Dr Claudio Costa - Medicine Man
Meet Dr Costa. He's a very passionate Italian who has spent the past 30 years at motorcycle races fixing up racers who crash. Here's his story
"Crashing is best avoided. But if you must then do it when Doctor Costa's around," said a young Barry Sheene of Claudio Costa, the Italian doctor who patches up bike racers.
Since the early 70's Doctor Costa has breathed life back into the likes of Franco Uncini and Virginio Ferrari and saved the limbs and careers of Mick Doohan and others. He introduced to bike racing the security and understanding of a medical team devoted to motorcycle racers at a time when you'd have been lucky to find a plaster at the local chemist 15 miles away.
Costa has used his expertise to make the "theatres" (tracks to you and me) as safe as possible and to ensure clothing manufacturers provide maximum protection for his "children" (racers, that is). Valentino Rossi calls him his "guardian angel", although Loris Capirossi hopes to "see as little of him as possible". "Doctor Costa's eyes are like an x-ray that let him diagnose an injury at a glance," Telefonica Movistar Honda MotoGP team manager and former GP champion, Fausto Gresini told me.
Today, Doctor Costa is revered by professional motorcycle racers the world over. So how did it all start? I asked the Doctor himself as we sat in the cosy Clinica Mobile motorhome at the 2003 Donington MotoGP.
"On 23 April 1972 my father and founder of the Imola race circuit, Checco Costa entrusted me with the medical service of his Imola 200 race, a service that didn't exist at racetracks in those days," explains Costa. "Racers such as Sheene and Paul Smart appreciated it so much they asked me to follow them during the motorcycling world championship. So I attended every meeting first with a briefcase, then with some more advanced medical equipment bundled in a car. I soon realised I needed serious machinery that would tell me whether a fallen rider was able to race, so in 1976 I invented the Clinica Mobile which specialises not only in injuries but also in pre-, during- and post-race preparation and physiotherapy. Today it has become the little hospital of this marvellous world of motorcycle racing."
But it was a battle. Before the Clinica Mobile was recognised as part of the racing organisation IRTA (International Road Racing Team Association) in 1994, laws in foreign countries often prevented Costa from treating his patients. In 1992 Doohan crashed and broke his leg, which became life-threateningly infected so the Dutch doctors wanted to amputate. Costa was horrified at Doohan's treatment, but he was thrown out of the hospital by local medics. So he kidnapped Doohan and flew him in a private jet to his home in Italy, where he strapped the good leg to the bad for some therapeutic blood swapping. It worked. The Australian went on to win five 500GP world titles.
