Kerry motorcycle racers hopeful

Senna

FROM the very first frame, Asif Kapadia’s seminal film on the life of Ayrton Senna is infused with a certain sadness. That sadness comes not just from knowing what’s to come in Imola on May 1, 1994, but also from the brilliance of Kapadia’s direction. In the pre-titles sequence it’s all laid out for you: the things that made the Brazilian great, the things that made his loss all the more tragic.

Senna is easily the most influential sports documentary of the last twenty years if not one of the most influential documentaries of that period full stop. It vaulted Kapadia to the ranks of the superstar documentary makers, which his subsequent work has copper-fastened – Amy about the life of Amy Winehouse and Diego Maradona about, well, Diego Maradona. Kapadia is clearly drawn to charismatic and somewhat tragic figures and the late Brazilian master is massively compelling.

That the film is mostly told through his words without a traditional narrator is its great strength. You’re held in Senna’s spell for the duration of the picture, which makes the tragic denouement all the more heartbreaking when it does come. The mounting dread of that weekend in Imola is masterfully reconstructed.

We shouldn’t get too carried away talking about the sadness of the film, though, it’s also very much a celebration of life and of a luminous talent. The on-board footage of Senna on the streets of Monte Carlo is genuinely spell-binding. They don’t make em like that any more, cars or drivers.

As a film Senna is beyond reproach, but as a history it probably lacks a little. Alain Prost, for one, felt that his relationship with Senna – while undoubtedly tested – was misrepresented. You can understand Prost’s frustration, but it still doesn’t detract from what is a masterful film.

It’s available to rent or buy on YouTube and on Amazon Prime Video.

– Damian Stack

KERRY motorcycle racers are hoping their sport can resume in July.

This season should have been a record-breaking season for Kerry riders with nearly ten local competitors committed to the Dunlop Masters Superbike Championship with this weekend marking the third of the seven triple-header race meetings that make up the 21 round national series which is run at Mondello Park in County Kildare.

Instead, the current Coronavirus crisis as decimated the calendar. Officials at the Kildare track are making provisions for events like track days and testing to return to the venue next month and this will be followed by sporting events in July.

“There are many issues which need to be sorted out and the team at Mondello Park are working on these,” Dunlop Masters

Superbike Championship co-ordinator Fergus Brennan said. “As a contractor with Mondello, I am not involved at the moment and won’t be until a start date is announced, at which point I will click back into action to prepare for the restart.”

Local racers are hopeful the scheduled July 25 and 26 meeting will get the go-ahead but are still awaiting official confirmation from championship and track officials.

Killarney racer Frank Doherty, who finished second in the Superbike Cup last season said: “It’s not official of course but they are talking about July. I hear the guy running the Masters wants to go ahead with the July round as it is in the calendar.”

Emmet O’Grady, one of the county’s most experienced racers, is hoping the next phases of reopening announcements by the government will allow for some sort of a return to racing in the summer.

“Mid-July I think,” he said. “When the 20k [travel restriction] is lifted.”

Ballyduff’s Anthony O’Carroll was planning to contest the full circuit-based national series at Mondello and was also considering a few road-race outings when the restrictions were announced in March.

The Cookstown 100 in County Tyrone is the only Irish closed-road race left on the calendar.

The event was due to run in April. The organising club, Cookstown Town and District Motorcycle Club, has secured a September date but all other road events are now cancelled.

“Most of the road racing calendar is called off, all the main events are gone along with a lot of the national events called off also,” O’Carroll said. “I can’t see roads going ahead at all, they strongly rely on spectators to cover the costs. There is no word