Success is the ability to go from one failure to another without losing enthusiasm
– Winston Churchill

ML Magazine is Mirco Lazzari‘s new editorial venture: a journey through photography, sports, culture and colors. Mirco Lazzari is one of the best known and most appreciated photographers of the MotoGP and Superbike World Championships and has taken some of the most famous shots in all of motorsport. We are honored to be able to host his work on our pages. You can read the full edition of ML Magazine at the link below.

The tale of this great feat seems almost trivial: two strong riders running for two great Manufacturers, challenging each other to the last race for the title. But trivial is the wrong adjective to pair with the grand finale of the 2002 World Superbike season. Opposite, divided by a single point, are Texan Colin Edwards, 2000 world champion and factory Honda rider, and Troy Bayliss, Australian, defending champion and heart and soul of Ducati. Two champions, but above all, two real men. Two who came up without too many updrafts, who do not need organized fans and puppets to feel loved. They are not two angel faces, but they enjoy unlimited trust from the managers and the people. Troy was fished out of the periphery of motorcycling that matters, but those who chose him knew immediately that he was a diamond, perhaps a rough but valuable one. Colin is one of the last flashes of the great American school and is the man on whom Honda has built its challenge to Ducati: beat them in Superbike with a twin-cylinder bike. A decidedly resounding challenge.

Bayliss and Ducati experience a great first half of the 2002 season, then Honda unleashes its R&D preparing “evolution” material for the VTR that has just won with Edwards and Katoh the Suzuka 8 Hours, the most important race for Japanese manufacturers. Nine wins in a row in 2002 for Colin but Troy is one point away… It’s September, at Imola, one of the most beautiful tracks in the world, there are over 100,000 passionate spectators. Because when there’s a big show, the problem is fixing the people, not making them come. The tension is cut with a knife, it is a duel to the death that the two face with great naturalness. Tense as violin strings, but ready to play it even and without hysteria, as in an Old West duel. And here it becomes clear that Edwards, as a good Texan who loves guns, has some advantage. But the Australian is not trembling and has the same strategy in mind: beat his rival and win the title.
It went well for Edwards and Honda, twice first, but people cheered both. There was no villain in that western, even though Bayliss’s motorcycle factory is less than fifty kilometers (of via Emilia) from Imola. It was one of the most beautiful races in the world in terms of content and emotional tension. The two of them, needless to say, rode like champions, so much so that Bayliss’s only possible ally, fellow brand mate Ruben Xaus, ardent, aggressive, and Gascon, only succeeded that day in tagging along with the two masters, like a good little schoolboy.

On the evening of September 29, 2002, Troy and Colin were no longer two rivals: they had become two people deeply bonded by having participated in the greatest battle in Superbike. In a season in which, out of 26 heats, they let others win only one, the human…

A few months later their careers changed abruptly: both moved to MotoGP. Bayliss with the overpowering Ducati, Edwards with the unmanageable Aprilia RS Cube. They are no longer two top riders, but they remain two great riders loved by the public and, above all, two great men. We are in Motegi, it is October 5, and the Pacific GP is being raced. Ready to go, the first corner comes and John Hopkins decides to delay the braking beyond all limits, hitting Carlos Checa. A “beaner” is triggered that leaves even Bayliss on the escape route, who realizes his race is over in an instant. But the keen eye catches sight of Colin’s Aprilia planted in the gravel and unable to get out. “No marshals came to help me,” Edwards declares, “then I felt a vigorous push and was able to get going again. Out of the corner of my eye I saw it was Troy, thank you very much!”

For the record, Edwards finished in 17th place a minute and a half behind Biaggi, the race winner. But he still put in his best effort, partly to honor the friend who had helped him. Fair play, please. And you will see, dear young riders, that even after 20 years they will remember you!

June 27, 2013

Assen circuit, Hoge Heide corner, Thursday free practice: Jorge Lorenzo crashes at 238 km/h breaking his left collarbone. Brought to Barcelona by private flight, he is operated on in the early hours of Friday (with the insertion of a titanium plate and eight screws into the bone) and brought back to Assen in the afternoon of the same day.

After the doctors’ okay, he returned to the track for Saturday’s warm up and race, accomplishing a feat: racing 48 hours after an injury and 36 hours after undergoing surgery, finishing in fifth place.

All photographs and content on this page are the property of Mirco Lazzari and are republished here with the consent of the author and his associates.