MotoGP, Jack Miller drinks from the boot: what is the shoey

There are those who twist their mouths in front of the TV in front of Jack Miller who on the highest step of the Le Mans podium celebrates by drinking prosecco from their boots and those who can’t wait to witness the trio of the Ducati ace after the consecutive double at Jerez and Bugatti. The Australian ace of the redhead, in full euphoria, then passed the boot to rival Fabio Quartararo who toasted the general exultation of those who under the stage applauded the three protagonists of a thrilling race, full of twists. Already in his first MotoGP victory, at the 2016 Dutch GP, Miller toasted on the podium with one shoey (gives shoe, shoe, in English), not a simple and ephemeral fashion, but a culture for Australians.

the other pilots

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Not only that, because that way of celebrating has made school. How can we forget Valentino Rossi, the first non-Australian rider to toast with sparkling wine in his boot on the podium of the 2016 San Marino GP and the triumphal one of the 2017 Dutch GP? And, outside of motorcycling, how can we not go back to 2015, when Supercars rider David Reynolds triumphed in his first non-endurance race by celebrating the triumph with champagne downed from one of his shoes? In Formula 1, in 2016, the victory celebrated on the podium of the German GP, ​​with the toast from the “shoe” bears the signature of Daniel Ricciardo, then repeated at the Belgian GP together with Mark Webber. Then Ricciardo again with Marx Verstappen at the Malaysian GP, ​​in a passage of the boot overflowing with champagne, well beyond the podium. In the US GP Ricciardo passes the shoe with bubbles to the Scottish actor Gerard Butler and so on with a scene that has become for media use and consumption, practical if not usual, at least no longer unpublished.

what is shoey

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It is shoey, beauty! That is the art of drinking from a shoe or a boot to celebrate an event as a wish for good luck or even as an act of initiation: a popular ritual in sporting celebrations and musical events that has always been practiced in Australia, where it is precisely called shoey. In motorcycling, the toast with the boot comes from afar, since 1957. When the Australian Keith Campbell after his first victory in a Grand Prix (Holland) asked an astonished engineer Giulio Cesare Carcano – great boss on the Guzzi field – if he could toast in that “kangaroo” way, receiving a sharp “No!” . But the extraordinary and austere staff of the Mandello company pretended not to see when a few weeks later, dominated by the Belgian and Northern Irish GPs, on the Ulster podium, in great haste, Campbell made a quick toast with his boot full of beer celebrating his (only) 350 World Champion title. The first Australian driver to win a world championship will have no luck, who died on 13 June 1958 after a crash at the Toulouse circuit.

that time in Cesenatico

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The second Australian 1961 world champion Tom Phillis (Honda) when he was beaten in the historic 250 race in Cesenatico by Silvio Grassetti on the new 4-cylinder Benelli took the blow by presenting himself after the official award ceremony in the Leone box where everyone was in a frenzy for the extraordinary triumph. He was still in the black leather suit but no boots with two almond-eyed mechanics following with four bottles of champagne. Phillis made the Pesaro runner and the sports director Paolo Benelli uncork the bottles by pouring the Don Perignon into his boots, which in the blink of an eye emptied as they passed from hand to hand. Fortunately, no Australian driver had ever entered the Cascina Costa court. Who knows what Count Domenico Agusta would have said – and done – in front of one of his drivers engaged in the shoey. In 1969, another excellent Australian 250 world champion with the 4-cylinder Benelli, Kel Carruthers, great handle and one-piece gentleman, in his seven podiums (three wins, two second places, two thirds) had always celebrated loyal to the protocol. But after the decisive GP of Yugoslavia in the deadly ups and downs of Abbazia, conquered the race and the title, he pays homage to the Benellis and the Lion’s team with a glass “Bierstiefein”, a work of art, a glass beer glass in the shape of a boot that would have been created by a Prussian general promising his soldiers to drink beer from there after the victory. And victory was, that of Carruthers and Benelli, with a historic drink.

the historical origins

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Already in the Napoleonic era, soldiers drank from the shoe of a general, never from that of the Emperor. In many wars, from the Romans upwards, drinking from a fellow soldier’s shoe or boot was a traditional initiation ritual: sooner or later it was the same. It took the “extraordinary” kangaroo Jack Miller to resume a tradition that makes the podium even more effervescent and, above all, makes the many Ducati fans dream, in Italy and around the world.