2003-04-20  Daijiro Kato biography - death of the rising star
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Kato started his racing career at the age of 5 on pocket bikes. He was Japanese champion in this category in 1995, before he moved to mini-bike class. In this class, he had even more success as he took four championship titles. After this, he contested Japanese 125 and 250 ccm championships, taking his first victory at Aida. After a while, Kato signed for Honda, and made his 3 wildcard appearances in 250ccm class in world championship. He knew to use this chance, as he took 3rd place in his first first wildcard appearance, and two victories in other two. Finally, he got the chance to compete for a whole season in year 2000, when he signed for Honda Gresini, and immediately shown his talent by taking 3rd position in championship in his debut season. He took four victories in this season, being only rider able to compete with dominant aprillias. This was only preparation for his second season, where he stormed championship by taking record eleven victories, one more than previous record-holder, Mike Hailwood. Kato moved into MotoGP class in the year 2002, and made great debut by taking two second places. He was also recognized as a rookie of the season. After all his successes in 2002, it was naturally to expect even better performance from this rider in season 2003, which was tragically ended for him in high-speed crash at Suzuka, his home track. Katoh crashed into concrete wall while battling for fifth place with Makoto Tamada at nearly 200km/h. In this accident, he sustained serious injuries of the head, neck and back, and his heart stopped. His hart reanimation was performed at the track side by track doctors and dr. Costa, and immediately after his heart was beating again he was helicoptered to hospital. As expected, examinations were shown serious injuries (description from the clinica mobile site): Deep coma, serious brain injuries with extensive haemorrhaging that worsens towards the base and the brain stem. Dislocation of the 1st and 2nd cervical vertebrae with fracturing of the 3rd and, consequently, devastating damage to the spinal chord. Numerous shoulder and upper limb fractures. Despite those serious injuries, Kato continued to fight for his life for two weeks, before he died on 20th of april. MotoGP lost one of it's greatest riders, and he is going to be missed a lot my MotoGP community and his family: wife Makiko and two children, a son Ikko and little girl, just more than a month old. Number 74 he was known about will newer get such a great rider to have it on his bike. Rest in peace, Daijiro...

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