AN EXCEPTIONAL READ' - Motor Cycle News
'STUART BARKER IS TO WRITING WHAT VALENTINO ROSSI IS TO RIDING [...] A MUST-READ FOR ALL BIKE NUTS' - DAILY MIRROR
'At high speed everything becomes more difficult and more beautiful. When you're racing at 180mph, the semi-bends become bends, the little holes become big holes, everything becomes extreme and bigger. And then it becomes beautiful.'
Valentino Rossi is an icon: the most successful and most loved motorcycle racer of all time, he has transcended MotoGP to become a symbol of courage, risk and daring. To race for twenty-three years at the very highest level of the world's most dangerous sport is unprecedented. But then, there has never been a motorcycle racer like Valentino Rossi. He is a modern-day gladiator, a man who still risks his life every time he throws a leg over a motorcycle.
Yet for all his two-wheel talents, it is Rossi's endearing character that has seen him transcend the sport. His popularity is phenomenal. For Rossi, every race is a home race. He turns MotoGP grandstands across the world a sea of yellow - his traditional lucky colour.
In more than two decades of Grand Prix racing, Rossi has seen it all. The deaths of rivals and friends, the glory of his unprecedented success, serious injuries, fabulous wealth, the greatest battles ever seen on two wheels, the infamous on and off-track clashes with his fiercest rivals . . .
Using exclusive new interviews with those who have been part of Rossi's story from start to finish, critically-acclaimed and bestselling motorsport author Stuart Barker has produced the most in-depth book ever written about the Italian superstar - a tale of speed, love and loss, told in full for the very first time, in all its adrenalin-charged, high-octane glory. Stuart Barker, born in Galloway, Scotland, graduated from Strathclyde University in 1996 and began working as a motorcycle journalist for Motor Cycle News. Freelance since 2001, he has written for most of the major motorcycling titles and was editor of the Isle of Man TT programme for eight years. He has written eight books including a bestselling biography of Barry Sheene and a biography of Evel Knievel which is set to be made into a major Hollywood movie. Other works include biographies of Niall Mackenzie, Steve Hislop and David Jefferies and a history of the TT races. He lives in Kettering, Northamptonshire. This is a story of speed, love and loss - the definitive biography of the most world's most legendary motorsports racer. There has been no book on Rossi since his autobiography in 2005, which sold 150,000 copies, so this project will fill a massive gap in the market at Christmas, for Rossi fans and more general fans of adrenaline and speed sports alike, following in the wake of other successful books into that market like Jason Plato's How Not to Be a Professional Racing Driver and our very own Raw Speed. Valentino Rossi is the most storied MotoGP rider, and arguably even the most revered motorsports racer of all time. It's hard to overstate his stature or importance, or the devotion of his fans worldwide. He has 13M Facebook followers (nearly twice as many as Mike Tyson), 8.5M on Instagram (eight times as many as Jenson Button) and 5.5M on Twitter (nearly twice as many as Andy Murray). MotoGP also gets between 250 million and 400 million viewers worldwide. The author, Stuart Barker, is well-connected, having written for Motorcycle News and others, and has conducted interviews with those close to Rossi, to make this a truly authoritative book. We have a foreword from Valentino Rossi's all-time racing hero, Kevin Schwantz. Rossi used to wear a replica Schwantz helmet and modelled his style on the Texan bike legend.
