Whether you like the man or not, you have to admit that Cal Crutchlow is looking good this year on the satellite Honda with LCR, as he sits 6th overall in the Championship.
Cal has always been one of the most underrated riders in the MotoGP paddock — you’ll know this because he’s the first one to tell you. It’s sort of like CrossFit.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big Cal Crutchlow fan. He is affable in person, and meaner than a terrier on the track — my two big criteria for any motorcycle racer.
However, it’s getting harder and harder to cheer for the British rider, even though he’s posting some of the best results ever in his GP career.
While everyone likes an underdog, no one likes a complainer. An integral element to the charm of an underdog, a part Crutchlow has played strongly in his career thus far, is the fact that with more resources, with more people in his corner, with more people believing in him, so much more could be achieved with that talent.
This statement is of course true for Crutchlow, without a doubt; but the key ingredient that comes from the power of being an underdog is that it comes from the public at large…not the competitors themselves. In fact, the only thing people hate more than a sore loser, is a sore winner.
I cringe every time I hear Crutchlow’s quote from the winner’s circle of the Argentinian GP — “I’d like to thank all the people that wrote me off” — not because I worry that Crutchlow is snubbing the people that still decide his future, but instead because I worry that comments like those will ultimately push away those who have supported him through the tumultuous years, leaving him alone in his success when he finally reaches it.
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Photo: © 2015 Tony Goldsmith / www.tonygoldsmith.net – All Rights Reserved
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