Will the Grand Duke of Ducati become King of Phillip Island?

ALL YEAR he has been leader of the pack, but Australia's Casey Stoner will not start from that position today as he seeks his maiden grand prix win on home soil.

For much of yesterday's qualifying, the local hope and world champion set the pace, before Italy's Valentino Rossi and young Spaniard Dani Pedrosa swooped in the final minutes to temporarily suspend the Phillip Island party.

Stoner will start on the front row of the grid for what he insists is just another race. Of course it is not. For as long as he can remember, the 21-year-old prodigy has raced for himself and his family. Today he races for a nation.

His dad, Glen, will be watching, as he was yesterday when Stoner recovered from a nasty tumble in the morning to qualify third-fastest for today's grand prix. What goes through a father's mind as he watches his son thrown from a motorcycle travelling at 300 km/h and flying towards the bitumen? "I was just hoping like hell he didn't hurt himself," Glen Stoner said.

Stoner snr says he has never seen his son so relaxed, after a fortnight spent trout fishing and helping out on the family farm near Tamworth. "The pressure of winning the championship is gone, and he is much calmer now."

He'll need to be. Stoner has lived and raced fast this year, but his arrival back in Australia as race favourite and world champion has been some crash landing. The father said yesterday that the son was still getting used to the idea of bearing a nation's expectations.

This time last year Stoner was an also-ran; now he is on the front page of every paper, responsible for booming weekend crowds and resurgent interest in the sport.

He is the fan favourite and the race favourite. "I don't think he realised it would be this intense coming home," his father said. "It's a massive change for him this year. He's a very private person. He does what he has to do out on the track, but the rest of it he doesn't really enjoy that much.

"He likes to share his success, but there's only so much to go round. He never set out to be famous. He does this because he loves racing motorbikes."

Whether or not he wanted it, Casey Stoner is famous. There was mayhem yesterday at the official autograph tent as the world champion arrived for a half hour of signing. Thousands cheered and queued. A sign read: "Estimated time from this point is 30 minutes. Note, sessions are less than 30 mins."

The line stretched for more than 100 metres past this point. They were never going to get near him. They waited, anyway, happy just to see him.

Mick Doohan, five times a world champion himself, said he had never seen such mania at the island. Sally Demaniel stood in line, carrying an Australian flag for Casey to sign. "I love him because he's an Aussie champ," said the Encounter Bay, SA, woman.

Further up the line, Julie Gordon had come from Sydney. Stoner cap in hand, she also carried photographs of the man in action. She had taken them on Friday at the track, had them developed and enlarged that night. All they needed now was a signature and a frame.

Once known as crash-prone, Stoner has scarcely put a wheel wrong this year as his trademark pace and new-found consistency have delivered eight race wins and a world title.

This weekend has been different. For the second day in a row he slid across the bitumen during morning practice. It was a heavier fall than the previous day's, his Ducati kicking like a rodeo bull as he planted his knee low to round a corner. The bike went one way and its rider the other — flying through the air as if shot from a cannon.

His father's verdict? "Just a little slip." Though Glenn Stoner insists it is so, relaxed is not a word many outside observers use about Casey Stoner. He can seem tense and guarded, not to mention prickly with the press. You get the impression he just wants to ride his bike, and ride it fast. Everything else is distraction.

On Friday, when he slid from his bike during practice, Stoner's heart must have leapt. There was no sign of it afterwards as he spoke to The Age. Was it the first time he'd come off the bike this year? — "No."

How many times had he done so? — "Don't know, don't care." It does not pay to contemplate such things too much. Just get back on the bike.

The personality the media see is the real one, his father says, but there is more to him.

"You have to know him very closely before you get to see the fun, entertaining side of him," he says. "He has a close circle of friends."

The Stoner enterprise is very much a family affair. Glen is his manager, his mother, Bronwyn, a constant presence.

Some in the media contingent have drily dubbed him Lleyton Hewitt on wheels. The Stoner family has even rented a tent at the track to sell merchandise. Casey Stoner T-shirts were flying off the racks at $50 — outselling the official Ducati merchandise by a runaway margin.

Outside the tent, another queue stretched. Peter Slessor was waiting patiently for a T-shirt. "He's brilliant," the 59-year-old said. "This year he's done the job and matured beautifully."

Stoner may not be as colourful or quotable as Rossi, or even Doohan, but nobody seemed to mind. "That's part of the attraction," Mr Slessor said. "He's down-to-earth, a kid that is going places but not getting ahead of himself."