In this Freddie Spencer Special, let’s see what 3 movies we can vaguely link to the MotoGP happenings in Jerez.
The Drama
Movie: Die Hard With a Vengeance
The 3rd Die Hard movie sees Bruce Willis teaming up with Samuel L Jackson to battle an insane opponent played by uber-ham Jeremy Irons. The bad guy calls himself Simon and plays a game of Simon Says with our heroes, making them perform ever more ludicrous tasks for no apparent reason.
Several riders at Jerez found themselves in a similar situation to Bruce and Sam.
Simon says take a long lap penalty.
– Why?
Who knows?
Simon says take another long lap.
– What for?
[Shrug]
Overtake Jack Miller.
– OK.
Ha, I didn’t say Simon Says!!! Now you have to drop one place!
More Drama
Movie: 2001: A Space Odyssey
In this movie, astronauts are heading to Jupiter when HAL, the computer that controls the spaceship, starts acting erratically. Why? It’s not clear. Eventually he completely loses it and starts bumping off members of the crew.
At Jerez, the penalty decisions from the stewards were so random and erratic that some members of the paddock were convinced that they were being taken by a hyper-intelligent supercomputer that was slowly going insane for unknown reasons.
Even More Drama
Movie: One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
This Oscar-winning classic sees patients in a mental institution being terrorized by the deranged Nurse Ratched. She rules with an iron fist, imposing harsh punishments for the slightest infringement. Jack Nicholson’s character McMurphy eventually tries to lead a rebellion against her. (The movie is very different from the book, where McMurphy is a secondary character and the big Indian Chief is the hero but Nurse Ratched is still a total psycho).
The Stewards Panel at Jerez went full Nurse Ratched on the riders, issuing swingeing penalties for people who had seemingly done nothing wrong and hammering people who had made minor infringements. This is standard procedure for power-crazed authority figures as it keeps everyone guessing so they’re scared to say boo to a goose, let alone stand up for their rights.