MotoGP: Rossi and Stoner thrill Laguna Seca

At the end, for we might as well skip to the end, it was Rossi that won by more than ten seconds. But it was a measure of the dominance of the paid that when Stoner fell over (not off) with about ten laps to go, he had time to get back up, get the bike going and rejoin the race - still seven seconds ahead of the third placed Chris Vermeulen. And with gravel all over his tyres, Stoner still matched his pre-incident pace.

We may have witnessed what many feared: that the diminutive Stoner is too light to handle the big MotoGP bike if things go awry. Laguna Seca is hot and Stoner has no spare capacity for dehydration. And although he has demonstrated that he is capable of riding the bike beyond limits anyone else wants to go near, his lightness may be the key to why he can spin up the back wheels in a power slide that would have others in a hefty high-side.

He made a small error and ran wide, and into the gravel. By then the bike was almost stationary. He put his left foot down and blipped the throttle. As he did so, his left leg gave way and he simply fell over. He didn't crash, he just toppled over, escaping from under the bike before it fell on him.

It was an ignominious end to one of the most spectacular races ever: this is one that race fans will tell their grandkids about, and not be believed. After all, who would believe that Rossi, on his way to his first Laguna Seca win and Stoner would be running two seconds a lap ahead of the field, including Hayden often said the be the king of the Californian track. Who would believe that for more than ten laps, they would never be separated by a whole second, and when it got really tight, the clocks showed a time difference of less than half a tenth of a second. Try to measure five hundreds of a second and then imagine doing whatever you did aboard a bucking fragile unpredictable machine at between 200 and 275 kph. Are you feeling awe yet? Or just a little bit sick?

The pair snatched the lead from each other from time to time but mostly it was Stoner sitting on Rossi's back wheel - which an under-bike camera showed was shredding badly on the right shoulder.

Rossi rode an immaculate race. Stoner rode the race of his life and the short moment when he went just a matter of three feet wide, elected to slow right down and use the run-off area instead of risking a sharp turn which might have thrown him off, should take nothing away from the most stunning display of motorcycle control from both of them.

Rossi is no doubt a minor deity, but Stoner's bloody close to being sainted. And watching them dice was a privilege.