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What If I Had Never Tried It: The Autobiography
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Product Description
What If I had Never Tried It is the first autobiography of arguably the world's greatest motorcycle road racing champion, Valentino Rossi. Certainly he is the greatest in modern times and similarly the best loved. This is the official, personal story: fast paced yet insightful.
Rossi’s record in the motorcycle road racing World Championship is supreme. First in the ultra-competitive 125 class starting in 1996; then in the 250 class only to graduate shortly thereafter to the big league of the 500s. In 2002 the premier class switched direction moving from 500 cc two-strokes to 990 cc four-strokes from then on to be known as MotoGP. Rossi rides for Honda and wins. He wins on a Honda the next year and then switches to Yamaha, to every race fans’ surprise, and wins against all odds. He wins again in 2005. No one is close. No one is faster. And all at speeds which approach 200 mph.
Both on and off-track, on the ubiquitous TV screen or walking in the street, Rossi is idolized as though he were a rock star. From his native Italy to California, from Philips Island to Laguna Seca, he has raised the limits, reshaped the frontiers of the sport and set new trends. Rossi has become the 21st Century face of motorcycle road racing. Yet he remains faithful to himself—one moment the intelligent, articulate interviewee; the next a jokester; the next the single-minded, focused, strategic racer with split-second skills the rest of us can only dream of.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #63209 in Books
- Published on: 2006-04-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 288 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780760326824
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
- Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
Editorial Reviews
Review
Sport Rider, July 2006
“With his huge celebrity status, there have been the inevitable countless rumors and suppositions on Rossi and what makes him tick. This autobiography basically allows you to cut through most of that and see all sides of him … an entertaining read for any racing fan.”
About the Author
Valentino Rossi was born on February 16th 1979 in Urbino, Italy. He won his first GP aged 17, his first world title at 18 and his first MotoGP at 22. He currently rides for Yamaha and his main residence is in central London.
Customer Reviews
Rossi De-constructs the Methods to His Winning Ways
The people that wrote the previous reviews are probably not hardcore motorcyclists or competitors, therefore I am dismissing what negativity they have to say about this book. So I challenge each of you to read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions, but these are my thoughts on it.
This book is an insite to the start of Rossi's career and family as well as his evolution to becoming a champion. All too often people will say that "it's easy for him" or "he doesn't have to work that hard at winning" when the truth is that his choices, his decisions and his methods are what allowed him to develop into a champion.
As a professional motorcycle racer and competitor (who has won amatuer roadracing championships) I found this book incredibly enthralling and motivating to the point that many times I had a tough time putting it down. Rossi's story about his coming of age, challenges and decisions can also be applied to nearly any area of your life. It's all about making the right decisions and surrounding yourself with the right people; the ones that have the ability to help you become successful. It's about facing challenges in the face of adversity and overcoming them. It's about bucking the naysayers and coming out on top. Rossi (and his co-author) put a lot a emotion into the book and you can practically hear him speaking in his broken english as you read the book.
I found this book to be a worthwhile read, and while the ending did leave a bit to be desired it was still phenomonal. It might have also been that I wanted to read more or it might also be because his legacy is yet to come to an end. Regardless though, it is an excellent inflection to his life and times.
This book is an insite to a world champion racer who has worked very hard to get where he is. I highly reccomend it to anyone who is looking for motivation or insite as to what makes a champion tick.
Motogenius indeed
I'm not actually even finished with the book yet (50 - 60 pages to go) but I had to write in and say that this is an amazing book. It's really good to read about Rossi's detailed feelings about the companies he has won championships for and about companies who he was thinking of moving to and companies that he started off with. He goes into a good amount of detail about the things that mean a lot to him and definitely clears some things up if you might have lingering questions. I'd recommend this to any Rossi fan... then again, if you're a Rossi fan, you should already own this book.
really good book
Really interesting and well written. I read this ages ago and finally got around to doing a review. I'm not really a race fan but I love a well written autobiography and in the wide realm of sports biographies and autobiographies, this one is outstanding. Even if you arn't into sport. The book is easy reading and the writer uses a chatty, conversational style throughout. I'd recommend it to anyone just as a good autobiography, regardless if they knew who rossi was or not.
