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Red Bull sponsors some great video work, as well as some great athletes, and this new video — a movie, really — is one of my favorites, if only because it busts so many preconceived notions many U.S. race fans have of Dani Pedrosa.
Pedrosa has never been that popular among U.S. race fans, in part because he was blamed for some of the challenges faced by the most popular of U.S. riders, Nicky Hayden. But those decisions were made by Honda, not Pedrosa. Time and again, Pedrosa showed it was possible to be an honorable rider and still be a fierce competitor who won world championships in the lower levels and 153 podiums in MotoGP.
The film is called Silence of the Samurai, and if you ever bought into the "Pedrobot" nonsense that he was an emotionless automaton, then this video will change your opinion, if you have an open mind. From the childhood Christmas-morning glee of playing with a toy motorcycle to the very mixed feelings of a retiring competitor who has known no life other than racing, the emotions are clear. We see a racer who went through so much for his sport, who suffered so many injuries that he recently broke his collarbone again as a KTM test rider without even crashing, because his bones are that fragile after so much abuse.
Plus, stick with it and you get to see the really sweet two-stroke supermoto Deus Ex Machina built for him.
