S11E08: Marc Márquez: The Magnificent or the Merciless?

Welcome to another episode of Highside, Lowside.

I am your host, Spurge.

I am joined by Zach and we are also joined today

by Matt Oxley.

Who's Matt Oxley?

Well, he has been a guest on the podcast before,

but you probably know him because he's a renowned

MotoGP journalist and historian

and he wrote a new book on Mark Marquez.

We're gonna talk about Mark Marquez and the book.

We're also gonna talk about the history

of MotoGP in recent years

and we're gonna look into the future

to see what can we expect from MotoGP in 2026.

We're also gonna talk about racing viewership

being up globally as well as the United States

and should dinosaur dual sports be put out of their misery?

We might even talk about babies.

You never know.

All that and much, much more on today's episode

of the podcast, but first a word from our sponsor.

So in these Motul conversations,

we talk a lot about changing your engine oil.

But what about your gear oil?

What if you're out there on a shaft drive motorcycle

burning up the miles

and you haven't checked out your gearbox lately?

That final drive system, that needs some attention.

Well, luckily Motul has a full line of gear oil products

to make sure that your bike is running tip top all the time.

Even if you don't have a chain,

Motul's got you covered with their high end gear oil.

To learn more about how Motul can help you

from grinding your gears,

head over to RevZilla.com slash Motul,

that's RevZilla.com slash M-O-T-U-L.

And while you're over there on RevZilla.com,

make sure you check out the Airbag Save page.

RevZilla is dedicated to making sure

that you are informed

about all the newest safety technology coming down the pike.

And the newest, most protective safety technology

that we've seen in recent years

is the evolution of airbag technology.

So to learn about the entire line of airbag products

and which one might be right for you and your ride,

check out RevZilla.com slash Airbags.

Now, on with the show.

Okay, okay, everybody, here we go.

Off on another high side, low side road trip, if you will,

the next hour.

So we're gonna talk to the one and only Matt Oxley,

of course, about his new book about Mark Marquez.

And we're gonna hopefully, you know,

go off course from Mark Marquez a little bit

and talk about history of MotoGP,

how Mark Marquez fits into it,

and that kind of thing based on all of Matt's insight

and research on how he's going to do it.

And we'll talk about that on MM93, as he's known.

If you're listening and you're not watching,

Mr. Oxley wrote a book with two titles.

So the title on the front is Mark the Magnificent,

seven times MotoGP King.

And then the title on the back is

Mark the Merciless Grinning Assassin.

So you can choose, we'll have to ask him, you know,

why two titles?

I assume the reason is that it's just the book

is that dense and big and important

that it needs two titles, really,

to encapsulate everything that's involved.

Yeah, looking forward to that conversation.

But before we do that, high side, low side,

listeners and viewers, our friend Spurge

has got a little bit of not the racing news.

Spurge is not a big racing guy, if we're being honest, but-

I'm a casual observer.

You are, you're a casual observer,

but you do have something you wanna talk about.

And it's based on an article

that our buddy Dustin Whelan wrote over Common Tread.

I'll let you take it from here, Spurge.

Yeah, so Dustin wrote a article recently

that kind of ties into some of what we'll get into

speaking with Matt today.

The article is titled,

Racing, Attendance and Television Viewership Surges in 2025.

And really the story here is that, you know,

attendance and viewership of motorcycle racing

is on the rise.

And, you know, what does that mean for motorcycling?

Not just globally, but also in the United States.

I think one of the areas of motorcycle racing

that's been really prominent in the U.S. is Supercross.

If you've never been to a Supercross race,

it's a very Americanized experience, right?

You go to a stadium, you have a beer,

you have a hot dog, you sit down

and you watch all the racing happen

within, you know, complete view of the track, but-

And there's pyrotechnics and lights and it's just gasoline

that they pour out in the dirt

and they let it on fire, it's crazy.

But they were talking about how, you know,

some of the global viewership of Supercross

has increased by, you know, 43%.

Over 329,000 fans showed up early for pre-race activities.

I think the most watched or the most attended round

was in Arlington, Texas with over 68,000 fans

showing up to AT&T Stadium.

So like when we're thinking about motorcycle racing,

it's not necessarily as prominent in our minds

as what, you know, we'll probably get into

when we talk about like the global fervor

for motorcycle racing.

But it's definitely, according to the numbers

that Dustin shared in this article,

it's definitely something where it's moving

in the right direction for the American audience.

It is, it is.

And it speaks to one of the reasons we wanna talk about it.

Now, Spurgeon, I know I'm looking at our note stock here.

So I'm gonna tee up here.

If you were a cold and merciless corporation

making money in the motorcycle industry,

it would make sense that you would sponsor such an event.

Would it not?

I mean, speaking of cold and merciless,

they, you know, Revzilla.com pays our bills.

And we are nothing if not huge fans of Revzilla.com.

Revzilla is actually going to be the presenting

Fox broadcast sponsor of MotoGP in the United States

for the 2026 race season.

We are very excited about that.

It's something where, you know, when we,

and we're gonna get into some of this with Matt,

but like when I first started attending MotoGP,

I think the first race that I went to was 2011 at Indy.

And, you know, we used to have Laguna Seca.

We used to have Indianapolis.

We used to have, and then eventually we got Austin

and now we really just have Austin.

Yeah, just down to one round.

But, you know, as far as, you know,

some of the stats that Dustin put in here,

MotoGP's social media presence globally

is over 60 million now, which is, you know,

roughly 61% higher than it was a little over a year ago.

And I think when we start talking about social media,

we're looking at a younger audience.

They're saying that, you know,

the majority of people watching MotoGP now

are around the age of 35 years old or younger.

I'd be interested to hear, you know,

Matt's opinion on some of this.

And, you know, they're looking at a 12% increase

in estimated followership.

The way that Dorna calculates is roughly a 632 million

global fan base.

That's a lot of people watching motorcycle racing.

Yes, indeed.

So, if for no other reason, our buddy Dustin Story

about global, domestic and global viewership

of motorcycle racing being on the rise,

it makes sense that we'd be talking to Mr. Matt Oxley

about motorcycle racing today.

So, let's bring Mr. Matt Oxley in here.

If you're not familiar with Matt,

he was on the podcast twice before,

I believe once to talk about MotoGP writ large

and once to talk about the history of the Isle of Man TT.

Matt has raced at the Isle of Man TT.

He's been in the MotoGP paddock for approximately 150 years.

I think I don't remember the numbers exactly,

but he's been around a long time,

has interviewed, talked to and probably gotten drunk

with more people than you've even ever heard of

in the MotoGP paddock.

Matt Oxley, welcome yet again to the High Side Low Side

podcast.

Hey, Spurz, thanks for having me on.

Really appreciate it.

Look forward to the chat.

Yeah, absolutely.

You doing well?

Of course, because when we talk before the show

about how I'm doing,

we don't need to bother everybody with all that.

But let's just say I'm fine, I'm breathing.

Matt, in your experience,

obviously we're on the cusp of the 2026 season

getting kicked off here.

In your experience over the past year,

have you seen a rise in attendance for MotoGP specifically?

At some races, it's super busy, which is fantastic to see.

You can't be being at a track where it's packed out

and the crowd's going nuts,

and that's what you want, you want the atmosphere.

And it also kind of makes you feel good,

because we all know that motorbike racing is awesome.

And sometimes you go to some tracks

and there's not many people there

and you're like, why don't these,

why don't people understand?

So it is, I wouldn't say that I've noticed

a general increase,

but some races have been very busy, which is great.

And obviously we've got Liberty,

MotoGP bought Dorna last year,

and if they can get more people on board,

like they did with Formula One, that will be awesome,

because it's just great to...

You were talking about Supercross,

when you're in a stadium and the whole place is going crazy,

that's kind of part of the reason to go there is to suck up,

not just to watch motorbikes go around,

also to suck up that atmosphere,

to experience that atmosphere that kind of gives you a chill,

doesn't it?

I mean, some races I go to,

you really do get a kind of, you know, goosebumps.

You know, whether it's a move or something,

and you hear the crowd go,

you know, I mean, Spain,

obviously it happens more than anywhere,

because no one is more nutty about bikes than Spain.

Yeah, I want to get into Spain specifically

in a second here.

You know, one of the other things, Matt,

you, for the audience that might not know,

you are also the co-host of the Oxley Bomb MotoGP podcast.

Have you noticed, has there been more of an uptick

in your audience around MotoGP,

and more people kind of coming in to hear

what you guys have to say?

Yeah, a little bit,

but I mean, we're quite geeky.

You know, you've got to be really into it

to kind of sit and listen to us for an hour.

So, you know, and we haven't tried

to kind of broaden the show's appeal,

we just do what we do.

So, I think, you know, it's always going to be

a kind of niche thing what we do,

but that's fine, we're happy with that.

Well, on that topic, sorry to interrupt you,

I just would like to say,

this conversation today,

as with many Haselosa conversations,

tends to be when we do go into a very specific silo,

such as MotoGP, or even even narrower silo,

such as Mark Marquez,

we're still going to be talking about

fairly broad scope topics,

and your co-host on the podcast,

Peter Baum and yourself,

I would just like to plug you,

as a self-described MotoGP geek,

I think I would like to plug you guys,

at the very least, to follow on social media,

because the stuff that you guys post about,

I think, is really interesting.

Your writings on motorsport are interesting,

and I'm Peter's Instagram feed, to me, is fascinating.

He's just like always posting a picture

of like some tiny little piece of aluminum

on a swing arm, you know,

and saying like, well, this is what this is for,

we think, but we're not sure Honda won't say,

and I think it's super fun.

So if you're listening to this thinking like,

ah, God, I wish they would dive into more detail,

then do follow Matt and Peter on social media,

and look for their writings in their podcast and stuff,

because it is much more specific.

So yeah, so our goal for this episode,

I am coming in as the casual MotoGP fan,

and I'm going to allow Zach and Matt

to get into the weeds a little bit.

I found the book really fascinating, Matt.

I've been a fan of your writing for a long time,

starting with Stealing Speed,

and kind of going down the rabbit hole

of some of the works you've created over the years.

But I also want to say to our audience as a whole,

some of the topics that I want to bring into the conversation

will hopefully kind of keep this fun for all listeners,

no matter your level of interest in MotoGP.

And I want to pivot with that to Chapter 5 of your book, Matt.

So in my opinion, I think for where I got really excited

as like the beginning of the book was actually Chapter 5.

Up until that point, we'll get in there,

you're kind of getting into maybe some of the raving ethos,

and like how Mark is, who he is, and where he got.

But then you get to Chapter 5,

you get into Mark's youth a little bit.

But what I found fascinating was the very end of the chapter,

you start talking about Spain and why the Spanish history

was so important for motorcycle racing

and how motorcycle racing got so ingrained in Spanish culture.

And I guess that's where I would like to start the conversation today

is just like, why Spain?

Spurge is the former history teacher here.

And as this podcast is about Mark Marquez,

and he wants to start with General Franco.

So let's do that.

But I mean, it is about that time.

It's cool.

It is about that time.

No, it is super interesting.

And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

The thing is, what I'd say about history is that,

you know, we are, if you look at history as a kind of towel block,

and we're on the top floor because we're now,

if we're going back to the 1940s for this motorbike stuff,

that's on like the 15th floor out of 50 floors.

And if you took away that floor,

the whole thing would fall down, right?

So every bit of history that's happened is important.

It's part of what we are now.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Whether we like it or not.

Everything that happens now happens

because of stuff that happened before, right?

So yeah.

So after the Second World War, it was the same in Italy as well.

There was a huge trying to get people out of the villages,

into the towns, to work in the factories.

So in Italy as well, and Spain, Spain and Italy especially,

building very cheap little two-stroke motorcycles

that people could buy, you know, hate to use the word peasants,

let's just say peasants in the, you know, in the fields and so on,

to ride into town on their little 50cc or 125cc scooter or motorbike

and go and get a job in the factory and earn money

and bring it back to the family.

And once that started in Spain and Italy,

you know, you got a few kids, a few young men

or a few young women on little motorbikes and stuff.

And after a while, they're going to say,

let's have a race, you know what I mean?

And at that point, you know, they didn't have race tracks.

So they would just organize a race around the town.

The local mayor would say,

yeah, we're going to have a race around the town.

So 20 of you guys bring your one to fives and off you go

and we'll put some straw bales in front of the post office and,

you know, and round they go and round and round the circles.

And that was the beginning of it.

And it built up from there and the manufacturers got stronger.

I mean, Spain had a lot, you know, it was very much,

it was a kind of pariah of Europe because I had General Franco in charge.

You know, we'd just beaten the fascists in Europe

and there was Franco being a fascist dictator.

And so we were just like, they were kind of blockaded almost,

you know, so they had to look after themselves

and make their own motorbikes.

So they had Altarco, Derby, Awesome, Montessa,

all these little factories churning out these cheap little two strokes.

And the riders got faster and the bikes got faster.

And eventually, you know, by the 60s,

they were fast enough to go into Grand Prix.

And Angel Nieto won their first world championship in 1969, I think.

And it's just been like a snowball effect ever since.

You know, so they won the 50 CC world championship,

then they won the 125, then they won the 250,

and then they won the MotoGP.

And, you know, and that, and because they're so in love with it,

it's a cultural thing.

They just love motorbikes.

They love motorbikes.

Wherever you go in Spain, Italy's the same.

You go into a little town and there's like loads of kids riding around

on little scooters and motorbikes.

It's just what they do.

It's in their blood.

And the weather obviously helps.

Right.

Yeah.

Would you say if I'm wrong?

I'm sorry.

But like part of it too, right, was like,

because of Franco's isolation, isolation policies where it's like,

no, we are going to kind of keep everything in Spain.

It fed into that.

And so, yeah, when Spanish riders started winning,

it became this point of pride.

We're like, think about like, it's not,

it's like, I guess the way that we might look at like,

if we win a gold medal in the Olympics,

that's kind of what this was for Spain at the time

when they could send their riders out in the world.

Yeah.

I think, I think Angel Nieto was their kind of first major sporting star.

You know, and that again creates, you know,

there's a motorbike racer and all the kids go,

wow, I want to do that.

You know what I mean?

You know, and because they're so into it,

you know, the manufacturers are there,

little manufacturers, but they were still super keen to go racing.

You know, they were little tiny little manufacturers,

relatively speaking, but they were super keen to go racing.

So then you've got engineers growing up,

learning about all this stuff,

and then somebody starts a race team and blah, blah, blah.

So it's just this noble effect.

You've got riders, you've got engineers,

you've got team people, you've got mechanics.

And now, like I say, they work their way all through the classes,

and it didn't all just happen by chance,

because the National Federation,

which in the states of the AMA,

but in Spain, it's RFME,

which I think means Royal Federation of Motorcyclism at Espanyol.

We're like, right, okay, how can we maximize our power in this sport?

So we'll create this little race series here, super cheap,

where riders can start.

So you had people like Cito Pons and Alex Cravier,

and all these guys that went on to win world championships,

all started in these cheap little one-mate championships,

which Mark Marquez did as well.

You know what I mean?

So there were actually people thinking,

how can we make ourselves even stronger in this sport?

So, and then you go into a MotoGP paddock now,

probably more than half the teams are Spanish,

more than half the mechanics are Spanish,

maybe a third or a third of the riders are Spanish.

It's not just the riders that...

Yeah, like in the depths...

Dorna is Spanish, right?

Repsol is Spanish.

Exactly. So Dorna, who own it now,

even though Liberty have bought Dorna,

Dorna still run MotoGP, they're just owned by Liberty now.

Dorna bought in in 92, because by that point,

motorbike racing was huge in Spain.

Not so huge to everyone else, but everywhere else,

where they're like, okay, we're going to buy this

because it's going to work in Spain,

and we think we can sell it to everyone else as well.

So it just became more and more Spanish in a way.

I mean, a lot of people say it's too Spanish now.

Any country can decide to go in there

and spend loads of money and become the new Spain if they want to.

Yeah, it's interesting that Spurgeon used the same word

that I was going to use when I posed this question,

which is isolationist.

The whole idea that Spain used to sort of blockaded

and politically and maybe socially

and perhaps economically, culturally a little bit,

were separated a little bit.

It's interesting to think that that bred this sort of like

do-it-yourself attitude, which created machines

and it created race series and it created interest

and ultimately created talent.

Because you started with Anel Nieto and then Cito Pons

and then Alex Gravier and then Marc Marquez,

and that's obviously an extremely brief anthology

of all the Spanish talent that has ever occurred

in motorbike racing.

But that's a fantastic kind of, I don't know, quick analysis of it.

And it's not something that I had ever really considered

before I read this book.

And I know that like Spurgeon said, he found it fascinating.

I also think Spurgeon, that's a good transition

to the next topic here, which, unless you have another question.

Well, I was going to say before we jump on,

I mean, I think just what struck me too,

and this kind of ties into the chapters that came before it

and the next topic that we're going to do

is the why Marc Marquez.

But like, you know, with this history,

like you're able to turn on a TV in Spain

and watch children racing a motorcycle, right?

And that's something that like, it really struck me as interesting

because I would imagine you have this contingency of people

that are following, you know, kids all the way

through the ranks to see who gets up there.

And so now you have this pressure on children that like,

I can't even imagine, like we have, you know,

local races in the off-road world where kids can go race.

But like, they're not televising the adults doing it,

let alone the kids doing it.

So, you know, we don't have anything like that

where you can turn on the TV and watch kids,

you know, racing around a go-kart track.

That's got to be something that really speaks to that fervor.

Yeah, it's cultural enthusiasm, I think.

You know, it's just what they love doing it.

And they spend a lot of money on it as well.

You know, a huge amount of the sponsors in MotoGP are Spanish as well

because they love motorbikes.

They love spending money on motorbikes.

And just one last thing on this whole Spanish thing,

it's become such a crucible.

Like California was in the 70s,

when he had Wayne Rainier, Eddie Lawson, Kenny Roberts,

all these guys growing up riding dirt track around, you know,

and that was the crucible at that point.

This was producing the talent.

And if you wanted to make it,

you went to the States and learned how to dirt track.

Now, I know a lot of American families that now live in Spain,

their kids want to make it and they're like,

okay, let's have an adventure.

Not just American or Australian as well,

let's have an adventure.

We're going to move to Spain and we're going to go racing.

We're going to take the kid racing.

And you know, this is an expensive thing to do.

I mean, if you want to ride in motor three,

the Junior World Championship, which is 90% in Spain,

you're talking 2,300,000 euros a year.

So that's basically 2,300,000 dollars just for the ride,

let alone moving your family and you know what I mean,

all that stuff.

So this is a big commitment.

But if you don't do that,

if you're not in Spain by the time you're 10,

you're probably not going to make it.

But it sounds like even with Mark's transition,

it was almost like he didn't necessarily even want to go

to street riding.

He was having so much fun riding dirt motocross

that like it was almost something where,

because it's not just,

and I guess maybe this is a good point

as we kind of segue into why is Mark Marquez the way he is.

But it wasn't just like Spain is big in putting kids on,

you know, go-kart tracks on 125 minibikes.

Like it was the culture of they,

you could go motocross and you could go flat track

and all of this kind of just started to really come up in Spain.

Yeah, I mean, he comes from a country town called Severo,

which is an a half ride from Barcelona into the country.

And I mean, Spain is not heavily populated.

So I mean, in some ways,

it's probably a little bit like the states,

parts of the states.

You know, and if you've got a not heavily populated area,

you can have motocross,

you can have enduro's and stuff like that

without pissing off the locals.

Right, right.

Give my language.

So that's what he grew up doing, doing little enduro's.

I think his first competitive races,

he had a little Pee Wee 50, you know, P.W. 50 Yamaha,

which Casey Stoner, Colin Edwards,

all these guys started on those.

And I think in his first competitive event,

he still had outrigger wheels on the back, you know what I mean?

No kidding.

I mean, yeah, I mean, he's tiny now.

You know, I mean, he was so small.

But yeah, so he started doing enduro's and they started,

I mean, his dad and mum, his dad is a huge bike nut

and was in the local club and they didn't race.

His dad didn't race, but he was a marshal,

you know, a corner worker, as you say in the states,

you know, for enduro and motocross events.

And Mark and Alex, the kids would go along

and be marshal's as well, you know, waving flags saying,

you know, danger coming, you know, watch out, some of us crashed.

So it's quite an unusual way for some little kid to start.

And then he would like, hang on, I want, you know,

Mark was like, he's three years older than Alex.

We're like, hang on, I want to go at this.

I want to, I don't want to stand here with a flag.

I want to do it, you know?

And that's how it started.

And just quite organically, I think his dad,

generally the kids that make it, their parents don't push them,

right?

You know, they're letting the kids lead the way.

And the kid says, I want to do this, I want to do that.

I mean, I know when his dad got him a ride

in this little mini bike, you know, asphalt mini bike series,

Mark was like, no, no, no, I want to do motocross.

I don't like asphalt.

I want to do motocross.

But then I think he did it a few times and was like,

yeah, I do like this, you know, and there you go.

I mean, he was probably, I can't remember how old was he then?

Five, six, seven, eight, nine, maybe something like that.

Yeah.

Right.

So I have a question about that, which I guess is sort of a step back

in some ways, but just sort of like broadens the scope of this.

Spurge, I think you wrote down this question of,

is Mark, Mark has someone you've always wanted to write about?

And that, that to me is part of my question is sort of,

you just mentioned that he started with, you know,

he started as a track marshall on Enduro events.

What other, what are some other things that come to mind for you

that make him an atypical MotoGP world champion?

Or, you know, a little bit, because, you know,

a lot of what we've been talking about is sort of like,

he's been part of this like river of talent coming out of Spain.

And he's just part of this mass population of kids,

people that are interested in it and get into it.

And then some of them get to be incredibly good at it.

And he's one of those people.

And so in some ways it's generic, but, you know,

what you just mentioned, I think was interesting.

It's like, it's different than what you normally see.

And I'm curious what other things popped to mind

as far as like his family, his experience,

his, I don't know, socioeconomic status, any of that stuff that's different.

Very normal working class family.

His dad was a digger driver, you know,

on construction sites, a talented digger driver.

So obviously the hand I coordination he had, you know,

he would be called in for the tricky jobs and stuff.

And his mum was an office worker.

So, you know, very normal little family, not a lot of money.

You know, they probably wouldn't have got very far,

except, well, they couldn't afford to go road racing.

It was only because they got into this cheap series.

And somebody said, well, look, we'll help you that they managed to make it.

But I mean, what, what makes Mark atypical?

I mean, I mean, literally just this kind of supernatural feel

for the bike that he has that allows him to kind of basically crash

half the time and not crash.

You know, not many, in fact, no one can do that.

His other thing is, is the way he crashes to find performance

and just doesn't care.

You know, I mean, he came to,

into the Premier class motor GP in 2013.

That's 13 seasons ago.

And the way he can slide the front tire all the time, every corner,

and usually get away with it.

No one else can do that.

13 years after he did that,

he brought it in and also the way he crashes

to find performance and practice.

No one does that, you know?

So, I mean, that is like, well, you know,

when King Kenny Robbs turned up in motor GP in 78

and was sliding the rear,

within five, six years, everybody was doing that, right?

Marquez has been there for 13 years

and still no one can do what he could do 13 years ago.

So, he is pretty special, you know?

I mean, really, you know, one in a billion or whatever, you know?

Well, I feel like the first few chapters of your book,

you know, are kind of dissecting some of that, right?

Is it the brains?

Is it the fearlessness?

Is it his just raw talent?

And you did an amazing job of kind of getting in

and interviewing a wide variety of people

from, you know, other people he raced with,

racers that were generations before him

that just observed him to his, you know,

his ownership groups and mechanics and all these things.

And one of the quotes that stood out for me

was a quote from Stoner.

And it was, it's not, you know,

you were talking about fearlessness.

Is it that Marquez just fearless?

And the quote is, it's not a lack of fear.

It's knowing what you did wrong.

And that was a quote that really stood out to me

because it speaks to the learning aspect

and you're talking about the crashing.

And it's not that he's fearless.

It's like, oh, cool.

I did that to figure out what was wrong

and now I'm going to learn from it and take it back

and tweak the way that I'm doing things.

Yeah. I mean, Mark is very well known for crashing an awful lot.

I think since he's been in MotoGP 13 years ago,

at race meetings, he's crashed like 260 times, right?

That's a lot of crashes, right?

But he's also won seven MotoGP titles.

So what does that tell you?

It means it tells you that he's not crashing in races, right?

He's crashing in practice.

And exactly as you say, he's crashing

because he's like, I wonder what happens

if I do this at this corner?

Oh, I've gone too far.

Goes back to the garage, speaks to his engineers

and it says either, well, I know where the limit is.

I can't do that.

All comes back and says, maybe we can do this to the bike

and maybe I'll be able to do that without crashing.

You know what I mean?

So, I mean, to think about that,

you know, to put yourself in that same situations

and just go, well, I'm just going to go out there

and if I crash or crash and, you know,

I'll learn something from that.

I mean, that's pretty special.

That's pretty special.

Who you said it was that was following him?

And I think it was that, I think it was in Qatar

and he was locking up the front, like intentionally.

He wasn't locking it.

He was, so this is in Qatar under the, you know,

in the Middle East, under the spotlights

in Lossai Grand Prix MotoGP track.

And, you know, they race at nights,

so the track's quite cold and, you know,

under the floodlights.

And he was going out in testing.

I think it was testing, not practice.

And he was, Jack Miller, sort of famous,

you know, won few MotoGP races himself,

was following him.

And he was like, oh my God, he basically,

he was going into a particular corner

and just putting the handlebars on nearly full lock,

leaning over into the corner and just going,

literally just turning the handlebars

to try and make the bike crash.

And just like sliding the front.

And just like sliding that and going,

oh, okay, okay, I can understand what's going on now.

And Miller came back into the garage

and then went to see Mark afterwards.

He said, what the hell were you doing there?

And he said, oh, you know,

I just wanted to see what was going on with him.

And Miller was just like, my God, you know,

how can you deal with somebody who can just do that?

No one else does that.

Never, you know.

People mess around with the rear tire sliding,

because it's easier to slide the rear tire

because the rear tire is following you.

The front tire is leading you.

You know, so it's quite easy to slide the rear tire.

To slide the front tire without crashing

is very, very different and very, very scary as well.

I wonder if you can speak to this a little bit.

I have, you've obviously talked to Mark Marquez a lot

in your life, in your career.

I've talked to him once or twice maybe.

And one thing I noticed was that it feels like he's,

and maybe this is to do with family values

or just the type of person he is,

but he's very affable.

He's very likable on camera.

When you speak to him in person,

he's also very, he's humble, you know?

He doesn't, in my impression,

so I'm curious what you think about this,

but it feels to me like that it's the type of personality

that you kind of need to have in order to learn from a crash

and not the type of personality

that you might expect someone at the top level of a sport,

whether it's Formula One or motorcycle or Mojp or whatever,

to have, which would be, you know, I'm amazing at this.

And when they crash, they think, well, whatever, you know,

that must have been a problem with the bike

or the tires or the track or something like that.

I'm just going to send it again next time.

But instead, he's humble enough to realize that while he is,

you know, beating up on everyone in the world

on a motorcycle and really no one's better than he is,

he's not, he's still striving to be better,

which I think is a curious trait,

not completely unique to him, but an interesting trait to have.

I think you're exactly right,

because obviously he has a huge ego.

Or, you know, if you're going to get to the top of motorbike racing,

you need to have a huge ego.

But you can also be humble at the same time.

You know what I mean?

It's basically controlling your personality,

you know, using your ego to make you hungry

and willing to take the risks.

Also using your humility to work with your engineers and stuff.

You know, if you come back into the, like you just said,

if you come back into the garage saying,

oh, crash and it was so and so, it's a tire's fall away.

Mark is never like that.

And one of the engineers that I interviewed for the book,

Harold Bartlett, an Austrian guy,

you know, he's been around in the sport since the 1970s.

So he's worked with everyone.

And he worked with Mark when he was in 125s, you know, as a kid.

And he just said he's never known a more honest motorcycle racer

than Mark Marquez.

He will, he will tell you exactly what happened.

He will never try and say, you know, excuse himself,

you know, and blame it on something else.

He will just say, well, I messed up there.

I did this, you know, and that's kind of hugely important.

Because if you're honest all the time with your engineers,

then they know what's going on, you know.

And it's that kind of world is all built on trust.

You know, your engineer needs to trust the rider

and the rider needs to trust the engineer.

And if you get that whole thing going,

it's a virtuous circle where, you know,

rather than people doubting each other and like,

is he, did he really mean that?

Is he trying to, you know what I mean?

So it's such a, when I started the book,

I kind of, you know, the mate spurred you were going on

about the sort of first few chapters.

And so, you know, you always think about talent.

That's what you think.

And this amazing talent for all the easy stuff he can do.

But then I started interviewing all these people

and realizing, you know, I've known him for years

that it's also his mentality, which we're just talking about,

which is massively important.

You know, the way he, the way he is,

the way he considers everything.

And he's always thinking ahead.

You know, if you interview him, he's three questions ahead of you.

You know what I mean?

If you're speaking to him, he's so, you know,

he's speaking in his second or third language

and he's way ahead of me.

You know what I mean?

He, you know what I mean?

Whenever, it's a bit like speaking to Valentina Rossi,

all the hundreds of races I've interviewed,

those two stand out for that, just the intellect,

the sharpness of their intellect is just mind boggling.

You know?

Interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, that makes sense.

And it's, I mean, I think it's, in some ways,

easy to be a fan of Marc Marquez

because like I said, he's sort of affable and likable

when he's on camera.

But yeah, it's sort of like,

it makes me happy to hear you talk about him that way too,

as having a lot of intelligence

and a lot of emotional intelligence

and a lot of like understanding of himself

and his own limits and that kind of thing.

It's sort of like, it's the, you know, it's,

I'm not saying I'm number one Marc Marquez fan in the world,

but it's the kind of trait that you like to see

in a champion, I think, you know.

I think a lot of people think it's made up.

It's a front.

And of course, you know, anyone in the public eye,

they're not going to be 100% themselves.

Sure.

You know what I mean?

Spurge knows about that.

Life is a lot easier if you are mostly yourself in public.

If you're trying to be two different people,

your life gets quite complicated.

And interviewing all the people that have worked with him

from lowly mechanics to engineers to team bosses

to medical people, they all adore him.

And to me, that's, that's the important thing, you know.

Right, right.

And, you know, you go into that, when he was at Honda,

you go into, and it's the same now,

you go into the hospitality and he's having lunch

and he's got everyone in his crew, not his hangers on,

or I think his mechanics, his engineers, his data guys,

his, and they're all laughing and joking and having,

you know, they adore him, you know.

And to me, that's the real market, you know,

that's, that's him away from the public eye,

hanging out with the people he works with, you know.

Well, I know I was, and I was trying to find the exact quote,

but one of the, one of the things that I found interesting was,

you know, his, his rookie season in MotoGP was 2013, correct?

Yeah.

And so his teammate at that time, Danny Pedroza,

would have been already racing for Honda for a few years.

And one of the things you talked about

was when they brought Mark.

Eight years already.

Yeah.

So like when they brought Mark up to the, to the Honda,

they kept saying like, well, look at, look at how, how

Danny's doing it.

And like Danny's riding, you know, the harder tires.

So you need to be riding the harder tires.

And, you know, I, Mark was like, okay, okay,

but can I just try the softer tires?

You know, and, and like, and then he ended up, you know,

winning and, and, you know, trying new things.

But it was like kind of the respect in the back and forth

that he had with the people in his, in his wheelhouse.

And then you, you go on to write about like, oh, well then,

you know, kind of later in the season, it wasn't just like,

you know, what is Danny doing?

But like, wait, wait, wait, wait, what's, what's Mark doing?

And it was kind of like that reverse, you know,

in the garage of like, how are they figuring this stuff out?

And also going back to, obviously he's, he is humble,

but he's also got an ego.

So, you know, at the beginning of his rookie season, when,

as you say, is the chief engineer was saying,

you need to reuse this tire.

And he was like, actually now I think I'm going to use that tire.

And, and then he was crashing a lot at preseason testing.

And his, you know, his chief engineer was saying, man,

you got to calm down, you got to do the, you know, and,

you know, and then he was leading the world championship

after three, four.

So every time he won a race, he'd go over to the chief engineer

and go, still me, still the same guy I was back

in February, but I'm leading the world championship mate, you know?

And, you know, if you want to win the world championship,

I'm your man, you know?

So he really, he knows how to get people on his side,

but in all kinds of way, a by building a good sort

of family atmosphere around him.

But when he needs something to be done, he doesn't shy away.

He's like, I need this, give me this now.

I'm reminded of a, of a couple things.

One is an anecdote that I remember from Kenny Roberts

from way back when I think my dad told me reading about

in the seventies or something like that.

I don't think, I don't think Kenny Roberts listens to this podcast,

so I don't think it matters that much.

I also don't think, which, which is to say that I don't think Kenny

is as, as famous for being as quite as humble or affable as Mark Marquez,

if we're being honest, in my experience, but still a great champion.

And when you talk about the ego thing, my dad told me the story

about Kenny Roberts, uh, testing with Yamaha, I think, or something.

And he said, the shock's no good.

The shock on the bike is no good.

And the engineers were like, no, no, it's fine.

The shock is fine.

And, um, and he came into the paddock and took the shock off himself

and opened it and a bunch of foam came out and he was like,

pointed to the engineers and he said, this, this is what I'm feeling.

Fix this.

This is the problem.

The shock is not working right.

And, you know, of course there's like Japanese engineers

and all these technicians and stuff that are, uh, and they're sort of taken

aback like, holy crap, this guy's not joking around.

And I'm like, that's the kind of like, uh, you know, ego that a lot of these guys have.

And I'm also reminded of, I actually don't remember which of the many, you know,

documentaries or whatever that have been done about Mark Marquez.

But I think it was one of the ones on the MotoGP site where they were interviewing him,

talking about how he made this transition to Ducati after his, this horrendous, uh,

upper arm injury that he had, um, in 2020, I guess it was.

And, uh, there's a clip that still gives me chills.

My buddy, uh, sent it to me, um, uh, our buddy Andrew sent me this clip

and I still get chills when I think about it.

But it's Mark Marquez talking about signing with Ducati.

And he said he took his shirt off and showed them the scar in his arm and said,

I didn't do this for fun.

I did this to win.

And if you don't want me, I'll win with someone else.

And I was like, I mean, I get chills just saying it out loud.

You're like, holy crap.

And I love that he has that duality in his personality.

Shortly before he left Honda, in fact.

But I mean, it doesn't matter because he was basically trying to

put a rocket out under Honda who had been basically sleeping for several years.

While Cathy went crazy with all this downfalls aero and ride high devices

and Honda were just like, uh, trying to catch up.

And, and Mark was basically, you know, I didn't do this to, you know,

so you either get up to speed or I'm out of here.

And I was like, I have high standards for myself.

And I have high standards for other people around me.

And so, you know, follow me.

It's like any trying to endeavor, you've got to be

friendly with your people around you, ideally.

But also, if you really need something, you've just got to say, right,

sort this out now, you know, you can't be lovely and nice all the time.

I'm gonna say he made a good point in the book, Matt around like,

Honda, you have all the time in the world.

I don't.

You know, I'm finite in my ability to go out and race motorcycles.

That's a great way to put it.

But you can, you can keep developing the bike.

On the topic of you can't be nice all the time,

I think that's a good transition to the next thing we want to talk about,

which is, um, which is the, the sort of like sharper, um, slightly more

caustic side of Mark Mark as, as affable and humble and, and, uh,

as sweet a guy as he seems to be, um, or is most of the time.

Um, he really ruffled a lot of feathers, uh, when he first came to

MotoGP and I have, uh, my own memory of this, but Spurge,

I want you to take the kickoff to this section because I think you had a good,

a good kind of like broad question here.

Yeah.

I think, you know, one of the things that I was left with at the end of chapter four,

because you kind of build to this, right?

And it's, it's the aggression.

And, and I think it's like a theme throughout the book about.

On the track specifically.

Oh yeah.

I'm sorry.

When, when racing.

Agression like how aggressive is too aggressive.

And I think my, you know, you're talking about them, you know,

battling like gladiators, it's so many of the descriptions of war, um, you know,

the sport is war minus the shooting is actually the title of chapter four.

Can you really be too aggressive on the racetrack?

I mean, like, that's a question I want to throw out to you, Matt.

And in all of this back and forth, you know, is there such thing,

these guys are getting paid to win.

They're getting like their careers depend on winning.

And yet it's always like, oh, well, you rode too hard.

You penalized me, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Right.

Not gentlemanly.

Can you be too aggressive or not?

What's your, what's your take on this?

I mean, I think you can be too aggressive.

And, and, you know, Mark has knocked off a lot of people,

but he's also been knocked off by the people.

I mean, there's not a rider out there that hasn't knocked a few people off.

Mark probably more than most, but not dramatically more than most.

Um, certainly not, you know, not dramatically more than other bad

behaved people.

So he, he is very aggressive.

Is he too aggressive?

Some people say yes.

Some people say no.

I mean, I, I kind of, um, you got to look at it and understand why riders are aggressive.

And one, one of the reasons why riders are in general so much more aggressive

than they used to be 20, 25 years ago is because all the rules have been written

to make all the bikes exactly the same.

You know, basically the, not only they got the same tires,

they got the same electronics.

Um, the, the technical rules have been written to make them all basically the same.

You know, and if the tires were all the same, all the bikes have to be designed around the tires.

Therefore, it becomes very, very difficult to make the difference.

You know, in the old days, when you had one guy on Bridgestone,

one guy on Michelin or one guy on it, you know,

the Michelin's would be better in some part of the track

and he could overtake the guy on Bridgestone.

It's no problem at all.

You know, now, you know, the quality of riding is so small.

Exactly. The quality of riding is so high and the technical margin is so tiny

that to actually make pass is really, really difficult.

And, and you've got to almost, yeah, you've got to force your way through.

You know, um, and when he was in 125s, he was getting, when he was tiny,

I mean, he was so tiny when he was on, when he first came to 125s,

that put special handlebars that to put special,

you couldn't reach the handlebars.

You know, that cut about seven inches out the back of the fuel tank

to move him forward, you know, so that he could reach the handlebars

and special pegs so that he could reach the foot pegs.

He could only get what barely get one foot on the ground.

You were saying they're putting like sandbags in his,

he didn't weigh enough so they had to like weigh him down with sand?

Yeah, they had something like 45 kilos, which is what,

80 pounds, 70 pounds of, of ballast to bring him up to,

and including eight kilo, eight pounds of sand in his,

the back of his leathers to get him up to weight.

So he was tiny.

Yeah, four, four kilos of sand in his leathers, which is, yeah.

Which is, yeah, like you said, eight or 10 pounds, which is crazy.

And so he was getting bullied a lot on the track then,

because he was so tiny when he was 17, 18,

that all the other riders were like, you know, they knew he was fast

and they were, a lot of racing is about intimidating arrivals,

bullying the rivals.

So it's just, it's a, it's a nasty, vicious sport.

It really is.

It's not blokes riding around having a fun on motorbikes.

It's nasty and mean.

And, and you need to establish your reputation by showing somebody

that if they stick the front wheel, their front wheel under you,

you're not going to back off.

You're quite happy to ride into them.

You know what I mean?

You've got to make people scared of you, right?

So he, people were trying to do that to him.

And then when he got into motor two, he was bigger and was like,

okay, I'm ready to give some back, you know?

Right.

And, and he did, in motor two especially, he did become,

he was doing some crazy stuff.

But at the same time, what he was doing was just sublime.

You know, and he would get, he would do something.

The worst thing he ever did was when he had a big accident,

Phillip Barlin, 2011, 2012, and he was continued at full race speed

after the checkered flag on a practice session

and hit somebody, big crash.

Luckily, nobody badly injured.

But it, in general, when he would get, he would do something bad,

get sent to the back of the grid and win the race anyway.

Right.

Like, you know, just, he did that kind of thing so many times.

And if somebody, if people like YouTube, there's a really, really just,

I still watch it probably once a month because it's so good.

2012 motor two race at Matega in Japan.

Yeah, in the wet, right?

He was on the front row.

No, dry.

He was, he was in, yeah, he was in the dry.

Start of the race, he's on, I think Paul S. Bargrove,

he's fighting for the championship.

Really crucial race is on pole position and he's second or third.

They're all on the front rows and the lights go out.

Everyone goes away and he just goes nowhere.

He's somehow, he thought he'd engage first gear, but he hasn't.

And it's, you know, you can die that way.

If you're stuck on the grid and the front row and somebody on the back row

rides into the back, you're in big trouble.

But he, so he bangs it into first gear and off he goes.

And he's like third from last going into the first corner.

Like he's like 29 or something.

By the end, I think he passed 18 guys on the first lap or something.

And the onboard of that is just mine.

I think in the first double right, he passes six, seven riders,

you know, some on the outside, some on the inside, big slide coming,

spins up the rear tire on the exit and then gets pinged out the seat.

And it's still full on the gas and passes people on the straight.

It's just, I'd really advise everyone to watch it.

It's just spellbinding, spellbinding.

So even when he was being doing bad stuff,

the good stuff was just so beautiful.

Too magical to ignore, basically.

Exactly, exactly.

And when he came to MotoGP, yeah, he was, he was a bit crazy

and doing some crazy stuff, but generally he was crashing on his own,

not with other people.

And think about since he's come to Ducati, he's hardly done any of that.

Okay, so he's older.

Also, he's got a bike that's the best bike on the grid.

Generally, when he was on the Honda, it wasn't the best bike on the grid.

One year, 2014, it was the best bike on the grid.

Those other eight or nine years he was on the Honda,

he was having to fight like a maniac to win on that bike.

I remember when he came to, the time, the longest interview I ever did with him was actually,

which I think we've talked about on the podcast before, Spurge,

but I interviewed him in March, February, March of 2013.

Was this before he had ever ridden?

Fast fast underwear color?

Yeah, exactly.

We're just talking about his underwear.

I love that story.

And he had, so he had not raced in a MotoGP race yet,

but he was on the factory Honda team and they were doing testing at Circuit of the Americas

for the, I think for the first time that they went there.

And I remember thinking, I remember talking to another MotoGP rider and he said,

oh, you know, there are a lot of guys in MotoGP that are worried about Mark,

like they're worried, they're scared of him, you know,

because they know that he's so talented and you know he's so good.

And I remember thinking, with all his shenanigans in Moto2, where he clattered into people

sometimes and he intimidated people.

And I remember thinking, there's no way that you're going to come to MotoGP

and intimidate Jorge Lorenzo or Valentino Rossi or, I don't know, Cal Crutchlower.

Just people that just feel like they're kind of hard as nails in different ways.

You know, like Jorge Lorenzo just seems like he has an impenetrable ego to me.

And Cal Crutchlower just seems like you could probably drop him off a cliff and he'd be fine.

He's just like so tough. And Valentino is his own sort of like pantheon of incredible talent.

And I just thought like, they're not going to take that.

You know, you might be able to do that in Moto2, but you're not going to push these guys around.

And yet he did. He got into their skin, he pushed them around, he clattered into people

and occasionally and they didn't have an answer for him. And I guess I'll finish this by saying

the thing that I've always, one thing I've really liked about Marc Marquez, I haven't

always agreed with his decisions on a racetrack. I've sometimes been disappointed in his actions

or his demeanor. I don't think I've ever heard him complain about being hit.

I don't think I've ever heard him say in any series and you can correct me if I'm wrong Matt,

but I don't think I've ever heard him say, oh, that guy needs to calm down.

Or like, oh, that was out of line or anything like that. You know, he's never says that.

Matt, you know what I'm doing? He just says, that's what happens.

Matt, you had a quote in the book too where like he was going to complain at one point.

There was a crash where somebody hit him and then his engineer or somebody in the pack was like,

don't complain because you could actually make this mistake tomorrow.

Yeah. Yeah. He got taken out, I think his first season in Moto2, so that was 2011 and

he got taken out really badly somewhere and he came back into the garage and

he was pretty pissed off and his engineer said, don't tell anyone, don't complain.

And he said, why? He took me out. It was crazy. And he said, well, next time it might be the other

way around. You might be taking another guy out and he was like, okay. And sure enough,

the next, I think literally the next weekend, he took out some guy. And he, you know, all racers

are right all the time. That's what racers are like. Even when they're wrong, they're right.

And most racers, you're right that, you know, when they get taken out,

they complain and when they take someone out, they go like, well, it's no problem.

What's the guy moaning about? But Mark has, because he understands,

you know, his situation would be completely untenable if he was thinking about other,

you know, so again, that does make an, you know, and he says, when did he last get,

well, he last got taken out at Mandelika in October and broke, broke his, his, his,

sort of my, my mark of a second, he just said, look, this is what happens.

Well, you know, we touch, this is what racing's about. I like it like this, you know, and

don't have a, don't give Bozeki a hard time, because no one does it on purpose, you know.

I mean, I think while we're talking about this topic, back to your point, Zach, about, you know,

complaining versus, you know, complaining when it happens to you, but not when you do it to

somebody else. Can you be too aggressive on a racetrack? I think we would be remiss not to

bring up Rossi at this point in the conversation. Right. One of my, and I'm going to, I'm going to

edit this quote, Matt, because it's a, it's a PG 13 podcast. We have kids listening,

but one of the quotes that you included in the book was when, and I believe it was before

Mark has came up and Rossi's complaining about the younger generation of riders and he calls them,

you know, a bunch of, we'll say wussies and children, because, you know, they're just too

afraid to get out there and be aggressive. And then you fast forward to 2015 and Rossi's not too

happy with the way Marquez is, is, is racing. And it leads into a lot of drama, I think for

Marquez in the 2016 season. Yeah. I mean, like I just said, riders, you know, they're right all

the time. So, so, you know, one minute they're saying, are these guys a wussies for not being

aggressive enough? And then somebody's being really aggressive to them. They're like, well,

what are you doing? You know what I mean? So this is just what riders are like. They're, they're

most races in fact, all hypocrites are all hypocrites, basically, you know, that they are,

they're hard, they're hard people. They're always right. I mean, you need to have that kind of

maniacal self belief to do what they do, you know, and, and, and just about being too aggressive,

I would say there's a very big difference between riding into the side of somebody in like, say,

a hundred mile an hour corner and riding into the side of somebody at a 20, 30 mile an hour

corner. You know, there's a big difference, huge difference. When people ride into each other

at 23 mile an hour corners, somebody falls off. It's no, it's not correct, but it's no big deal.

If somebody rides into somebody at the, into the side of somebody at a hundred miles an hour,

that's a completely different story because that, you know, that's when people get really

badly hurt, you know. So I think, I think that's also where the, where the level is with the

aggression, that that's also the potential danger of a collision, you know, it has to be

considered. Is it dangerous or is it just, you know, I'd be interested, I'd be interested in

both of your opinions. I started watching MotoGP in the late early 2000s. So around the Rossi era

was kind of like where my friends and I started tuning in, you know, for the two of you, which

obviously, you know, you're a lot closer to this and follow it probably more religiously than I sure

do. Between Rossi, who is, you know, by some, you know, one of the, the biggest attractors in

recent years for MotoGP and then obviously Mark Marquez kind of taking over that torch of the two,

what similarities or differences did you see in their level of aggression? Was, was Marquez

really more aggressive than Rossi or was that something that, you know, Rossi was upset about

because he was, he was losing? The thing is that Rossi was the kind of first, I mean, I call them

sort of gasoline gangsters or gasoline gladiators, gasoline gangsters, you know, Rossi,

you know, riders have been riding into each other forever. Ever since there were two motorcycles,

they built the first motorcycle and then they built the second one and someone crashed into the

Exactly. I mean, let's go back to 2005 Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. Rossi fighting with Sete

Ghibono at the last corner. Ghibono's in the lead going into the last corner. It's a tight,

slow hairpin. Rossi dies up the inside and just goes slam into the side of Ghibono. Ghibono doesn't

crash, but he has to, he gets, gets sort of punted off the track, goes into the gravel and finishes

second. And it, you know, when Marquez came to MotoGP in 2013, he did exactly the same to Lorenzo

at that same corner. In his first MotoGP race in Spain, he went up the inside of Lorenzo, bashed

into him, put him off the track and finished second instead of third. So Marquez was basically

doing what Rossi had started in a way. And like I say, his racing has got more and more

close. And when Rossi was in his pump, that was mainly before we had spec tires and all the bikes

were very similar, you know, that they tended to be more different. So it was easier to overtake,

blah, blah, blah. Rossi without doubt was and glorified in his aggression. Like I remember

when, when he, when he was walking up to the podium after that collision with Ghibono at

Serez in 25, Ghibono was walking up this ladder up the stairs holding his left arm, which Rossi

had ridden into and kind of in pain. And maybe he was hamming it up a little bit, you know, for

the cameras, but I'm sure he was probably in a bit of pain. And Rossi was looking up the stairs

and laughing at him, you know, basically saying, you know what I mean? So just coming back to the

whole that they're all vicious, vicious maniacs, you know. So I would say Marquez has been more

aggressive and vicious than Rossi, but you know, not by a factor of whatever, you know, and he was,

he, he followed so many because he worshiped Rossi. There's no no doubt you, you know,

I've watched videos of Mark when he was doing motor two and Spanish TV was going around to his

house in Severo where literally he's living with his mum and dad and he's got a little bedroom and

you know, there's a shelf there and he's got a picture of him on his PW 50 and, and then there's

four Rossi replicas, you know, the mini, mini replica motorbikes, you know, his 500 Honda,

his Yamaha M1 and then there's a VR, you know, a 46 cap and everything. So he worshipped him and,

and therefore he, what he saw Rossi do, he, you know, you want to emulate your heroes, don't you?

So a lot of, a lot of what he did was, was emulating Rossi, you know, so I'm not forgiving

everything Mark has, Mark has done, but I think he's portrayed as, as, as, you know, he's done

bad things, but I think often by many people he's portrayed as, as worse than he really is, you

know. I think that just, just because you asked me the question too, Spurgeon, I can't really elaborate

on what Matt said much more than, you know, he, he's, he has an encyclopedic memory of all this

stuff and, and is closer to all of it than I am. I do, I think for me, the context I'll give is

that what I remember my viewpoint is that they are more similar than they are different and that

was the biggest thing that they couldn't do. That's why they didn't go, that's why they couldn't get

along on a racetrack or even off a racetrack sometimes because they're just too similar.

You know, they both have that really like easy, likeable personality. They both have that kind

of like mystique of being able to do tremendous things on a motorcycle on a racetrack and then

when you interview them, they don't, they don't really tell you how they do it. There's this mystique,

there's this kind of like this, this fog of brilliance around it all where you're kind of like,

I don't even really know if I understand exactly if what's going on or if they understand what

they're doing or, you know, they're both clearly intelligent and you can kind of tell that they're

toying with you when they answer questions. I don't know, it just feels like they're, they're,

they're more similar than they are different. And that's one of the reasons that they couldn't

get along, which is a shame for me because I was, I've always been a huge Valentino fan

and I like Mark in many ways and it was always a shame that they, that they couldn't get along.

But like Matt said, you know, the egos, the egos are big and that's what happens.

Yeah. Many people, you know, riders, team bosses and so on, they all say the same thing. You know,

the reason they clash is because they, you know, they basically had a head on because they're the

same. So they're doing the same thing, you know, and, you know, the one thing that Rossi's got that

Mark never had, you know, that he had this kind of massive rock star persona made, he was bigger

than MotoGP at his pump at the height of his fame. He was bigger than motorbike racing, you know,

more people knew about Valentino Rossi than knew about MotoGP and that will probably never happen

again. He's like Muhammad Ali in boxing basically. People were still just wearing Valentino Rossi

t-shirts and bringing Valentino Rossi flags after he retired because they just, they couldn't get up.

Yeah. They still are. You go to a racetrack and there's loads of people wearing 46 hats and banners

and t-shirts and yeah. But yeah, I mean Rossi was, yeah, we all adored him, you know, and still do

because he was just, he brought a lot of joy to a lot of people, you know, because he just had that

persona that was magical, magical. I think that's a great place to pause for a quick break. I do,

I feel bad because I know that I said I was going to keep us out of the weeds and if you're

listening and you're a casual fan that maybe started watching MotoGP last season, you might not,

when I threw out Rossi, I didn't say Valentino Rossi. The two of you both kind of corrected

me by throwing out a first name. And if you want to learn more about some of this, you can always

read about this in on the book, but are you suggesting that Valentino Rossi is not bigger

than high side, low side? Yeah, I'm just saying, maybe there's some people listening that might

not know who he is. So I apologize for not starting off with Valentino Rossi and, you know,

but it is a Mark Mark has episodes. You're forgiven, Spurge. Yeah. Let's take a word from our sponsor,

Motul. And then I want to jump back in. Matt, you kind of started, we started talking about

body type a little bit and the size of Mark. And I want to bring us back in after this quick

break with a deeper dive there. It's hard to believe that high side, low side has been around

for 10 seasons. It's truly remarkable to take a minute and look back and see how far we've come.

So much of which wouldn't have been possible without the sponsorship of Motul who has supported us

since season three. Not only has Motul been an amazing supporter of this podcast and

motorcycling in general, but they've given me free reign to come up with wacky ads as I see fit.

They never balked when I referred to a Stallone classic over the top to let folks know that

their oil tasted like shit. Or when I researched neon green drinks like the fuzzy leprechaun and

hammered Hulk to drive home the dangers of confusing their 300V oil for a cocktail.

They weren't phased when I found a way to work in British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's

nickname of Thatcher the Milk Snatcher to promote lubricants. And they should have cringed but they

didn't at my poem about bugs to introduce their line of cleaning products. So please take a minute

to join me in giving the old high side, low side tip of the cap to Motul. For everything they've

done to help us make it through 10 seasons of this podcast and for everything they do for all

motorcyclists out there, we thank you. All right, everybody. We are back with Mr. Matt Oxley for

the second half of our discussion here. We'll be talking about body types, rule changes in

MotoGP, and retirement. So first, I would like to touch on this idea of Mark's size. We talked

about this a little bit before, right? Man, we talked about how small he was, how they had to

change the bike. Putting sand down his britches. Putting sand in his pants. There's actually,

there's one of the, I have the book here because I'm a good podcast host. There's one of the pictures.

There's not a lot of pictures in the book, which I think is fine because the true joy of it is in

the words. But you mentioned in one of the photo captions of him riding a little Honda RS 125

GP bike in some other series. He's, let's say, he was 12-year-old. Yeah, he was 12 years old,

and you said he was the size of a nine-year-old. And you mentioned also that he is small to this

day. He's not a big guy in the flesh. And I'm actually curious, your take on

something that I remember learning about probably 25 years ago or something like that,

when Valentino Rossi, who we were just talking about, also nine-time world champion, right?

Also a seven-time MotoGP champion. When, before he came to the primary class in MotoGP,

and I think it was McDewan, who a famous five-peat Australian MotoGP champion said,

oh yeah, Valentino is going to be good on the bike because he's tall. He's big enough to handle a

500 cc MotoGP bike. Now MotoGP bikes are, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, heavier,

more powerful, exert more forces on the human body than they ever have before. And yet,

there are a lot of small MotoGP riders. And I'm curious, why is that? How has that transition

happened? Or was McDewan just drunk when he said that or what? There's a good median, right?

There's advantages to being a bit bigger, there's advantages being a bit smaller, and there's also

advantages to being in the middle. You know what I mean? They all kind of, you can do different

things with it. It all evens out. Rossi's quite tall. And when you're tall, you can move around

the motorcycle more. Because when you're racing, you're basically trying to balance,

you're moving the mass of the motorcycle, you're moving forward when it's wheeling out of corner

to stop it wheeling, you're leaning off to make it turn better in the corners, etc, etc. So yeah,

so that's good to be tall. But also then, you know, you can't get so tucked in on the straight,

you're probably a bit heavier. So you know, it's swings and rounds about, as we say in England.

Mark, most motorbike racers are pretty small. You know, if for people who have not been to a

paddock or whatever, you just see these guys on TV, you can't really tell. You're with them in

the paddock, they're tiny. I mean, Kenny Roberts, he's tiny. He's probably about the same size as Mark.

And most horse racing jockeys are tiny, you know, relatively, not tiny, but they're not

tall. Mark is, he's not big, but man, he is muscly, you know, he spends a lot of time. And most

racers are quite careful on this, because, you know, you don't want to add more weight, because

more weight, you know, makes the motorbike slower, and it makes it use the tyres more, etc, etc.

So, but he is muscly. I mean, I remember seeing a picture of him when Rossi and Mark

as used to get on together. Yeah, she was beginning in 2015 and testing in Malaysia,

and they're stood by the swimming pool at the hotel near the racetrack, and they're kind of

arm in arm, you know, and Rossi's is kind of quite lanky. Not a lot of muscle there, really. And

then Mark is just, you know, the muscle definition, you know, is just, wow, you know, and he works

like crazy at that, because that kind of thing, because the way he rides, the aggressive way he

rides on the motorcycle, and saving slides with his elbows and stuff, he works, he understands

that to be able to do that, he needs to be very strong. And I mean, he does specific exercises,

you know, he won't tell us what they are. But, you know, when he's going through a corner,

he loses the front, he digs his elbow into the, into the asphalt, and basically uses that to

push himself back upright and save the crash. Now that is a pretty weird, the body, your body is not

designed to do that kind of thing. To carry your whole body weight and the weight of a motorcycle

on your elbow. On your elbow. So he does specific exercises to help him do that, you know. So

there's a huge amount of work, you know, with his physios and so on,

understanding which muscle groups he needs to work on and so on. So massively strong upper body,

because that's where you're doing most of the work with a motorbike. And he works a lot of that.

Yeah. I mean, really, these guys are, you know, they're not only in pain when they're on the

racing, running, crashing, they're in pain on the gym, you know, five, six times a day,

just doing crazy stuff, you know. Yeah. That makes sense. One of the things, you know, I think

as we're thinking about this, you know, you're talking about, you know, Mark using his body,

and he has a long history of, you know, I don't want to say abusing his body, but his body has

taken a beating over the years. Oh, yeah. You know, I guess for the listener that might not be

as familiar, like what would you say were some of the more impactful mishaps that he had, like

of his injuries, which ones were the ones that really had an influence on his career in maybe a

negative way, and how it affected him? He was quite lucky, because he never had a proper serious

injury until he broke his right upper arm in 2020. But before then, because he was crushing so much,

it was more incremental. And especially because he was using his elbow and stuff. So you can

imagine that that every time he crashes, it's going to hurt, it's going to damage the shoulder.

At the end of 2018, he had his left shoulder completely rebuilt. At the end of 2019, he had to

have his right shoulder completely rebuilt, right? Each, you know, that's a big thing having your

shoulder rebuilt. And you think that was just like multiple, like multiple small injuries again and

again and again. Just ridiculously frequent dislocation, dislocating his elbow, his shoulders.

You know, he got to the point where it would just his shoulder would dislocate,

you know, while he was training, while he was in the gym, it just popped out and he just popped

it back in. And I mean, I've literally seen him crash in practice. Valencia in Spain a few years

ago. And you know, the things popped out. You know, his mechanic comes and picks him on the scooter,

rides back to the, to the truck. Two minutes later, they pop it back in and five minutes

like after that, he's back on it's out on his spare bike and goes faster than he did on his

first one. You just can't compute it. You're just like, what the hell? How do you do that?

And so they were two huge operations. And then then he broke his right upper arm, which is a very

serious arm to break as a motorbike racer. A lot of it careers have been ended by breaking your

humorous left to right. So he tried, he had it pinned three days later, tried pinned and

plated titanium plates and all that and pins, tried to race the next weekend that damaged the

plate more and damaged the arm more. He had to have the plate taken out, put back in, and then

that got infected. So this was sort of July 2020. He crashed broke the arm, had it pinned

and plated immediately, had it repinned and replated again a month later, something like that.

And then it got infected. So that winter, he had to have another operation. So they took the

plates out and went back into the arm and took a bone graft from his

pelvis, put into his right upper arm. And he came back to race in 2021.

And that was sorry, sorry, sorry to interrupt you, Matt, but that was, I believe that was the

operation that happened in the United States, I think in Minnesota, maybe?

No, no, we're not, we're not got to that.

Oh, we haven't got there. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I missed.

I should know better.

So he had three and he came back in 21. He won a couple of races, but

you could see that his right arm wasn't the way he was sat on the bike. His right arm wasn't right.

You know, it wasn't correct. And so finally in 2022, he underwent another operation in the

States in the Mayo Clinic in, I can't remember where, but in the Mayo Clinic with a sort of

shoulder, the best shoulder surgeon in the world or best upper arm at soldier in the world. So

they basically sawed his right upper arm completely in half and rotated the bottom part 34 degrees.

That's quite a lot. 34 degrees, rotated that and then pinned and plated it back, pinned and

plated it back together. And he was back racing again later that year. And then obviously 23,

he had a horrible season, crashed 29 times his last season with Honda, then went to Ducati

and made the comeback. But I mean, so he had multiple minor injuries leading to those two

shoulder reconstructions. And then the big one was obviously this four operations, including

this massage, humorous optimry or something that's called whether, yeah, they basically sawed the

bone completely in half, you know, I mean, it was in the wrong direction is the point,

right? I believe Matt, is that correct? It was the way it had healed before it was basically

pointed the wrong direction. So that's why they cut it and they rotated it. Yeah, it was so mangled

after multiple operations and, and, you know, coming back before he should have done that it was

just, you know, and I mean, he came very close to retiring, who wouldn't, you know, you know,

he already had more money than he can ever spend. He's won already won eight world titles, you know,

but he's just, he's just, you know, he's an addict, you know, all these guys are addicts. They're

addicts for the adrenaline, and they're addicts for the winning as well, you know, and he couldn't

live without that. I mean, I think in the book, I'd quote a few people who writers who crashed and

got badly injured and came back against all the odds, simply because they got so depressed,

you know, they had massive, they could not cope with not racing anymore. You know, it was so

central to their life that the, again, the addiction they without that buzz, you know,

they didn't want to live almost. So they would come back even when they shouldn't, you know,

and I think Marquez is kind of similar, you know. So I think what we probably should have done maybe

at the beginning of this episode and shame on us was for people that might not be as familiar,

give a little bit of a, you know, why, why you wrote this book, why Mark Marquez is so important.

I mean, you know, Zach, you made it a casual mention, you know, seven time MotoGP champion,

but, you know, came in his rookie year, one in 2013, one in 2014, didn't win in 2015,

one in 16, 17, 18, 19, then took a few years off from winning and came back and we'll get into the

2020 to 2025 in a second here. But the rule changes and their effects in the span of

Marquez's career. Obviously, we were talking about Valentino Rossi earlier. And I think one of the

biggest changes that Valentino Rossi dealt with was going from like the two stroke bikes

to the four stroke bikes within the Premier class. One of the things that, you know, Marquez

struggled with a little bit was going from the two stroke bikes to the four stroke bikes as he

worked up from, you know, 125 to Moto2 and then obviously into MotoGP. Like for, I guess, you know,

the rule changes and like what we're looking at here, like what do you think was the most

significant challenge for Mark throughout his career as far as like the changing of the rules

and the spec tires and all of that as it kind of spanned his career.

Without doubt, the biggest change so far was the in 2016 MotoGP swapped from Bridgestone

tires to Michelin and went from basically banned the factories from developing their own software

for traction control and all this other stuff and had specs so everybody's got the same electronics.

So suddenly the electronics were like way worse than they had been for years and all the factories,

especially the Japanese because it was Italian software. This is one reason why Ducati sort of

suddenly came to the fore in 2016 because the MotoGP spec software was Italian Morelli software

which Ducati had been using for years. Whereas the Japanese were like, holy, you know, we have no

idea what we're doing. We're in a labyrinth of algorithms and we have no idea to go have where

to go because we developed our own Japanese software which is really, really, really good.

And then suddenly we're looking at Italian software. It's like learning a whole new language.

I guess for the audience, like for a proprietary standpoint, Honda had software that was specific

to their bike. So it knew exactly what its bike would do. It could change it in real time and

to be clear, they all did. It wasn't necessarily, correct me if I'm wrong Matt,

it wasn't necessarily that Honda just suddenly had to use the software that Ducati had developed,

but rather that it was an Italian company that became the spec software and that's just like

much harder for Honda to adapt to as an example. Or Yamaha or they each had their own, yeah.

Anybody that A, it was completely different and B, it was nowhere near as good because

it wasn't meant to be good. They were trying to take out some of the, you know, trying to make

the bikes more back to the rider rather than the little black box sort of deciding what's going to

happen. So that was a huge thing and Honda and Yamaha were in deep trouble. They had no idea how

to work this software. And you know, the bikes weren't working right. I mean, there was, you know,

not like I said, Ducati suddenly came to the fore. And also you went from Bridgestone tires which

had a super, super, super good front tire, still the best front tire. Nobody's ever made a front

tire like the Bridgestone in racing and not a very good rear tire. And then we went to Michelin

2016, which had a really good rear tire and a pretty rubbish front tire. So the bikes and the

riding styles had to change completely. So the electronics completely changed and the tires

completely changed. And Mark was, you know, his thing has always been the way he can charge

into front, into corners, because he has this supernatural control of the front tire, do things

without the other riders can't do and get past people and make the lap time. Suddenly,

that was with the Bridgestone, which was a super good tire. Suddenly he had this not very good

front tire and everybody's like, well, is he still going to be able to do it? Because surely he

needs that Bridgestone, that super, super grippy front tire to do what he does. But because he's

got that kind of supernatural feel for the front tire, his advantage actually increased. It didn't

decrease because all the other riders were like, well, I don't know what to do. It's this front

tire is scary and I can't trust it. And Mark just worked out how to use it, which is why he won the

title in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and would have won it probably in 2020 if he hadn't

crashed up on his own fork and broken his arms. So he,

that should have been a problem for him, but it was the opposite. And again, that's just,

all the other riders will say it. They just, I can't do what he does.

If it's okay, Spurge, I'd like to ask a question about, we talked about rule changes within the

confines of Marquez's career, but I'm curious about your take on the rule changes, or the way that

the series has developed, you know, like, I mean, in the 50s, in the 1950s, there were,

you know, they were, they were single cylinder 500cc air cooled thumpers, you know, with just

horribly antiquated, whatever, they're vintage bikes. It was the 1950s. World War II, it just

happened. These were old bikes. So like the tires were bad, the suspension was bad. Oftentimes,

the engines were just like far and away better than any other aspect of the, of the machine. And

obviously, then there was, you know, two strokes came about in, in MotoGP and, and then, you know,

tire technology advanced, and then the chassis were famously bad and wonky in the 80s and 90s,

I feel like. And then there was a transition from two strokes to four, 500cc two strokes,

to 1000cc four strokes in the, around the year 2000. And I guess, but in part of our lead up

discussion, we were talking about this, and I was sort of like, you mentioned the, you know,

the greatest of all time is like, it's always a hard thing to quantify because, you know, the

different eras and that kind of thing. In my mind, the most recent generational talent

that you're looking at, whether you're looking at Marquez, you're looking at Valentino Rossi,

you're looking at McDoen, Wayne Rainey, Freddie Spencer, the most recent one that you are looking

at is the one that you think, well, it's never been better than this. And if you sent them back

in time, they would just be better than everyone else in that scenario too. And this is a bit of

a esoteric question, but I'm curious, do you think that there's anything that a rider like

Jaco Magostini in the 70s or Freddie Spencer in the 80s or something like that would,

could do better than Mark Marquez? Or is he just, is he just at this point the pinnacle of

motorcycle racing talent and would just be, no matter what era you put him in, he would

beat the best rider? I think if you took all the great riders from their eras, you know,

if you had some magical way of just saying, putting them all on the same bikes, you know,

Jaco Magostini, McDoen, Wayne Rainey, I mean, wow, wouldn't that be cool putting them on the

same bikes and, you know, I mean, I think over one race, you know, any of them could win, but

I mean, the whole greatest of all time thing is kind of nonsense in a way, but nonetheless,

it's impossible not to talk about it because it is, it gives us the chance just to talk about

stuff. Yeah, exactly. And I kind of, you know, my podium of greatest all time, my own personal

podium is Rossi Marquez and Kenny Roberts. Those are my three guys. I'm not sort of saying who

would be top. And certainly that's how I started this book. Probably thinking Rossi was the greatest.

And I would have like four main metrics of a professional motorcycle race. The first one is

obviously riding talent, right? The second is intellect. The third is bravery. And the fourth

is determination. Those are the things you need all four of those in huge amounts to make it

properly, you know, as a multiple world champion. And I think riding talent without a doubt,

Marquez is the best of all time, I would say, because, okay, so the front tires we have now,

he can do what he does with the front tire and other guys can do it occasionally. But back in

the day, can Kenny and Freddie and do and they couldn't do that as much with the front tire.

So I think that's an amazing talent, you know. So I would say he's probably the best on talent.

Intellect, like I said earlier, him and Rossi to me have been the smartest guys. I mean,

King Kenny and Rainy, I would say, also up there on that kind of, you know, that kind of how

sparkly their intellect is. Bravery, without a doubt, Marquez, you know, no one's braver than him

is happy to go out and crash his brains out and just carry on like he's nothing's happened.

And determination, you know, coming, no one has gone as many years as he has from losing

the championship to coming back to winning a decade. Nobody has gone 13 years between his

first world championship and his latest. No one's done that before, never. So we're determined,

termination, wait, no zero doubt on bravery, determination and intellect. Talent, you know,

I think talent, a lot of riders have talent is how you use it, you know, and the length of time

that you're able to deploy it as well. Yes. So I would argue in my own personal, no, that he is

the greatest of all time with Rossi and Kenny after, just after him, but that's just my personal,

you know, everybody's got that. It's a personal thing. You know, I'm not saying that he is,

I just, in my own personal, you know, mind, that's what I think.

I think it's fair. Well, you're the expert as far as I'm concerned. I don't know about that.

I have my own reasons for other, you know, you could argue it all day long, which,

like I said, it's really fun to speculate about. That's why it's so fun to talk about.

Do you want to do a counterpoint, Zach? No, no, let's move on. Let's move on.

No, well, so just kind of a parallel, like a parallel question off of that, you know,

you talked in the book, but we also talked about a little bit earlier was, you know,

the moves that Dorna made to level the playing field, right? Now, all of a sudden,

all these bikes are pretty even. And so the side effect of that is that racing,

you know, could be, it could be argued that it has become more dangerous despite airbags and

traction control and all this stuff, because now the bikes are all, you know, at that same level,

where it's not about, you know, one rider being a lap ahead of everybody or half a lap ahead of

everybody, the racing has all gotten a lot closer and a lot tighter. And I think while that's made

it more exciting, perhaps for a spectator, you know, that has, it could be argued that has

made racing, you know, more dangerous. And that's really, you know, for the large part of Mark's

career, you know, the era that he raced in. Yeah, I completely agree. You know, the racetracks are

incredibly safe now. The motorbikes are incredibly safe. They don't brake all the time and throw

the riders off. The riding gear is incredibly good now, you know, I mean, way, way, way,

way better than it used to be 20, 30, 40 years ago. So all those, you know, the primary safety

and the secondary safety are better. But because all the bikes are the same, you get big packs of

riders riding around together. And most of the bad injuries and deaths we've had in the last 10

years, 15 years, have generally been a rider falling off and then being hit by a guy who's

only a few meters, you know, they're doing 100 miles an hour and he's a few yards behind him.

He can't, you know, he's committed to his line, you know, they're all on the limit. And he can't

avoid the guy in front and he hits him and and badly hurts him or kills him. And and that is

so real worry, you know, real worry. There are some races where you're just guy going,

oh my God, you know, and we had a couple of times last year when a guy went down and was,

you know, the guy behind and missed him by two, three feet, you know, so that that that is a,

a consideration. And that adds a kind of complication to the racing, you know, from a

strategy point of view. And that's something else that Mark is just,

just amazing about how he strategizes the race, where, where he's going to push when he's going to,

you know, he's often let the tires cool down a bit and then push again and try to stay out of

trouble, basically, you know, you, that's another reason why you need to qualify on the front row

now. You don't want to be going into the first corner with all the bikes together,

you know, separated by inches and feet in, in 10th place, you know, because it gets ugly

back there, you know, they're all riding into each other and somebody crashes and you can get

taken out before you've done 300 yards, you've been, you know, so it's really important to

qualify at the front, get into that first corner and get out of it without anybody riding into you.

So all these things are kind of considerations that a racer has to make, you know,

I think it's another thing that should be brought up in this context, unfortunately,

is that we've seen this, I think, a lot in Moto three, which is the 250cc four stroke singles.

This is the sort of like feeder class that travels with the MotoGP world championship is the Moto

three world championship, which is largely, let's call it what it is, children or young, young men

and women, usually boys who are battling tooth and nail to be the next best thing and the bikes are

so close together and the talent is so close and you get these races where it's like,

it's like 15 bikes covered by 1.2 seconds for 20 laps, it's just berserk and it's awesome,

but there have been a lot of injuries and unfortunately deaths and maybe I'm not sure

if you know the stats off the top of your head, but I feel like there have been more

bad injuries and fatalities in the lower classes, especially Moto three and that level of bikes.

If we go back 15 years, you know, we lost Shoya Tomizawa, sorry,

who was it? And then we lost Marcus E. Macelli and we lost Jason DiPaschia and they were all

like guys who crashed and then were hit by guys behind them. So those three deaths in 15 years

was more deaths than in the previous 15 years, let's say. So there is a kind of an increase,

but I mean, I think we've been very lucky the last few years and the amazing thing,

when you watch MotoGP, all Moto three, you get these guys going around in massive packs and

watching through your fingers because there's no way they can all get around that corner,

but they do. They're all separated literally by half an inch, some of them, and it's like,

wow, and you just have to kind of respect and props to the riders for being able to do all that

and just through their just genius skill to be able to ride within half an inch of people

at each other at like 100 miles an hour and make it work. Wow. It's one of my favorite things about

motorcycle racing is this combination. We've talked about it, this combination of huge egos and

wanting to do anything to win, but massive mutual respect between, because that's what

you have to have. It's just the case, even at low level racing that I've done or slightly higher

level racing that you've done, Matt, it's like, it's cool that you can go into a corner like that

and be like, oh, that's Rob. I trust Rob. Rob knows that he's in the same situation I'm in.

He's got to go to work on Monday or whatever, and these guys are kind of doing the same thing.

They're building into those corners and there is a lot of mutual respect, even though they're just

I'll do pretty much anything to beat that guy, but I won't bash into him because

I trust that he won't bash into me and we have an agreement here.

Like I said earlier, that's a whole thing of intimidation and getting a reputation for being

a bit scary. Going into the corner and one guy comes up the inside, you think, well,

I know him. If I lean on him, he's going to get out of the way, but if Mark Ayers comes up the

inside, you're just like, I'm going to lean on him because I'm just going to get out of the way

because I know he's prepared to die more than I am. I know he is. Speaking of being prepared to

die, I wanted to transition to your final point here. I think we're at a point now where we mentioned

this earlier, but Mark had kind of a rough 2020 to 2024. You mentioned earlier, Zach gave the

anecdote and you kind of clarified that he's raised up his arm to Honda and he said, look at

what I've done for you. He eventually transitions over to Ducati famously at this point, comes back

last year and wins. Yes. Boiler alert. If you haven't watched the end of the 2025

MotoGP season at this point, he did win the world championship. In case you were just holding,

you're going to binge on all the races in February or whatever. Matt gives it away in the book. If you

get to the end of the book, you learn this. Show them the title at this point. It's something

where I think the question is now, what happens for 2026? As we are coming in to record this,

and I'm not sure if you saw the news breaking, Matt, but apparently Mark had actually,

I believe it was La Sexta, had given a quote. There was a poll quote that came out that said,

Matt, I already know I'm going to retire sooner because my body will push me harder than my mind.

It seems like there's some news breaking about potential retirement speculations and this and

that. In your position, what do you see the future holding for Mark in 2026 and beyond?

The last time I interviewed him for the book was in August last year, so he was already pretty

much on his way to the world title. He said, three, four, five years. That's what he said.

The time I interviewed him before that, he said he definitely wants to do the 850s, the new rules

that start in 2027. Mine's changed. He got hurt at the end of the 2025 season. It didn't seem to be

that bad an injury, but it was another shoulder injury. He hasn't ridden a race bike since October.

The first time he will race at the start of the season, I think it's literally, is it March the

first? I love that you're looking at an actual calendar. I have a literal calendar on my wall.

It's March the first, the first race of this year. He won't have raced. I mean, he'll obviously,

he will test it and stuff, but he won't have raced. He's obviously very much in love with his

girlfriend. I think they're getting towards that stage where they're probably going to get married

and they're probably thinking about kids. These guys are sportsmen and racers, but they're also

human beings. They fall in love and they think, oh, yeah, let's start a family and stuff. That

doesn't mean he's going to stop racing. He said three, four, five years. I would say 26, 27, 28,

maybe. I think his next contract is going to be a one-year contract. When his current

Ducati contract is up at the end of the 2026, and he said he wants a one-year contract for 27,

and that could be for various reasons. One, because we've got these completely new bikes

coming in 2027, and you don't want to nail yourself down to long-term, if suddenly maybe the

Ducati will be the worst bike on the grid in 2027, it's currently the best bike on the grid,

maybe it'll be the worst bike in the grid, and he will then think, oh, well, I've only got a one

year and I can then go and sign with Honda or Kawasaki or whoever. You know what I mean?

Well, maybe it's just because he wants to be sort of free to say, actually, you know what,

I've had enough. It's impossible for us to know. You made the point in the book,

you mentioned Ducati being the best bike on the grid, but it sounds like through some of the

changes from the 24 to the 25 season, I believe you put it as, was it 23.9 or 24.9? You made the

joke about how it wasn't quite as good as the bike that was out the season before?

Ducati made a mistake with a 2025 bike, and it wasn't as good as the 2024 bike. Marquez,

Mark was riding a 25 bike, his factory Ducati teammate,

Peck of Bagnia was riding a 25 bike, and Fabio de Giantonio was riding a 2025 bike. Mark won the

championship, Bagnia finished fifth, he'd finished first or second in the previous four years, and

de Giantonio finished sixth, seventh, eighth, something like that. So once again, this was Mark,

and Peck Bagnia said it, you know, he was world champion in 2223, he said it after two, three

races, he said, I can't do what Mark does with this bike, I need front end feel, I can't feel

the front, I'm going to a corner thinking, okay, here we go, and then bush, down he goes. And Mark

can go into a corner and feel the front going and save it, you know, either on his elbow or

whatever. I mean, I think his brother Alex, who finished second in the championship last year,

riding a 2024 bike, said the difference between us and Mark is that all of us will go into a corner

and have one slide and crash, he'll go into the corner, have two slides and save both and carry

on, you know what I mean? So that's a huge weapon that you can have, you know, in your advantage.

So yeah, that was just to gain his insane talent coming through, you know. But how long will he

carry on? So I would say it's impossible to say, but he said to me three, four, five years, I would

probably put it more like three, maybe four. And you're hinting at, I mean, I know we during the

break, we talked about it sounds like there are some changes coming to MotoGP for across the board.

So is, is there a tire shift potentially coming? And it sounds like reduce sizes for engines?

2026 is the last year of the current rules with 1000cc bikes with a lot of downforce aerodynamics,

which came from Ducati from Formula One know how, Formula One car know how, and also ride height

devices that reduce wheelies and stuff, which also came from Formula One, they're getting,

they're reducing aero, they're getting rid of the banning ride height devices, they're reducing

the engines from 1000cc to 850, because they're already pretty much doing 230 miles an hour,

you know, at some tracks, which is not a lot of speed to be doing on a motorbike when you're riding

two feet from one guy on your left and then a foot on your guy on the right. So they're reducing,

making them slightly slower, I don't actually think it'll make much difference to the top speed,

they're making them slightly slower in a straight line, reducing downforce aero and

doing other say, but and also changing from Michelin to Pirelli tire. So it's, this is going to be

the biggest regulation change probably ever in 78 years of MotoGP. So, and that will be another

amazing moment, will Mark still be able to adapt himself to the different bikes and especially

to the different tires and still be better than everyone else, or maybe another guy will come

along and you know, you just, that's why we're here to see what happens, you know. So that will

be another fascinating, I mean, I hate making predictions, but you know, he basically walked

last season, he just destroyed everyone. I mean, he won 11 Grand Prixs out of,

I mean, he missed the last four because he got taken out. So he ran 11 of like 17 or 18 Grand Prixs,

he just basically destroyed everyone. And the bikes and the tires are basically the same this

year, he will have a better bike this year, because I think Ducati will go back to their last, their

2024 setup. So I think he will just, I think he will win this year's championship. So then,

then the big question is going into 2027 with these completely new rules, completely new tires,

whether he can keep doing it. And that will be fascinating. I'm really, this year is a bit weird

actually, 2026, because we're all kind of already looking forward and excited about 2027. And this

is kind of, we've almost forgotten about 2026 before it started. So it's a bit weird really.

Well, I can, can we book you for high side, low side, talking about 2027 MotoGP when the

time comes back, because I think there's going to be a lot to talk about. I think that'll be fun.

And yeah, I, I, I appreciate as always your, your predictions when they come around,

and your insights and the book. I guess what, I don't know if we're quite ready to transition

out here, Spurge, I think we might be. Can you tell us or tell the, tell the ladies and gentlemen

listening where they can find your Mark Marquez book and purchase it?

Right, sure, sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm very much an independent one man band. I like kind of being

a bit punk and a bit indie, you know, being in charge of my own destiny. I don't like being

told what to do. So basically, I published the book myself. And it's only available from my site,

which is www.mattoxley.bigcartel.com. Just go on there. And we obviously, we send to

the United States, we send books everywhere from, from where I live in London. So yeah,

we've already sold out the first edition. You should have told me that before I wrote in

mind. I was making notes in my book. And now the second edition, the second edition, when I

was on sale now, I think it is on sale now. And when it's only got a few hundred extra words,

the first edition ended when he won the championship, but literally I was a bang,

finish the book and get it printed. And so the second one literally has another 400 words in it,

taking it through to the injury and up to the end of the season at Valencia, where you got the

trophy and blah, blah, blah, and a couple of new photos. So they're basically the same, basically

the way your books are skyrocketed in value. I know stealing speed when I was out of print for

a while was selling for quite a few hundred dollars on. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. So now I wish I would

have, you know, my first edition, I didn't realize there was a second edition coming out.

Right on. Cool. Well, yeah, thanks for your time, Matt. And I've enjoyed it. And as you know,

you're not off the hook just yet. Exactly. The penance that you pay, aside from having to talk

to Spurge and I is to listen to an engine sound and try to guess it. Yeah. Everyone's least favorite

part of being a guest on the high side, low side podcast, but, but we love watching people squirm.

And, and as the viewers and listeners will know, we struggle just like everyone else does.

Well, it's a struggle for us. It is the most enjoyable part of the podcast for people listening

because they get to watch us kind of rack our own brains to figure out what this is. That's right.

If you want to give a shout out to our friends at Acropovich, Acropovich exhaust is kind enough to

sponsor the high side, low side engine sound guessing game. If you're not familiar with

Acropovich, they make premium exhaust for premium motorcycles. So if you're looking for a just

sorry, no, make it natural. No, do it on your own. Yeah. Five different factories in MotoGP,

Aprilia, Ducati, Honda, KTM and Yamaha and four of them use Acropovich. See, this is the kind of

we should have just had you given the given the knowledge knows no bounds. Yeah, I love it.

So thank you to Acropovich for sponsoring not only the high side, low side engines on guessing

game, but also for all of their work they do in MotoGP. Making the MotoGP bikes go vroom vroom.

We love so much. Exactly. Without any further ado, gentlemen, are you ready to start your engines?

Yes. Let's listen. And as usual, everybody, shout it out if you know it.

All righty.

Guest honors. Matt, how many cylinders do you hear there? What do you got, Matt?

Two. I like it. I like it. Spurge. I agree, disagree. I've learned early in my career

that you don't disagree with Matt Oxley. Do you think it's a MotoGP bike?

Everyone's saying how much I know. Don't be too sure about that.

Doesn't sound like a MotoGP bike. It is not. Not only is it not a MotoGP bike,

I think I know the brand and I'll give you guys a hint and I'll say it is not a MotoGP bike that

we just heard, obviously. It is also not made by a manufacturer that is in MotoGP, I believe.

I'm kind of thinking BMW twin, flat twin. That kind of noise when it kind of stopped was just,

I think, I'm not an engineer. That kind of rings a bell. I had a BMW twin until recently,

so I'm probably going to go BMW twin. I was thinking maybe, I was thinking maybe a little

v-twin or some sort. Yeah, I'm going to go BMW. For the audience listening,

Matt is referring to an opposed twin, so this is the boxer engine, the classic boxer twin from

BMW. Zach, is that where your mind was going? That's where my mind's going. I did screw this

up before. I think there was a BMW boxer twin and I thought it was the 360 crank parallel twin

from the F-800s from years ago and it turned out to be a flat twin, the boxer twin, and I was very

embarrassed. I feel like, well, let's listen to it one more time, but before I'm going to put one

stake in the ground, I feel like this might be, yes, I'm not sure, it might be a pre-20,

pre-2013 boxer. Do you want to hint before we listen to it one more time? Yes, let's get a

hint and listen to it one more time. All right, so before we listen to it one more time for the

audience's sake, not for our sake, of course, but for the audience's sake, the first hint today,

see from producer Chase, it is a flat twin boxer engine, so we're on the right track.

So unless it's a 1920 Douglas or whatever. Very good, very good, which is what the BMW was based

on, by the way. There you go. Which I don't think it is. It's probably a BMW and

yeah, I don't know. I want to listen to it one more time because I think it might be an oilhead,

a pre-2013 BMW, but I'm not 100% sure. Can we listen to it one more time, Spurjo? Let's play it one more

Yeah, I think it's not a huge, it's not a 1250 or a 1300 because they're a bit more lumpy,

and that sounds very sweet. So I'm thinking, you know, obviously I'm sure I'm probably going to

be wrong, but it sounds, that sounds really sweet, sweeter than the 1250 I had recently.

Okay, so, well yeah, and I should clarify too. There's probably a bunch of audience members right

now being like, what the hell does a sweet engine sound like? I love that we're using like adjectives

and it's probably frustrating certain people right now. Well, so I'd like to clarify something,

which is that I say pre-2013, that would be pre-2013 in a BMW GS or RT or RS or those bikes, but the

R90 and its many, the R90 and its spawn use that same oilhead engine up to this to this current

day. So it could be later than that date if it was a 90 model or a related 90 model. I'm not

as sure anymore about that, but I guess I'm going to go R90 spawn. And I think, Matt, to your point,

I think it was in 2018 with the 1250 that they changed the cams, wasn't it? It got like the

variable valve timing or something? I'm not as hooked into kind of latest road bike specs as I

used to be. So when you start talking about these little changes, I'm like, I got up. That was when

they did shift cam technology. The variable valves, I think, and blah, blah, blah. But yeah,

it doesn't sound, it sounds like the older engine to me, but I've been quite wrong before. That was

the sweet to Matt's point. I think the sound was when they lost their sweetness and 1300s might

have lost a little bit of that sweetness. Yeah, they go a bit lumpy, a little bit lumpy. Okay,

well, Spurge, let's get one more hint. There's one more hint, not because Matt or Zach needs it,

but because I do. The final hint is this engine is mostly the same as the engine in its adventure

touring sibling, but it has been retuned for touring. Okay, so it's an RT, I guess. Yeah, or an RS.

Yeah, well, I guess, or an RS. Yeah. But I mean, to me, I didn't, I guess those engines are so

much like, I wouldn't think that they sound different. Yeah, I don't know if they are different.

Are they? But I mean, producer Chase does his research. Is there, was there a bike that didn't

have shift cam? I don't know, whatever. I think we might be, might be getting in the weeds too much

here. I think I think I'm as close to being right as I'm going to be. I don't know about you guys.

I don't really have any more. Oh, all right. So this is delightful. Because

producer Chase didn't give us any warnings. Sometimes producer Chase will give us a warning

and he's just like, Hey guys, I promise this has nothing to do with the person that's on the podcast.

But today does have something to do with the podcast. Yes, it does. So this is a 2015 BMW R 1200

RT, sent in from Nicholas. And Chase went back and found a photo from Matt Oxley's Instagram

post of September 2024, where Matt, it seems like you were talking about how much you enjoyed

owning a 1200 RT. Is that sound about right? 1250. 1250 a little bit later. 2020. And I love,

I love a box of twin. I love those BMWs. I really do. So this is a shout out to Nicholas. Nicholas,

thank you so much for writing in. Producer Chase, I'm not sure where these quotes are from, but

there was a quote here that said, you wouldn't know you're riding a tour, except for your so comfy

screen up elbows out. And I'm assuming that's, I don't know if that is that a Matt quote? Was

that your quote, Matt? Yeah, it was screen up elbows out. That's got retired racer written all

over it. Yeah, I'm on a comfy bike now, but I still got the edge. Don't mess with me. Oh, yeah,

I like that. I mean, I will say that's, that's, that's first of all props to producer Chase who

has on the ropes yet again, as he always does. But I would like to say that I, I, I'm gonna,

I'm gonna give us a little round of applause. I think the three of us did pretty well. You,

especially Matt, you called out BMW right off the bat. And I think, I think all things considered

while I was completely wrong about my year, guess we did, we did have a beat on what the

bike was. And I'm proud of us for that. I'm happy with that. I just should follow the two of you.

So I'll give you guys all the credit. I was just like nodding along as we went through that stuff.

All right. Well, we've come to another end. Well, for the audience's sake,

Zach and I are going to continue to give you some, some commentary as we, as we read out the

episode. But Matt, I want to take a second and say, you know, thank you for, for writing the book.

For those of you that are looking for, you know, something to, to read, ramping up for the 2026

MotoGP season. For someone like myself, I found it to be incredibly interesting. You have a way

of writing that, you know, I, you don't have to be a MotoGP aficionado to enjoy reading the book.

And I learned a lot of stuff. And it was, it was a truly enjoyable read. So thank you for,

thank you for writing the book. And thank you for joining us today to talk about it.

Well, thank you. Thanks for having me. It's been really great. Always, always fun to talk to you

guys. Right on. Cheers, Matt. Thanks for hanging out. Talk soon. All right. Yeah. Thanks. Bye bye.

All right. Well, as always, it is incredibly enjoyable to have one Matt Oxley on the podcast.

It's so good. I find this to be an enjoyable conversation, even for someone like myself,

like I, I follow MotoGP much more on the fringes than yourself. And obviously, Matt,

I found the book to be an awesome read. And I enjoyed the conversation with the two of you.

I thought it was fun. You know me. I could talk about MotoGP all day long. I just get

such a kick out of talking to Matt because he's not a, I know people that are super into MotoGP

that are just into MotoGP. And like, they know exactly who, who finished first, second, and third

at the Italian Grand Prix in 2013. You can like, they're, they're encyclopedic in their knowledge,

but he has this like really holistic view and he's such a historian. He's so interested in,

in what's happened in the past and how it affects what we do now. And he, he has like

just this vast knowledge. I just, I just find it. So I don't, yeah, that little, the little tidbit I

threw in an engine time guessing game where I mentioned that like bike from 19 World War

one or whatever that I happened to know about. And he was sort of like, that's actually the

bike that BMW is based on. Like he just, he, he can barely push anything by him. He just knows

so much about so much. I think it's, I think it's the, you know, my personal history background

is probably why I like his writing so much, but also how I like talking to him because he has a

way of incorporating historical facts where it makes the story more well rounded, both in his

conversation style as well as his writing style. He's the kind of guy you would want to just sit

and have a beer with and talk about motorcycling. And, you know, that's what Mark has got to do,

lucky chap. Yeah, you could learn a little bit about MotoGP, but it wouldn't just be about

who came in first, second, and third, you know, true enough. All right, well, we'll move the

podcast along. We should. Oh, you know, this is actually a good segue because the, we're going

to move on to the comments and you win a t-shirt if you have this comment, but also Nicholas,

who sent us in the audio clip of their 2015 BMW R 1200 RT, make sure you shoot us an email at

the high side, low side at Revzilla.com. Get us your address as well as your preferred t-shirt

style and size. And we will get you a high side, low side t-shirt that there are a few different

high side, low side t-shirts out there in the wild now. So you get to pick the style that you want

as well as your size as well. We got to the future winner. We got to get Matt Oxley, high

side, low side t-shirt. Does he have one? We should send him like one of every high side,

we should blow up his mailbox the way he blew up our mailboxes with Mark, the Magnificent Books.

Indeed. Okey-doke. The high side, low side comment slash review came in this time via

email, I think, from George, but this is a friendly reminder that you can leave a review

on Apple podcasts or on Spotify. You can leave a comment on Spotify, YouTube, whatever you like.

And we will take them all into account as best we can. And if we pick your comment, question,

or hateful diatribe, then you win a t-shirt. And this one, like I said, comes in from George.

What did George have to say here, Spur Joe? If this is stupid, please forgive me. I know I've

emailed y'all a lot. I enjoyed the episodes on the history and the lore of the Goldwing in the SV650.

So why not do a dinosaur dual sport episode featuring the KLR650, DR650, XR650L, and perhaps

even the DRZ400 and T-Dubs 200? The history of dual sports is very, very interesting. And the

current divergence in the market between 80s and 90s tech in the DRXR and TW contrasted with the

traction control modes of the 690 and the ride modes, the new DRZ, the new offerings in the 390

models, et cetera, is all an interesting rift in the market. That's what George has to say. Zach,

what is your gut reaction about the dinosaur dual sport episode that he threw forth and

pontificated on? Well, I think it's a fun idea. I don't know exactly what it looks like. We

haven't really done a full brainstorm on this, George. I apologize. But I do think it's a fun

idea because it's an interesting genre of motorcycles, I think, because progress is the

thing that most people end up talking about. And it's the thing that companies like to talk about

most in the, you know, like new hot metal, right? We talk about new hot metal a lot. Our last episode

was about best of 2026, like coming bikes, like what's exciting, what's new? The Kawasaki knew

that, the brand new BMW that. And we like talking about that stuff. But this genre of motorcycles

is sort of like evergreen in its interest because these bikes don't change. And it's

fascinating. It really is interesting. I think that's been some of the, that's been some of what

we've had fun with. Even like he mentions the SV 650 episode or the Goldwing episode, like for me,

getting into some of that research and looking into it, you know, thinking about like when we've

done the used bike episodes, like it's fun to go back and look and like, oh, this is a cool bike

to buy. Yeah, it's almost like it's almost similar to that. And the fact that like, you know, the

technology really hasn't drastically changed for a lot of these miles. Like if you bought,

if you bought a KLR 650 from 20 years ago and you compared it to a KLR 650 today,

there'd be some 35 years differences, but like it's largely going to be the same bike.

Yeah. And I think that's interesting, you know, George brought up the Goldwing and the SV 650

and those bikes in my mind are, you know, maybe arguably similarly iconic, but really different

in one key way, which is that a Goldwing started off as a certain thing and has steadily progressed

into the evolution has been really transformational. Whereas the SV 650 was introduced and then

evolved, but then it over evolved to the point where people were like, I don't like this anymore,

just give me the thing that you made in 1999 again, please, with fuel injection and around

headlight. That's what I want. I want the thing that you made before. And so he made it again.

And it's a terrific bike, just like it was in 1999. I think that's really interesting that

those two bikes have had really different trajectories, but are similarly iconic in our

minds. I want to, I want to go back. So while I'm looking for it, Zach, I do believe that you

wrote an article. That would be a relevant call out here. I do. I do want to call that out. Is

now the time for my shameless plug? I think it should be. Let me take you back viewers to 2018

when I and my lovely, lovely colleagues, Harry Henning and Spencer Robert worked for Motor

Cyclist Magazine. And we made a little YouTube series called onto wheels, which grew eventually

into our Revzilla series, CTXP. Anyway, I digress. I wrote an article for Motor Cyclist Magazine

in 2018. And the title was Riding Dinosaurs. It was a three way comparative test between the

2018 Honda XR650L, Kawasaki KLR650 and Suzuki DR650S3 of the machines that George brought up first.

And I call this out in such specificity because I am kind of proud of that article that I wrote.

And Spencer Robert took some awesome photos of us riding and of the bikes themselves. And there's a,

I think, like I said, I don't want to toot my horn too much, but I think a decent write up of

the bikes, what they mean, why they're still important and why they could always be important

even if you don't, even if they never progressed at all. They're still valid,

both for context in the world of motorcycling today and also just for pure enjoyment.

So I would say you should read Zach's article. We'll try and find a link and go to my previous

employer's website. Yeah, I think you need to search for my name and then the brand,

and then the, what am I trying to say? Dinosaurs? My name, no, no, not the title,

but like the model of bikes, like you search for KLR650, XR650, Zach Courts, you might find it.

Anyway, we'll see if we can take it up for you and throw it out there. The other thing,

George is a few seasons ago, we did do an episode entitled what makes a dual sport and why it matters.

So if you're just looking for some interesting dual sport content, Spencer Robert co-hosted

that one with me and we had Patrick Garvin on and we dove a little bit into what makes a dual

sport and why it matters. But outside of that, George, we will take your suggestion into account

and maybe in a future season, we'll dive into a dinosaur dual sport episode or something like

that. So thank you. Thank you, George, for writing in. Don't forget to shoot us an email

to highsidelowside at revzilla.com. For those of you out there, you can be like George and

throw in a question, comment or review to Apple, Spotify or our email address. George,

we need your address, your preferred t-shirt size and your high side, low side preferred

t-shirt style and we will get you a shirt mailed out. Sparjo, this has been fun. What's your

big old, as we, sorry, let me back up a little bit. I'm still shaking the rust off here.

Quick reminder to send us an email at highsidelowside at revzilla.com with your comment

question or complaint and you could leave a comment on YouTube if you're watching there

or on Spotify, if you're listening or watching there or on Apple podcasts, if that's where you

listen. We love hearing from you in almost any way, shape or form. So please do remember to hit us

up if you have thoughts, comments, concerns. Zachary, I'm left with this. So we just talked

about an episode from season six, episode five, what makes a dual sport and why it matters.

You were not co-hosting on that episode. That was not. And why was that?

Um, I actually don't remember. Was the, when, when was it, who, who, without, would you do that one

with them? Spenser hosted that one with me. Right. Um, I'll, I'll fill in the blanks here.

You're welcoming your first child into the world and. Oh, it was paternity leave. That was why I

missed it. Yes. All right. Okay. So it would have been about three years ago now then. And, uh,

and I just want to say, uh, I know that you have, um, you and your, your family have just

welcomed in your second child to the world. And you are joining us right before you are heading

out on maternity leave. Uh, we alluded at the beginning of the episode that you have a lot

going on right now. You're recovering still from a motorcycle crash. You have a new child.

And I just wanted to say thank you, uh, on behalf of our audience for, for making the time today

to sit down and talk about MotoGP. Um, I know that you have a lot going on, uh, in your personal

life. And it just means a lot that you were able to, to work this in. It's by far, I'm sure,

not the most important thing, uh, on your, on your docket today. Um, but it does mean a lot

that you took the time. And, and I just want to say congratulations to you and your family.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. And I do, um, I do sometimes question,

um, why when I have such a lovely wife and partner and such a rad little boy and, uh,

why I made the time to record a motorcycle podcast, but the truth is I do love doing this too.

And I, I like talking about bikes and I, I love any opportunity to talk to Mr. Matt Oxley,

as you know, and, um, have a lot of respect for, for you and, uh, Mr. Chase as well. Um, and, uh,

and I, I'm lucky to have the support of, um, my family to do this even in a time when our household

is, um, upside down and backwards. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, I do need to, um, go, uh, get in a,

get in a lift, uh, here and, and go to a follow-up with a follow-up doctor appointment with my spine

surgeon to see if my broken neck is healing as scheduled. And I will be crutching myself with

my broken ankle to that, uh, car because I can't drive there myself. Um, yet again, uh,

don't know why she puts up with me. Um, if you're, if you're new to the, if you're new to the

high side low side podcast, that might sound a lot heavier, uh, out of the context of what's

going on in Zach's life. So just go back about two episodes and you can get a, a, a complete

deep dive as to Zach's recovery from a motorcycle accident, uh, that happened, uh, later at the

tail end of 2025. There's so much great content here on high side, low side. We get a little

touch, you'll laugh, you'll cry here. We touch on lots of stuff. It's, um, it's, uh,

it's Mark Marquez. It's Zach's new baby and everything in between. I appreciate you calling

that out, Spurge and, um, and, and give me a little tip of the cap there. That means a lot. Um,

but I do appreciate you and, uh, Mr. Chase for accommodating my schedule and all of you, um,

listening and watching for, you know, part of another discussion, uh, with us here. I had fun

and, um, I think I speak for Spurge when I say we hope that we see you next time.

Yeah. Get out of here. Go your doctor's appointment. Bye-bye. See everybody.

S11E08: Marc Márquez: The Magnificent or the Merciless?

engine oil

gear oil

shaft drive motorcycle

gearbox

two-stroke

50cc

125cc

Montesa

Derby

Chrysler Country Town

MotoGP

Lossai Grand Prix

Formula One

Fso 125

first gear

500 cc

Michelin

Bridgestone

Morelli software

Honda

Yamaha

Ducati

Kawasaki

flat twin

Toyota A90

About this episode

Original notes