JT52 Retires

[paiste]

Well I've been told the sad news that Jame Toseland has had to retire from racing due to his wrist/hand injury that got testing earlier in the year. :(:(:(

I am truely gutted for him and it certainly must've been a very hard decision for him to make. All the time I saw him in Indianapolis he was doing exercises on his wrist and was confident that it would improve.
I had quite a long chat with him about the injury and it's lack of movement in the wrist that's the problem. He reckoned he needed another 10 degrees of movement and it would have been ok. The throttle on his BMW had such a quick action to try and compensate for the lack of movement that it was like "230 bhp with a f*cking on off switch!" because of that his traction control was that invasive that it was boggin down out of corners.

I know there are some Toseland bashers out there, why I can't quite work out as from the five days I spent with him and the band he is a seriously funny guy, king of the one liners but more importantly was 100% commited to his racing/training oh and a pretty good pianist and vocalist;)

[dazbo]

It's a shame to lose a Brit from the grid. The bashers will never take his 2 World titles from him!!

Good luck for the future JT52

[husky03]

biggest mistake he ever made was falling out with colin edwards, since then he was never gonna last in motoGP, pity because at the start of it all he looked if he would be bringing something to the top class grid.Still a world champion though.

[LankyIanB]

Top, top bloke, have spent many happy hours at WSBK races and at Crash! gigs with him. Really gutted that the Aragon injury proved to be a career ender for him.

Wishing him all the best for whatever challenges he sets himself for the future.

Paiste - is this the end of Crash! or are you going to increase the gig schedule now there aren't races to get in the way?

[muzikill]

Will be missed until he gets a commentary job on the bbc?. I still think his biggest error was going to the gp.

[Balky001]

I don't think it was an error going to MotoGP. He would alsways have regretted not trying. It's a shame but he hasn't been the same rider since his MotoGP injuries, even before this last one.

Good luck JT, see you on some Spanish Focused track days!

[andrewsmith]

Bloody shame
As he was devastatingly quick on a good day

[Biker Biggles]

Bad news.Met him at Ally Pally once and was very impressed.As a talented musician he will hopefully have a good second career.

[Messie]

Such a shame, on many levels :(

[paiste]

Paiste - is this the end of Crash! or are you going to increase the gig schedule now there aren't races to get in the way?

I very much doubt It's the end if Crash. They'll probably do the same amount of gigs. It's just as much Paul who has a full diary with his other music work. Hope I can work with them again, I'm just Gavs dep for the fly away gigs. Mind you, not sure how many more GP gigs they'll get now JT isn't racing. Double b*gger!

[muzikill]

I don't think it was an error going to MotoGP. He would alsways have regretted not trying. It's a shame but he hasn't been the same rider since his MotoGP injuries, even before this last one.

Good luck JT, see you on some Spanish Focused track days!

I felt if he had stayed on in SBK it would have been great watching win more titles.

[twowheels]

gotta agree, i think the gp move wasnt his best career choice, he is an excellent superbike racer

[T33OWL]

He's a top bloke, and he more than deserved his crack at GP's..

Gutted it hasn't worked out for him. And I wish him all the luck in the world wherever his future career takes him.

[fizzwheel]

I'm sure he's a nice guy, certainly from what I've seen on the rare occasions I have had paddock access he certianly seems that way, talking to fans signing stuff just before qualifying was due to start etc etc. Part of me thinks that his lack of success is down to sometimes perhaps he wasnt concentrating on the job in hand.

I also think he had to much pressure put on him in Moto GP by the British media and we expected to much to soon so he pushed to hard and then crashed and it knocked his confidence which he never recovered from.

I also think he actually started to believe his own hype. He is a talented rider, but good enough to beat Rossi, Stoner, Pedrosa or Lorenzo. Sorry but no.

Sad way to end his career through injury though. Nobody wants to end lilke that.

[AkiraSV]

I was gutted when I read of his retirement, top top guy and a great rider too!

I think people are quick to criticise JT, mostly because of his one bad year in GP's (his first year was pretty good, imo) and people forget he's a double WSB champion. Sad way to end a career as I'm sure with a decent ride underneath him he'd have been back at the front.

I agree about the pressure from the British media, I remember there being a hell of a lot of hype around him going to GPs - loads more than the hype around Cal who appears to having a tough time of it at the moment. And I sometimes wonder if the hype had a negative effect; I think some people got bored of hearing so much about him and then seeing him come home in 6th place - good result but doesn't equate to the hype behind it.

Either way, sad end to a great career.