I'll openly tell you that I'm suss about how much Dorna is doing to help those in need in Valencia. It took a fair amount of persuasion from riders to get the CEO, Carmelo Ezpeleta, to change the venue for the final round of the Championship to a place other than Valencia. Since then, MotoGP has done an apparent 180 and started the #RacingForValencia fundraising program, but I question how much Dorna is giving.
This most recent auction item helped me see things a bit more clearly.
The MotoGP Instagram page announced that it would be auctioning off Jaume Masia Vargas' Moto2 bike during the final round of the Championship held in Barcelona. Auctioning off a bike to help a cause isn't weird, but of the nearly 80 bikes featured in Moto3, Moto2, and MotoGP this has to be the bike ridden by the most universally hated rider and from the most universally hated team.
The fashion in which Jaume Masia Vargas won his Moto3 title in 2023, specifically how he bullied his championship rival Ayumu Sasaki on track, didn't leave him as a polarizing rider because he would need fans to be polarizing. Racing fans, for once, were all in agreement about their feelings toward a rider—they despised him. Masia then went to Preicanos Racing Team, which, thanks to its owner Raul Castaneda, is arguably the most despised team in the paddock.
A match made in heaven, really.
The comments with the most likes under the Instagram post announcing the auction include: "Even free i won’t take it. #5", "Nobody wants a bike from this team", "Nice bike, horrible team", "Why would I want a bike once ridden by a dirty rider?", and "You must give your title to sasaki".
It's ridiculous, borderline laughable that Dorna would choose this bike, from this team, to be one of the main things going up for auction to help those in need after the floods in Valencia. But therein lies the truth of the matter, Dorna didn't necessarily pick this bike or any of the big auction items because they all belong to individuals or teams in the paddock or people close to the sport, and were given to help raise money for those in need.
We'll be the ones giving the money.
This weekend, in Barcelona, Dorna will provide a platform for people in the industry to donate rare pieces of motorcycle history and a platform for us to buy them. Don't get me wrong, providing this platform to help others donate is a great start. But when you hear one of the biggest sports organizations in the world says it's "racing for Valencia", you kind of expect that business to give something somewhat significant.
On the MotoGP website, there's a whole page dedicated to #RacingForValencia, explaining where the money is coming from, and it all basically comes from the same place: us. There's a big section about all the wonderful things that we can buy and bid for, a section telling us how to donate if we can't make the event, and one little very hazy line indicating what exactly will be coming out of Dorna's pockets,
"A portion of ticket sales from the Solidarity GP will go directly to Valencia relief funds..."
A portion could literally mean any amount, and that's not good enough to get to say you're "racing for Valencia", not when you have riders and teams with far less giving what they can from their personal funds.
All money that goes toward helping those who need it in Valencia is good money, so I won't for a second bash Dorna for that. But come on, to say that Dorna is "racing for Valencia" is a massive stretch unless the organization is giving a large percentage of ticket sales to the Red Cross and keeping it quiet.
Yeah, unlikely.
For a company with a $4.5 billion net worth, giving a platform is a great start, but also just give some actual money to earn the right to wear your #RavingForValencia hashtag. That would be a huge, tangible help to the region that's given your organization so much over the last 25 years.
