Review: Casey Stoner: Pushing The Limits

Although famously loath to speak to anyone with a media pass throughout his MotoGP career, when prodded by journalists Casey Stoner was reliably honest, at times subversive, and routinely inflammatory (or just simply blunt, depending on where your allegiances lay).  So it would be fair to suggest that Hachette Australia, Pushing The Limit’s publisher, probably set aside a healthy budget for fact checking in preparation of the book’s release.

Property Hachette Australia

The first few chapters are standard sportsperson biography: the early days where they discover a talent and a love for their craft, followed by years of parents duly driving them around to compete against other youngsters with similar dreams, and graduating through the ranks spurred on by continued success.

The book really hits its stride though when Casey’s dad Colin digs up the money he buried in their backyard (seriously), sells the house and with wife Bronwyn takes Casey, aged 14, to Europe.  Once there they live on baked beans and sleep in a caravan, eking out a barren existence focused solely on making the most of their son’s prodigious talent.  The stories of financial struggle (a hungry teenage Casey hanging outside his mechanic’s house one frosty morning hoping to be invited inside for breakfast comes to mind) are at once both at odds with the glamorous façade projected by top-tier motorsport, and a testament to the sacrifices required of those who will one day be World Champion.

Once Stoner gets to MotoGP however, the book takes on a very different, altogether more incisive tone.  Intensely private, this may be the last we hear from him publicly, in which case he’s going out with all guns blazing.

Stoner has never been shy about giving frank assessments of those in the MotoGP paddock, which over the years made him a favourite target for jingoistic supporters of his rivals – I doubt the politically correct Dani Pedrosa has ever been spat on by Valentino Rossi fans, nor has Nicky Hayden ever been booed at, of all places, a charity auction.  However none of these slings nor arrows over the years have tempered Stoner’s will to tell it like it is, and tell it like it was he does.

In the book’s final stanza Stoner explains amongst other things his very public disagreements with Dorna CEO and MotoGP head honcho Carmelo Ezpeleta, why he was dissatisfied with the management services of Randy Mamola and WMG, and his fall-out with Ducati’s top brass.  It’s incendiary stuff, and I suppose that Stoner plans to rely on the one solid defense to allegations of slander: that it’s the truth.

Perhaps more provocatively, he indulgently revels in schadenfreude as he recalls Rossi’s difficulties at Ducati after replacing Stoner at the Bologna factory in 2011.  At the end of 2010 Rossi’s crew chief Jeremy Burgess declared publicly that Stoner clearly wasn’t any good at bike development, and that he and Rossi would ‘fix (Ducati’s Desmosedici) in 80 seconds’.  In 2013 Rossi and Burgess schlepped back to Yamaha with no wins and only 3 podium finishes during the two years they wore red.

All of this would simply sound like Stoner taking time out of his busy fishing schedule to take pot shots at the schoolyard bullies were it not for the fact that he is equally quick to thank those who reciprocated his loyalty throughout his career.  Alberto Vergani, CEO of helmet manufacturer Nolan, is noted for his generosity at various stages of Stoner’s career, as is Lucio Cecchinello, owner of LCR Honda, for helping Stoner to break into MotoGP despite a lack of funding.  Honda bosses Shuhei Nakamoto and Livio Suppo also get the thumbs up, as do Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovisioso for their talent on and mutual respect off the track.

Most indicative though is Stoner’s evident fondness for Alberto Puig, former 250cc Grand Prix racer and Stoner’s mentor during his progression from the British and Spanish national championships into the lower World Championship categories.  Stoner declines to reveal why they parted ways, preferring instead to remember how, as he along with parents Colin and Bronwyn tried to make a go of it in Europe, Alberto and his father invited the Stoners to live on Puig Sr.’s farm rent-free when they weren’t racing so they could make the most of what little money they had.

Ultimately, while Stoner’s criticisms of the less scrupulous people lurking in the MotoGP paddock will no doubt grab the headlines, it’s his appreciative praise of those without whom he wouldn’t have two World Championships that really shines through.

This is essential reading for not only anyone even remotely interested in motorcycle racing, but also those who harbour loftier than average goals and might be in need of a little extra encouragement.  Whether you love it or hate it will depend on who you cheer for when the lights go out at 2 pm on Sunday afternoon.