With the Honda-Kalex bromance in tatters, paddock insiders claim that Taylor Swift will be hired to design the Japanese factory’s next MotoGP chassis in a desperate attempt to improve their fortunes.
Honda are in crisis. Their RC213V bike is pure evil. Its riders have the same casualty rate as French protesters when the riot police show up. But has it really come to the point where HRC will take design advice from an enormously tall pop poppet best known for breaking up with members of every boy band known to mankind? Let’s look at the list of people that Honda are believed to be considering as co-designers of their next MotoGP chassis and find out:
The Romans
It’s important that Honda’s design partners have relevant experience. The Romans made good use out of the ballista catapult for hundreds of years. Its ability to launch objects through the air is reminiscent of the RC213V.
Pro: Romans are Italian, and might mimic Ducati’s ability to, uh, “creatively” interpret the current rule book.
Con: Modern Romans are less suited to chassis design and more suited to riding scooters, sipping stupidly small cups of coffee and saying “Ciao”.
Verdict: Fractured scaphoid
Medieval Europeans
The Medieval period was the heyday of stoutly-built castles. To batter their way into these strongholds, the people of Medieval Europe often used the trebuchet catapult. This had definite similarities to the RC213V.
Pro: Trebuchets are undergoing something of a renaissance after going out of fashion during, well, the Renaissance.
Con: Unlikely to get down to the weight limit for MotoGP bikes.
Verdict: Dislocated collar bone
Texans
When they’re not too busy cooking up sphincter-torching chilli dishes, the Texans like to go to rodeo contests. A rodeo bull has much in common with the RC213V.
Pro: Bulls consume no fossil fuels.
Con: The large amounts of material emanating from the other end of the bull could put MotoGP journalists out of business.
Verdict: Chipped bone in throttle hand
Hammer Throwers
In the world of track and field athletics, hammer throwers have the distinction of being marginally less scary than shot putters. Their ability to launch objects tens of metres through the air to an inevitable hard landing jibes well with the RC213V design philosophy.
Pro: Spinning round and round before throwing a rider into the distance would be a really spectacular feature for a MotoGP chassis.
Con: Would eat the entire contents of a hospitality suite daily.
Verdict: Concussion
Taylor Swift
Tay-Tay isn’t known for winning MotoGP races, but neither is the RC213V. What the two have in common is an incredible ability to chuck, discard and jettison large numbers of young men. Victims of both end up turning into gibbering wrecks with a thousand-yard stare who never want to set eyes on their nemesis again, and dearly wish that they’d never signed up in the first place. Ms Swift would not only have many tips on this for the Japanese chassis designers, but could also put them into catchy song format. This would surely help her ideas to get through the language barrier.
Pro: Would leave riders broken-hearted instead of just broken-armed and broken-legged.
Con: Her fans are the music equivalent of Rossi Muppets.
Verdict: Broken humerus, botched repair surgery and double vision
Conclusion
Could Taylor Swift design the next Honda MotoGP chassis? There’s no reason why not. The only possible hitch is that Honda have just 4 MotoGP riders, and throwing that few boys at the scenery might not be enough to come up with an album’s worth of her trademark breakup songs.