Danilo Petrucci just took a fantastic hat-trick of wins at the first-ever World Superbike round at the Cremona circuit in Italy. And it's extremely gratifying to see, for multiple reasons.
The first is, quite simply, that almost everyone loves to see a racer win their home race. You may not always expect that it's going to go in their favor, and there may even be more than one racer for whom a given event can be considered a home race.
Nevertheless, you love to see it. I love to see it. Pretty much everyone does, because we all want to picture ourselves up there, even if it's the very pipiest of pipe dreams if you get anywhere close to reality. It's viscerally relatable content, doing the best you can possibly do in front of your home crowd.
But even more than taking first a Superpole win, and then following it up with wins in both Race One and Race Two to truly seal the deal at his home WSBK round, Petrucci also entered brand new territory. There's only one racer in all of history now who's done what he's done, and it seems like that's unlikely to change any time soon.
What did he do that was so special, you ask? Oh, easy. Telling you about it, anyway; not doing it. See, he just became the first racer ever to win in MotoGP, Dakar, MotoAmerica, and now World Superbike. That's all.
It's kind of mind-blowing to think about. While there have certainly been racers who have crossed over from MotoGP to WSBK, there's really not anyone else who's even attempted to run in all four of these series, the way that Petrux did.
Racers love to race, and anyone who's paid any kind of attention to racing for any length of time can tell you so. But that's no guarantee that they'll be equally good at every discipline they attempt; or even good enough to win at one of them.
And yet, Petrucci's done it. He's won races (or in the case of Dakar, stages) in all four series. It's a testament to what a solid talent he is, and he and everyone who's supported him along the way should absolutely celebrate all of it.
