Rennie Scaysbrook | January 5, 2022
Cycle News Lowside
COLUMN
Bring on 2022!
The year 2021 can absolutely kiss off.
Although, admittedly, it was better than 2020, I will still look back on 2021 as a year to forget, and, as clichéd as it sounds, a new year brings with it new optimism and thus a chance to fulfill untapped potential.
New year, new optimism. Let’s do this!
On a personal note, 2022 will (Covid permitting/God willing) be the year I finally get to tick the big one off the list in the Isle of Man TT. My entry into the two Supersport TTs on a Suzuki GSX-R600 for the PRF Racing squad has dragged on for two and a half years now, after I was given the green light to compete back in 2019 not long after the final Pikes Peak Hill Climb. That’s plenty of time to convince myself I shouldn’t be doing the race—but not enough time to heed my own advice.
At this point, I’d like to give a public and wholehearted suck up to my boss, Sean Finley, for allowing me to realize a dream I thought was out of reach, and to represent Cycle News at the oldest and most famous motorcycle race on the planet. I cannot wait.
With our winter (and, indeed, the Australian summer I’ve just experienced) spelling the dreaded suspension of competition, it is with bated breath I’ll be following the 2022 Dakar Rally. By the time you read this, the world’s best rally racers will be about three days into their Saudi Arabian adventure, and both my countries of the USA and Australia have a very legitimate shot of taking the title.
Being an Aussie, I can’t back anyone other than the ironman Toby Price or the young contender to his throne in Daniel Sanders, but I’m secretly hoping Skyler Howes gets a great result simply because of where he came from. This is a guy who has laid it all on the line—financially and personally—to climb the ladder and gain that elusive factory ride, and the Utah man knows this is his best chance yet at landing on the podium.
And you cannot discount Ricky Brabec, the 2020 winner who at long last ended KTM’s near two-decade winning streak on the factory Honda. The So Cal High Desert hauler will be one to watch, but he’s got a new teammate in former Husqvarna man Pablo Quintanilla, who is desperate to get the Dakar monkey off his back and claim a first victory.
Stay tuned to Cycle News as I’ll bring you a recap of each day’s action and don’t forget to tune into the Dakar Rally Daily podcast with Jesse Ziegler and Quinn Cody on this site, as they use the extensive reach of this publication to get ahold of as many of the main players as possible for up-to-the-minute analysis of this great race.
The coming 12 months will be the first in a massive 26 years that we will not have the great Valentino Rossi on the grid in grand prix racing, and I, for one, am pleased about it. Not because I’m not a Valentino fan—I’ve been an admirer of the legend from day one—but the time was definitely right for him to step aside and give a young gun a shot, and I hated seeing a man who was so damn good toiling around at the back of the pack.
My eternal hope was we’d see Garrett Gerloff get the spot on the grid, but we’ll have to be content with him hopefully getting a few wins and perhaps fighting for the title in WorldSBK. Instead, Yamaha gave the place to a rookie who’s never even ridden a Moto2 bike, so time will tell if it was a Jack Miller-style stroke of genius or something of a misstep.
MotoGP looks like it’ll be as awesome as ever, and I’ve got to think Francesco Bagnaia is odds on for the title, even at this early stage. The man has such style on the factory Ducati and after coming on so strong at the end of last year, he’s got to have the others worried already.
I sincerely hope Marc Marquez can come back after yet another gigantic injury. It would be a tragedy if the eight-time world champion were to be reduced to a shadow of his former self by way of an enduro training accident, but if there’s anyone who has the ability to come back from things that would cause many a rider to simply give up, it’s got to be him.
Before I go, I would like to extend Cycle News’ deepest condolences to the Hayden family following the death of patriarch, Earl, after a long battle with cancer. It’s hard to imagine a man who has been more influential on his sons’ racing careers as Earl, who has now joined the most famous of the Hayden brothers trio, Nicky, in that great racetrack in the sky. American racing has lost a true legend.
I hold an optimistic outlook for 2022. Covid and its many variants be damned—it’s time for us to get back on our feet and back to doing what we love, which is riding, writing, reviewing, racing and chit-chatting about motorcycles. Here’s to a rocking 2022! CN
