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In the harsh weather conditions that plagued the 2000 MotoGP season, much time was spent in motorhomes chatting to riders about anything and everything.

Over that season, I learnt a lot about the mental make-up of many of them in the premier class. Not all of them, some of them just aren't open for a natter with anyone, no matter how deep the water is that's flooding across the pitlane.

Some of the top-flight fellas however, were pretty chatty blokes.

But one conversation stuck in my mind for an awful long time, and it has served to prompt a really valid question this week; can a rider really leave MotoGP and find a way back in?

I'll conveniently forget the blip that is Sete Gibernau; let's face it, his return is nothing short of miraculous and mostly put together on his former ability to really ruffle Valentino Rossi's feathers on the 990cc boomers a few years back.

But for the rest of the riding world, MotoGP must seem like a pretty closed club.

It was this very subject that lead to a fascinating conversation in the sodden paddock of the Mugello GP race that year.

I found myself in Loris Capirossi's motorhome and we were discussing all sorts of things, good and bad with GP, WSB and football.

After some time I asked Loris is he'd ever been tempted to go to WSB, as a taster. After all, I reasoned, Loris is something of a hard-edged racer who likes a bit of elbow-to-elbow contact and the WSB series is well-known for delivering that by the bucketload.

The former 125 and 250cc World Champion, who at the time was really in with a shout of taking the crown in the 500cc class, sat there for a while and thought about the idea of switching.

He slurped whatever energy drink he was slurping and then said: "While I can be fast enough to race in this championship I would not want to leave.

"I want to stay here for as long as I can and I will do as much as I can to do that. The moment you leave, the door shuts and you cannot come back."

I thought that was interesting stuff. Here was the man who'd taken the world crown on more than one occasion, riding for one of the highest-profile teams in the world and even he came across as being a bit scared about his spot on the GP grid.

So the news that former 250cc World Champion Marco Melandri, who has now been left very high and dry by the withdrawal of Kawasaki's factory effort from the MotoGP championship, has said that he would be happy to have a year away from MotoGP and return in 2010, is very puzzling indeed.

Is Marco THAT sure of his position in the greater scale of things? Is he privy to some information that none of us know about with regards to Kawasaki's future in a couple of season's time?

Here's his quote to Reuters about the situation: "It wouldn't be great but... to stop for a year would not be a huge problem. I'm waiting. I hope the date is not put back because it is better to know for sure that you won't be racing, rather than carrying on with uncertainty."

Now that sounds completely upside down to me. Certainly after taking on board what Loris said all those years ago I came away from the MotoGP paddock with a very different view to a rider's longevity than Marco has.

But you've got to admire his nerve. I guess though, at the end of the day, with grid numbers dropping as seriously as they are in MotoGP that previously shut door could soon be flung open to any and all who can get a bike round a circuit quickly enough.

Tony Carter / Eurosport