Cal Crutchlow crashed in the first race at Oulton and finished sixth to get ten points and then crashed in the second race while leading and lost 25 points. If he had scored in those two races he would be four points behind Shane – would they have still given us a penalty then?
Whether they should or shouldn't have given it and whether we knew or we didn't know isn't the argument. The argument is purely that on the grounds of safety, we cannot jeopardise our riders or any others for that matter. If you bolt five bags of sugar onto a bike which is basically what we are being asked to do, you potentially could have problems. That is what we aren't prepared to put ourselves through.
Is someone at the MCRCB going to take responsibility for what we do by adding this ten kilos? A good example would the camera falling from
Casey Stoner's bike - that could have been fatal. Whose responsibility was that? Was it the guy who fitted the camera? Was it the mechanic who let the bike go out as it did? Was it the organisers for insisting they had to have a camera fitted? Was it the team for letting them fit a camera? It goes on and on.
The bottom line is that we are responsible to our riders and people will say 'bolt it on and let them ride'. But if something happens that causes a problem to our riders or others and a ten kilo lump of lead comes off and hits someone, it will be serious. All the other politics behind it is irrelevant now – it is safety that is our main concern.
NB: Crash.net has also attempted to contact the MCRCB for it's response, but they are currently unavailable for comment.
