Make Noise for Marco Sunday – Wave of Engine Revs Around the World for Simoncelli

Earlier in the week, Paolo Simoncelli, father of the late Marco Simoncelli, suggested the MotoGP paddock celebrate his son’s life not with a minute of silence, but with a minute of noise, with all MotoGP bikes revving their engines together this Sunday at 10:30 am local time for the MotoGP season finale in Valencia, Spain.

Moto-journalist Mark Gardiner decided to take that idea a step further and suggests making it a global event with motorcyclists around the world revving their engines for a whole minu- no, even better, for 58 seconds – at 10:30 am in their own time zones, creating a wave of engine noise spreading out from Spain all the way to Hawaii 12 hours later.Gardiner is asking motorcyclists everywhere to spread the word. Gardiner started a Facebook page and there’s a #MakeNoiseForMarcoSunday hashmark on Twitter. Let’s make the world roar this Sunday for Marco.

Below is the original open letter Gardiner’s been sending out:

A couple of days ago, after I read Paolo Simoncelli (Marco’s dad) comment that Marco would rather have a minute of all the MotoGP bikes at Valencia revving their motors than a minute of silence, something occurred to me…

What if we all did that, all around the world? Something a little less than a minute of silence; say, 58 seconds. And something a lot more (noisy).

At first, I thought we should all do it at exactly the same time, but the more I thought about it, I realized that 10:30 a.m. in Valencia is the crack of dawn on the west coast of the U.S., and late at night in Japan. And, I liked the idea of people doing it at 10:30 in their own time zone, creating a ‘wave’ that would begin about 12 hours before the Valencia rev-up, way out in the western Pacific, and end about 12 hours later in Hawaii. We’d literally wave good-bye.

I wrote a blog post to that effect, and it generated a few hundred extra hits that first day. Then, in the next 24 hours, it generated thousands of hits. Someone coined a hashmark, #MakeNoiseForMarcoSunday, on Twitter. I created a Facebook group with the same name. Now, the question is, can we create a global event in the 3 days (roughly) we have before the official Valencia memorial?

Wouldn’t it be great if, all around the world, motorcyclists stopped what they were doing at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, and revved up their bikes? If they make a video of it, or just want to comment about it, they can do so on the #MakeNoiseForMarcoSunday Facebook group.

Please help to make it happen! Popularize #MakeNoiseForMarcoSunday on your blog, website, Twitter, bathroom wall,.. anywhere you can. For more information, people can check my blog ( www.bikewriter.com) or search #MakeNoiseForMarcoSunday on Facebook.

I have this idea that Marco — who had often been a divisive figure in racing, although he was widely popular among fans — could be a unifying figure in the wider community of motorcyclists.

Thanks.

Mark Gardiner
Kansas City, Missouri