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Jason Dupasquier, Mugello and the courage of the curious Ulysses

Many years ago an old mentor told me: " either we stop racing or we stop crying". Circuits are like the cave of Polyphemus, the dangerous place where we landed with a thirst for adventure. And this is where we find young Ulysses like Jason

Jason Dupasquier, Mugello and the courage of the curious Ulysses

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As Marquez said it was a disastrous weekend and when I left the Mugello circuit I had the usual thought of having escaped from the Cyclops's cave. Do you remember the legend? Ulysses was saved thanks to his cunning from a high-risk situation in which he had put himself because of his desire for adventure.

He saved himself, but not all of his companions: it has always been like this, the god of adventure devours his children, yet no man - it would be better to say certain types of men - do not give up risk in order to feel emotions.

After all, humanity has always lived on the subtle balance between hunters and gatherers. Between those who are happy with what life offers naturally and those who try to grab from existence what flees from us every day, that moment, living it as fully as possible in the illusion of immortality. I risk therefore I am. I offer the most precious thing I have - my own life - because I want to fill my soul with the immense.

In a society that aims to minimize risk and put on a blacklist those who do not adapt, motorcyclists, or at least all those sportsmen where an error is paid for with something more than a sprained ankle represent the relief valve of an increasingly feel-good and fearful humanity, aligned towards a homologation that is not suitable for our race.

For this reason, when what unfortunately happened last Saturday happens, a sentence pronounced by an old mentor of mine, Ezio Pirazzini, journalist of Il Resto del Carlino and my Virgilio together with Gianbattista Marcheggiani of Corriere dello Sport comes to mind while I was taking my first steps in motorcycle racing in the late '70s: "either we stop racing or we stop crying". Which does not mean to passively suffer tragedies, but on the contrary to thank those who by deciding to choose the less easy way show us the road towards the satisfaction of our passions, which must not be repressed but rather exalted.

Let us also cry for the loss of a very young life, but without the rhetoric of 'he was doing what he loved'. Jason Dupasquier was a brave and prepared young man who certainly, like all his colleagues, thought about minimizing the risks, while facing them, because even at the age of 19 you can have the courage of Ulysses to live an adventure.

 

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