack Miller to win a motorcycle grand prix. The Australian was aided in no small part by the weather—Rain interrupted the race and shortened it to 26 laps—but Miller still had to pass 2014 MotoGP champion Marc Marquez to take first place.

To give a bit of perspective, Jack Miller had run 24 grands prix before this weekend and never finished better than 10th place. Oddsmakers had put his chances of winning at 750-1, which is an astonishing win.

Speaking of astonishing comebacks, earlier in the weekend, Marquez spilled his Repsol Honda during qualifying. As he did last at Circuit of the Americas, he immediately set out to qualify his backup bike. However, being stranded farther from the pit than he was at COTA, Marquez instead borrowed the scooter of a photographer shooting at that corner, even dutifully flipping down his visor to look a proper rider on a 50cc get-around. He did make it back and managed to qualify his backup bike in fourth place.


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