MotoGP: The car guy that went to bikes

Sunday was the last MotoGP broadcast for British Eurosport with my colleagues Julian Ryder and Randy Mamola. Personally it was the end of an era that has taken a large part of my working life. I have been in the MotoGP paddock for all but four years since I left school.

Blimey... it is frightening to ask myself where the time has gone, but if it's flown by, it must be for a reason; that I enjoyed it.

Thirteen seasons ago I took the microphone for the 500cc qualifying session at Shah Alam in Malaysia. I witnessed my first bit of history right from the word go when Tady Okada flung the brand new Honda 500 V-Twin onto the first pole position of 1996, thereby beating all the larger, more powerful V4s.

Julian Ryder and Toby Moody in the commentary booth in Valencia © Back Page Images

It was an absolute crime that he got caught out in a freak rain shower when leading the race the day after, but the history was there, by pure luck, right from the word go.

Oh yes, and some long haired Italian had his first GP on a 125, its competition number was 46...

Luca Cadalora won the 500cc race, and I immediately became a fan with his understated flamboyancy, strop-throwing, coffee and cigarette abusing mood swings. I will never forget his laugh; it must be among the most infectious there has ever been in the paddock.

Once I'd got over calling the riders drivers, the sport begun to get under my skin. Properly. How could it not? Ten-minute grid build-ups, 40-minute races, 10-minute podiums. All done in an hour...

In 1997 we saw the entire race season dominated by Repsol Honda's three riders. They won every race. How the hell my then co-commentator Dennis Noyes and I kept talking all the way through I'll never know, but we did. I thought at the time that anything after that will be easy, and goodness me it was; Valentino Rossi was now getting into his pomp.

Jerez 1999 saw the end of an era. During a wet but drying practice session I noticed something out of the corner of my eye through the glass door at the back of the commentary box. It overlooked the tremendously fast turn three, and there was an orange and blue Honda flying through the air.

"Doohan's down!" I shouted before the images were actually seen on the TV. A picture of Dennis, commentating while looking straight out of the door, made it into Motocourse that year, if I remember correctly.

Dennis left at the end of 1999 to do less hours in the box, but a chance meeting with Julian Ryder at Donington that year saw us laugh like school kids in a lingerie department.

We got together for 2000, and watched Garry McCoy win in South Africa on the Red Bull Yamaha. It was a win from nowhere, shocking the establishment with his 16.5" fronts that he was so convinced would work, and did. He pioneered a movement.

There were eight different winners that year as the changing of the guard got well and truly underway, post-Doohan and pre-Rossi. Classic times.

Randy Mamola interviews Valentino Rossi on the grid of the 2000 Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island © DPPI

More significantly for me there was a press release delivered to the commentary box at Suzuka that year announcing that the four-stroke 990cc era would start in two years time. I still have that press release as a little piece of history for the advancement of the sport.

That too was the moment when I decided this bike lark was well and truly for me.

I had been 'umming and erring' with rallying at the time, wondering which was the best championship to get fully committed to rather than being distracted by both.

Four-strokes arriving into MotoGP, with a new array of manufacturers, while rallying was getting sanitized by single service areas and cloverleaf formats tailored for television.

The decision was a no brainer so far as I was concerned.

And boy did it take off at Suzuka in 2002. I will never forget the goose bumps I got when all the bikes streamed out of pitlane at 10am on Friday morning. An incredible dawn to a new era.

The MotoGP class then, as we know, was dominated by Rossi on a V5 Honda and, then, a Gauloises Yamaha. The V5 may well have been the most incredible bike ever made: "We made it because it was difficult" said the engineers. But Rossi stepped into the heavens when he proved it was him that could win and not the bike when he raced the bike for the first time at Welkom, 2004.

For me, the most emotional championship I have witnessed, was 2006. Nicky Hayden battled with a one-off development bike that needed a new clutch all year. He got knocked off at the penultimate race at Estoril by his own teammate. Afterwards little Toni Elias fought through the field to win by 0.002 seconds ahead of Rossi's Camel Yamaha.

Two weeks of journalism chaos ensued as the world descended upon Pedrosa and his actions, but Hayden kept a cool head, fighting through to win as Rossi fell in Valencia.

Then this chap called Casey Stoner appeared on a Ducati, having been the fourth choice for the ride in 2007. But he proved to be the absolute best thing that could have happened from a business perspective on the sport.

Casey Stoner, Toby Moody, and Livio Suppo in the press room at the Chinese Grand Prix © Back Page Images

Ducati won the title in tremendous style, sending sales of 1098s through the roof and forcing the other teams to work hard for 2008.

Through all of this Randy has ferreted around in the pit lane for us, only for a dozen races in 1999 not being able to do so after being knocked off his scooter in Spain - ironically doing more damage to his leg than any other injury he ever had while racing.

That left me to go down onto the grid and run around the grid with the mobile microphone, followed by me doing my best Carl Lewis and running back up to the box in a muck sweat.

In more recent months MotoGP technical expert Neil Spalding has been up in the box.

He figured it would be easier to stand behind us than sit down and watch a repeat of the race later in the week only to find one day I asked him a technical question and handed him the third headset, much to his surprise!

His tech talks during the MotoGP races were well appreciated by the fans that watched British Eurosport from all over Europe.

Indeed, in recent months we've had a tidal wave of emails from as far-a-field as Iceland, Moscow and Morocco, let alone those in the UK and even America! We never had another email from Iran, like the one we had a few years ago, but it brings it home as to the reach of the channel.

Last weekend's email threw up the fact that someone had been inspired to buy a bike, but then go racing in a support race for the British Superbike Championship this year, while others have been converted from F1 or taken advice to go to the far flung places such as Phillip Island or Laguna Seca after watching our show.

Personally, I have had an amazing time with the plethora of guests in that commentary box over the years, as people just drifted by, wanting to see what it was like.

Colin McRae, Daro Franchitti, Takuma Sato, Allan McNish, Kieth Flint (Prodigy), Mark Knopfler, Allan Davies, John McGuinness (TT Lap record holder), Nicky Hayden, Chris Vermeulen, Livio Suppo, Claudio Domenicalli, two Ministers of Sport, Jeremy McWilliams, Mika Kallio, Tommy Robb, Gordon Murray, Derek Warwick, Johnny Herbert, Leon Haslam, 'Shakey' Byrne, Cameron Donald (TT winner) Richard Burns, Robert Reid, James Haydon, Neil Hodgson, Chaz Davies, James Toseland, Alan Jenkins, a reporter from Penthouse USA, Mark Neale (Faster Movie), Barry & Andrea Coleman (Riders for Health), Paul Denning, John Hopkins, Loris Capirossi, Alex Hofmann, Olivier Jacque, Sylvain Guintoli, Alan Smith and David Batty, Luca Cadalora and Valentino Rossi being the highlights...

Valentino Rossi, Toby Moody, and Julian Ryder commentate on the 125cc German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring © Toby Moody/Chris Hughes

Then there was the out of box antics, such as cars getting towed away from outside the box in Rio, on that occasion I was probably still a bit hung over from the night before (the bravery of youth...). Once the hire car got rolled, but that must have been a better experience for a car, than having Julian and I race it back from Assen through the lanes to Amsterdam in order to get a flight.

The time when Rossi put his hand on my shoulder in the Brno bar, with that look in his eyes that I wasn't getting away. Fortunately the water wasn't that cold... The time in the bar at Estoril too when McCoy had won in 2000. It was a straight to the airport job!

Most of the other stories better remain between myself, Julian and our nearest friends...

Hard work, but great fun; just as MotoGP is as a whole. All I hope is that you've enjoyed it too. I want to entertain and promote the enjoyable, open sport that is MotoGP. To feel that I have helped do that in any way at all, is something I am immensely proud of. I may well be back commentating on MotoGP next year, somewhere, but as yet, things have a way to go before being decided.

But one thing is for sure, I'll still be doing something for autosport.com, so I'll let you know through here what the plan is.