December, for so many years, was not simply the end of the season. It was the month of the Golden Helmets. That statuette - small, not even that flashy to see it there on the table - became over time the Oscar of motorcycling. All riders, from all categories, dreamed of having it at home: it meant one thing, that you had won a world title.
The 125 champions were coming, the 250 champions ... but the real wait was for them, the lords of the 500 World Championship. The absolute stars of MotoGP. The first one, the progenitor, was Barry Sheene. From there on, every year, that statuette ended up in the hands of the greatest. And it was not a "passing" award. I saw it in many homes, that statuette: there were those who kept it in an important piece of furniture in the living room, those who put it next to the motorcycle with which they had won the World Championship. Because so many, at home, had the very bike of the title: Freddy Spencer, Kenny Roberts, and on and on all the champions of the late 1970s, the 1980s, the 1990s and then the new century. The Golden Helmet was there, next to pieces of motorcycling history.
The great thing was that they were really coming to Bologna to get it. It wasn't an award sent in the mail or picked up on the fly. A real party was organized, which over the years has changed form a thousand times: from the almost private evening to the big Motor Show kermesse, to the packed theaters, with special guests and packed audiences. The Golden Helmets were, for all intents and purposes, the party of motorcycling. A time when, for one evening, the worlds of the track, the press, and the fans came together under one roof.
And then, of course, there were the gags, the unexpected, the skits. Many drivers would arrive in Italy without fully understanding what was in store for them. "There's a prize, you have to go to Bologna," more or less the briefing. But they were arriving. And that was the important thing.
Angry or hungry? English lessons with Eddie Lawson
The Golden Helmets also taught me English--in their own way.
Once I was accompanying Eddie Lawson to the gala dinner. We were almost there, I wanted to ask him if he was hungry, and with all the confidence of my school English, I say, "Are you angry?"
He looks at me and replies, "No, I'm not angry. I'm very hungry ." I'm not angry, I'm very hungry. From that day on, the difference between angry and hungry I never got it wrong again.
Another scene I carry in my heart is the one with Kevin Schwantzat the Bologna Motor Show, in the years when we were talking about a million spectators. There was an incredible crowd, every time we stopped we were literally swamped.
At one point Kevin looked at me and said, "Stefano, don't stop. If I stop, I'm ruined." We had already stopped twice and couldn't get going again, so many people were huddling around him. It was a measure of how beloved those drivers were, and how much the Golden Helmet had become a highly anticipated event for the fans as well.
1990 was a special year: they became world champions Wayne Rainey (500) and John Kocinski (250.) With Wayne I had a very good relationship. I told him:
"You have to come to Bologna to pick up the world champion award." He surprises me - and, I admit, a thread unnerves me - by replying, "Yes, I'm coming, but you have to talk to my manager." I was afraid everything would get complicated from there on: flights, hotels, strange requests... Instead, the simplest thing in the world happened.
I talk to the manager, who is also Kocinski's manager: he sets a one-time fee for both of us, absolutely in line with what we had planned, and adds, "Don't worry, we'll arrange the planes and hotels." Perfect.
I pick them up at the airport and accompany them to theHotel Baglioni, which was then the most elegant hotel in downtown Bologna. We make an appointment for the gala evening. There another little drama arises: Rainey lost his luggage during the trip. Inside was his tuxedo. He cared so much about showing up in a tuxedo at the awards ceremony. I try to reassure him, "But no, don't worry, you look great as it is, you have the jacket, you look great..."
In the evening I pick them up at the hotel. Wayne arrives first, soberly dressed, elegant but not "gala." Then, from the staircase, John Kocinski appears: black tuxedo, bow tie, and especially almost fluorescent orange sash. A glimpse.
Rainey looks at him and, laughing, exclaims, "Oh, orange man!"
From there the evening takes an almost surreal turn. Between the tension of the missed tuxedo, Kocinski's exaggerated elegance and the atmosphere of the dinner, there is that mixture of irony and levity that has always made the Golden Helmets something different from all other award ceremonies. After dinner, after the awards are presented and the usual photos are taken, I escort them back to the hotel. Wayne is still a little sorry for not having his tuxedo: he felt almost "less tidy" than the others, despite the fact that he was the 500 world champion.
And it is in the car, on that drive home, that he tells me something I have never forgotten:
"I'll tell you the truth: I came here because my manager told me 'You have to go there, there's this Golden Helmets, they pay your expenses, you have to go to Bologna to pick up an award.' I had no idea what I was coming to do. Now I've figured it out: this is the best award I've ever received in my career, except of course those won on the track."
There, in that sentence is the whole meaning of the Golden Helmets: an award born in Italy, built with the passion of an editorial staff and a city, but capable of being loved by the world's greatest champions.
For years, December has had that scent there: the smell of a gala, of distant gasoline, of tracks just filed and dreams already projected to the next season.
And in between, on the table, a small helmet-shaped figurine that, for those who won it, was worth as much as another world title.