You should've stopped reading at 'fucktard'

I'm not going to go all Chris Christie on you, but I put a post up late on Friday night, in Spain, that excoriated Cycle World and AMA Pro Racing for appropriating the Superprestigio.

The only reason it came to my attention was that I got a flurry of emails from people saying, "Hey, it would've been nice of them to give you credit." And the truth is, it would've been big of them to point out that they were only covering the event at all because, thanks to my Backmarker column on Motorcycle-USA, Brad Baker had been invited. 

The worst part of my little fit of pique wasn't the language I used, it was that I was being stupid. 

The reason I called out Marc Marquez in the first place is that I love the Grand National Championship, and want to raise its profile any way I can. I want to help the GNC regain its past glory and relevance, and I was stupid to be mad at DMG in the guise of AMA Pro Racing for wanting to tag along. That should have been my goal and in fact I did offer to write press releases for them from the event. (They never responded.) Because my feelings were hurt --I know: sniff--I dumped on AMA Pro, saying things calculated to rub them the wrong way. Not too mature.

Furthermore, I didn't only want to raise the profile of the GNC in Europe, I wanted to raise it here, by illustrating how much respect European fans, at least, have for our flat track tradition--more respect than U.S. fans show for it. Cycle World helped with that, a lot. (And in fact, about a week before flying out, I offered them a written account to use in  print and got a one line "no thanks" email. It's not as if I was popular there to start with.)

Anyway, my plan worked: Brad Baker gained nearly a thousand Twitter followers in two days, doubling his social media reach, and Bike--probably the most respected English-language motorcycle magazine--asked me to cover the Peoria TT this season.

So, mea culo, I mean, 'culpa'. I was wrong to call AMA Pro Racing and Cycle World 'fucktards'.