Will the real Valentino Rossi please stand up?

Valentino Rossi didn't turn up to Brno. I never saw him. Some other guy wore his leathers and rode his No. 46 Yamaha M1.

Allegations of non-payment of tax has been big news in Italy in the week leading up to last weekend's Czech race; allegations that would have hurt the world's favourite motorcyclist right to his core.

Rossi is not by nature a cheat, nor is he underhand. It is difficult to believe that he did wicked things deliberately - he hardly has time to do anything else but race his MotoGP bike, test, do PR appearances and enjoy holidays in Ibiza.

And when he's not doing all of those things, then he's sleeping. It was listed as one of his hobbies when he was back racing 250s, something that I didn't believe until he sat opposite me on a long haul flight to Brazil one year. He remained curled up asleep and did not move for the whole trip.

Rossi cancelled all contact with the press throughout the entire weekend at Brno. No normal Friday and Saturday catch-up with the Italians and then the Brits, or whoever else wants to listen in English.

Valentino Rossi © DPPI

I didn't even see him hooning through the paddock on his scooter with a wake of screaming girls waving posters at him. As I said, he wasn't there ...

Technical journalist Neil Spalding spends no time trackside, instead shooting 2000 pictures each weekend in pit lane of bikes and people. His accompanying photo sums up the pressure and the draw of the tax problems.

The company that manages Rossi and his deals is Great White London, run by Luigino Badioli with a London address. Badioli is a friend of Rossi's as he came from the same town as the champion rider, Tavullia. He was a furniture salesman before the opportunity to manage his friend popped up.

Badioli is part of the Rossi 'inner circle' - the Tribu dei Chihuahua (Tribe of the Chihuahua) - who have a bit of a laugh in just being different with the cooling-down lap celebrations, colour schemes, superstitions and silly stories.

Just to prove that this gang-of-mates-down-the-pub thing works, the Rossi image is cultivated and re-invented each year for the many thousands who buy a new T shirt each time they visit the track.

Indeed, Rossi has reintroduced the 'Polleria Osvaldo' sticker on the underside of the seat of his M1 this season. It means 'Osvaldo's Poultry Shop', while the words "tutti i polli conoscono Osvaldo" elsewhere on the bike means "every chicken knows Osvaldo".

Back in 1998 Rossi said that Osvaldo was his new sponsor, and the guy dressed as a chicken on the back of his 250cc Aprilia bike at Barcelona that year was a way to endorse it. Some journalists even believed it and went to Tavullia to look for Osvaldo.

Fast forwarding to 2007, Rossi put the sticker back on the bike because Yamaha didn't announce FIAT until the last moment before the season got underway, so he joked Osvaldo was coming back to help the team. Apparently that's really funny in Italy.

I don't need to tell you that all this illustrates that they are a happy-go-lucky lot. Even back to ten years ago at Brno, Rossi won the 125cc World Championship in the first race of the day.

Yamaha livery detail © Toby Moody

By the time I got out of the commentary box to go and see the crew three hours later, they were all so drunk that only one of them was left in the garage, and he was a bit wobbly.

He told me the new champion was in the back of the truck. I poked my head around the corner and there he was, fast asleep on the bottom bunk amidst an air of relaxing cigarette smell. If only I'd taken a picture.

"He negotiates a hard bargain though," was one thing I never forget current Yamaha Racing boss Lin Jarvis saying to me regarding Badioli. "And he knows what an asset Valentino is."

A hard bargain to earn an awful lot of money for his rider and himself with his cut. It was a reminder that this is a business, where a rider tries to earn as much as he can before the farewell race at the ripe old age of mid-30s.

Rossi and his gang of mates have returned to earth with the most gigantic of thuds that has woken them up from a ten year party, and at present there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

His bike is not going any quicker, Stoner is not slowing down, and the tax man has not been on the phone saying that it was all a joke. Let us just hope there is some of that Rossi fight still deep inside him - the same fight that saw him go from Honda to Yamaha and win straight away.

What no-one has mentioned yet is that the next race is in Italy, and Italians are prone to a bit of posturing and strutting when there's an audience. I fear for the next possible chapter in this whole affair. Police arriving into the Misano paddock? Please, no.

Remember that Lotus boss Colin Chapman dodged a return to Italy after the tragic death of Jochen Rindt at Monza in 1970 when at the wheel of one of his cars.

Chapman even changed the name of the team in 1971 to World Wide Racing and changed the livery and type of car used just in case Lotus assets were seized at Monza. He also stayed away from the 1972 race, so didn't see Emerson Fittipaldi win the title.

Valentino Rossi © DPPI

I can't say 'poor' Valentino as I don't know all of the facts involved in this whole tax case, but he is being made an example of, just as Alberto Tomba was when chased in 1998 for much less of an undeclared income - a mere US$14m (£9.5m).

You just hope that he'll literally ride through these problems in time, but here and now these six remaining races of 2007 are going the hardest of his twelve-year Grand Prix career.

And that's before embarking on a winter test schedule that will be the weather vane as to whether or not the 2008 Yamaha is going to be any good. And that's also before he gets up against the hungry Jorge Lorenzo on the same bike ...

He will know what kind of bike he's going to have underneath him, and if it is not something that can beat Stoner then his enthusiasm may wane very quickly - and that will be a sad sight after all the memories.

It's the old story of knowing when to jump off the merry-go-round.