John Hopkins took a great 10th place in yesterday’s Spanish GP at Jerez, okay he may have been somewhat lucky in taking that position because of the crashfest, but he managed to stay upright on his GSV-R in some of the toughest racing conditions and not having seriously touched a prototype bike for three years.
Rizla Suzuki’s team manager Paul Denning said this weekend, “John Hopkins still deserves to be riding at the top level of the sport”, but these last years for the Anglo-American rider hasn’t been a bed of roses, especially injury wise.
Many of you may remember what happen at Misano in 2008, when Hopkins didn’t show up for the first free practice and there was some pretty heavy gossip in the Italian media that he had tied one on the evening before after his girlfriend Ashley (they later married and are recently divorced), walked out on him.
Talking to Motorcycle USA.
com Hopkins revealed that he had been using alcohol to try to take away all the pain from the injuries he had suffered, but was able to walk away from it and he’s now 100% fit.
“Some of the actions and the partying and stuff like that – that I had done in my life.
I don’t drink alcohol, whatsoever anymore.
Also, you know, having to ride in injuries and basically just wearing my body down to absolutely nothing.
Having to ride non-stop week in and week out, never recovering from injuries, and still trying to get back onto the bike.
My home life was really s$#t, because I was living 24/7 in pain, so I wasn’t that pleasant to be around.
I was basically using alcohol as kind of an outer device to try and hurt my mind away from the pain that I was living in.
I thought, yeah, okay I’ll try and drink the pain away and race.
Obviously, I’d never drink while riding, but when I was home and stuff like that.
Basically it put me in a whole new place that I never wanted to be in my life and I really felt s#@ty and kind of depressed.
It took that, me feeling like to that, to basically change my ways and get me to where I am today.
”
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