The further you get into the top echelons of any sport, the more serious it seems like life becomes. I say this as a fan, and a spectator; I've never been a pro or Olympic-level athlete of any kind. You're honing your mind and body and skills, of course, but sometimes it seems like the joy that first propelled you into the sport gets subsumed along the way.
It's probably not gone; if it was gone, you probably wouldn't be able to do what you do. You probably wouldn't have gone out there in the first place, either. Not everyone can follow Alysa Liu's fantastic example of knowing when to back away because it's all too much, then coming back on completely her own terms to win it all. And why? Why was she able to put in the fantastic performance that she did at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics?
Because she was able to breathe, relax, be her excellent self, and just let that shine through. Gold medals weren't the only things she won; untold numbers of hearts, too. Her joy was genuine, and honestly, it was something sorely needed in our current cultural moment.
Halfway around the world, a couple of weeks later, it's the 2026 MotoGP season opener in Buriram, at the Chang International Circuit in Thailand. And this time, we have a bunch of the world's most highly skilled motorcycle racers all hitting the track, team by team, in a grid full of tuk-tuks. And you know what seemed to be present up and down that grid, before, during and after the event?
Joy. Sheer, unbridled, infectious joy; all these incredibly and undeniably talented racers not taking themselves (or what they were doing) too seriously, and just going out and having a blast. Honestly, it looked so fun.
Technically, it's also a more interesting challenge than you might expect, on the face of it. Sure, tuk-tuks aren't MotoGP prototypes; then again, what is? Putting the entire grid on equal footing with machines that use the same power is interesting, but it's even trickier than a spec moto series would be, because none of them regularly trains on anything like a tuk-tuk. Thus, it's even more equal footing (and unfamiliarity) than it is if you, say, stick them all on go-karts, or stick them all on minibikes.
The added wrinkle of having the two-rider teams stop and swap drivers midway through the single-lap race is also intriguing, as is the choice some backseat riders made to move their weight around like the monkeys in racing sidecars do. I didn't expect that, but in retrospect, perhaps I should have. If you've ever ridden in a tuk-tuk, you'll probably have instant sense-memories of the feel of the plastic on those seats, and how it can either be extra slippery or else hold the bare skin on the backs of your legs in place, depending on whether you're wearing shorts or not. It's easy to slide around that back seat unexpectedly if you're not careful.
I won't spoil the podium for you; you really should just watch it for yourself. It's not a spoiler to tell you someone did, in fact, successfully wheelie a tuk-tuk, and that that someone was Toprak. I feel like somewhere in your heart of hearts, you probably already knew that without my even having to tell you. Here's wishing us all a MotoGP season in 2026 full of joy and wonder, on as many or as few wheels as it takes.
