Day 11 – MotoGP – Race Day
N36º 34.224' W121º 45.678'
Ah, how quickly we have to eat our words. Or more to the point, how quickly I have to eat mine.
Sunday is race day. This is, relatively speaking, a universal rule, hence the title of the iconic motorcycle racing movie ‘On any Sunday’. Once again, the day dawned awfully early as we crawled out of bed at 6:30am to get out to the track. Given how far up the hill we’d parked the previous day, our theory was to get to the racetrack as early as we could in order to get a slightly better parking spot. Once again, this idea was neither original nor unique. Out the door at 7:15am, and at the track by 7:30 to find ourselves once again about two-thirds up the hill in pretty much the same place we parked yesterday. The only benefit of today’s spot was that we were right next to the fence, which I presumed would greatly enhance my ability to find it again without resorting to setting off the car alarm.
Jorge Lorenzo, managing to stay completely on the bike this time.
There was a dual irony in all of this, of course. Not only did we park no closer, but there was really very little to do until about 9:30am when the first practice of the day started. I wandered off to find a fleece jacket (because the only think I have apart from t-shirts is motorcycle gear, and the temperature has resolutely stayed at about 20ºC all weekend. This is, of course, lovely in the sun, but gets darned cold in the shade when the wind comes up.
Colin Edwards in the practice session.
The practice sessions were entertaining, and fortunately most of the riders in most of the series managed to avoid doing anything cosmically stupid, like crashing once again. This led, however, to our second major pause of the day, for the functional equivalent of a three hour lunch break after the last practice ended and the first race began. There wasn’t that much going on, unless you enjoy watching other people getting taken for rides in the pace cars around the track. Everyone was pretty much waiting for the big race, to see how things played out. Despite the crowds that had been prevalent all weekend, this is when everyone came out of the woodwork. I staked out a place to take pictures from almost 45 minutes before the start of the race, just to hang on to the spot that I’d discovered the day before — all of a sudden there were enough people milling around that my prize location was being threatened.
Valentino Rossi, coming out of Turn 10 in the practice session.
Despite an astonishing crash yesterday afternoon, Jorge Lorenzo was still racing, which put Rossi, Lorenzo and Stoner all on the front row. After the national anthem (one of the only really overt displays of nationalism observed all weekend, despite this being the 4th of July weekend, and not really overt in that the Americans play the national anthem before EVERY sporting event) and a fly-past of F-18 fighter jets (surprisingly quiet in comparison to a premier-class motorcycle) the race itself got underway.
The hills are alive with the sounds of racing…
I’m not a blow by blow commentator, and given that I mock them regularly for their repetitive use of the over-the-top use of hyperbole and metaphor, I’m not going to try to mimic them now. The last time we came to the race in 2007, it was pretty much a non-event. This was the first year of the 800cc bikes, and the Ducati Desmosedici ridden by Casey Stoner was pretty much leaving everything in the field in its wake. Last year, by contrast, Stoner and Rossi engaged in an amazing back and forth battle throughout the race that finally saw Rossi win through a staggering overtake of Stoner in the Corkscrew; pretty damned exciting stuff, and exactly the kind of racing you want to see when you go out to an event.
Normally, you think of these as being much louder when they go by…
This year, the race was led by Dani Pedrosa throughout. Despite my mocking of him yesterday, and not terribly stellar results in practice or qualifying, he led the field at the beginning and he led the field all the way through to the end. The more interesting race continued to be between Rossi, Lorenzo and Stoner, all of whom were within spitting distance of each other in the overall championship points standing. Stoner started in second, was passed by Rossi briefly, and then managed to re-take second, which he held for a good dozen laps or so. It was only about halfway through the race that Rossi got by, and at one point he was a good four seconds behind Pedrosa in the lead, which is a gap that for most riders would be considered unrecoverable. The rest of the race was a herculean effort on Rossi’s part to try to reel Pedrosa in , which was an exercise that was not so much Pedrosa losing speed as Rossi progressively gaining it. Another lap, or even a half-lap, and Rossi might have been able to take the lead. As it was, he managed an extremely close second, with Lorenzo the nut-case strong on his heels, and Stoner finishing fourth, but still strongly given his previous problems.
When it comes to the big race, the stands are completely full. No one’s going to miss this.
Overall, a good race, but not a spectacular one. Lots of fun, and we were both definitely glad that we came — and in no way preventing us from renewing next year. But we’d still love to see some more back and forth between the riders — that’s what makes it really interesting.
Auggghhh!!! We’re all gonna die! … The race gets underway.
Sunday marked the halfway point in our vacation. We’ve now been on the road for as long as we have left to get home. So far, it’s been a great vacation. A day of motorcycling, a few hours relaxing in the hotel room with a good book, a great view and a nice glass of wine, and then a trip into Carmel for dinner. At least, this was the plan. We’d booked dinner at a nice hotel that had a very pleasant looking dining room. Once we’d parked the car, however, we were regaled with the booming beats of Madonna’s “Vogue” pouring out of an upstairs window. It turns out that someone had just gotten married, and this was the location of the reception. You could just hear the beats of the music from the dining room… right up until someone opened a door not 20 feet over. As it turns out, what looked like ‘upstairs’ was in fact right next to the dining room, and our 5 minutes at the table involved no less than 15 interruptions as one person or another left or went back to the reception.
The initial order of the front line. Didn’t change much.
We quickly opted for plan ‘B’, only we didn’t really have a plan ‘B’… and it was now 8:15 at night. Deciding there was nothing for it but to explore the main drag, however, we found a couple of nice looking options and settled on PortaBello, a funky looking Mediterranean restaurant (specifically because the menu had goat cheese ravioli on it as an appetizer, if we’re going to be completely honest about things). What could have gone downhill quickly was actually a lovely and relaxed meal. The table next to us was full of racing fans on their way back to Seattle, an animated family from France (animated as expressive and extroverted, rather than cartoonish, just to be clear) and a fun wait staff all made for an enjoyable evening of people watching, dining and drinking. Nice recovery, overall. Loud raucous weddings are great, but only if you’re a guest. From the outside, they’re just a little bit too scary to be entertaining, and you know it’s only a matter of time before friends start helping friends by holding their hair over the toilet bowl. Never a pretty sight, really.
Hard to believe these guys are actually on the same team.
Tomorrow is a relaxing day off, and then we resume our trip and set course for home.
We desperately hope this bike belongs to a girl.