7/24/08 US Laguna Seca GP Review

One of the last places a racer wants to be, if he's not racing, is a racetrack. Plane and simple. So when I got a call last week from my buddy Mark Wong asking me if I wanted to buy one of his spare suite tickets, well, I wined like a bitch for a while about the money. Then I cried about the time, a place to stay, and on and on.. But then through a stroke of utter genius I snapped out of it and told him "Hell yes I'll go!" And so we did. What follows here are the results. They're not politically correct or even polite, actually. But they are fun, and of course I took along the camera!

I'd like to start this off with one of the key reasons I bring a camera to a racetrack - girls. If ever you see me at a track, with a camera strapped to my neck, next to ten other photographers, you'll soon notice that nine of them have their cameras pointed in the opposite direction to mine. I mean why do I need to take a photo of Matt Mladin backing it into a turn when sixteen other guys are already nailing that better than I can? Yeah well I agree. So here's an amazonian Kawasaki girl who stood head and shoulders above any girls around her - literally.

I couldn't tell if this chick wanted to say hi to me or kick my ass. So I used a telephoto lens and wore sneakers.

It wasn't all about girls though (90%). Some of why I went there was actually to cheer for the underdog - no matter who it was. Last year I tried to cheer for Duhammel in the GP. That didn't work out too well. It's in my character I guess. I hate when the same guy wins more than twice in a row. And if he wins easily I hate it even more. There are only two athletes who I can/could stomach watching dominate - Michael Jordan and Valentino Rossi.

I have to admit being a little critical of Vale. I thought it was kind of cheesy the way he blamed Michelin so publically for his 07 struggles. I mean they have given him enough tires in his career for you and me to go buy a nice house with for crying out loud. ONE bad year and he jumped ship on them? Well I learned this past weekend that I was wrong, and he was right - to leave when he did. Not the first time I've been wrong, won't be the last..

I answered a question going into the Laguna weekend about which American would do the best in this year's GP - by chosing Colin Edwards. He's in his best year yet, it's a tight track, and he knows the place. By mid way through the first practice on Friday I could tell I made another mistake. In fact it wasn't just Edwards who was struggling - it was ANYONE on Michelins. Dani Pedrosa even limped his way onto his bike (twice!) to give it his best despite the injuries he sustained in the last GP. He wasn't that far off the pace once he put the crutches down. It was easy to see though, he was really hurt. But he could have gotten some points for sure, and in the two sessions he did on Friday he ran a full race distance I bet. Rumor has it though, once he got a taste of how bad he'd be off considering tires too? Well that just made him sick enough to leave. He was on a flight out of SFO by Friday evening (cursing Michelin the whole way probably).




As the story goes Michelin brought the perfect tires for Laguna. Only one problem. They were the perfect tires for Laguna two years ago, when it was 140 degrees out there on the track. This weekend it was about 75 degrees. Word got back to me in the suite just above Colin that in one session it took him 15 laps until he could touch his knee to the ground. Those tires were so hard to get heat into that every single Michelin rider logged their fastest laps on their last lap of practice - after full runs. When I went out there to shoot some pictures on Sunday I snagged Colin's rear tire with the lens. Take a look. He's got a TREADED tire on, at a MotoGP race, with not one cloud in the sky!

Getting back to Rossi though, I have to admit it was a pleasure to watch him race. Not so much practice, since he's so smoothe and is just about always on the same line. Plus he was always half a second off Stoner's pace, which threatened another boring race was upon us. Hell AMA isn't boring enough? Now we need TWO parades out there?

Alas, the parade never happened. From the very first turn of the race it was pretty obvious that Rossi was prepared to fight to the death if that's what it took. It's not so easy to see how much faster Stoner's bike was than Rossi's in the TV coverage. I watched it (with the sound turned down because I can't stand Greg White shouting in a despirate attempt to convince the world "This is the best racing we've seen in a long, long time...."). Valentino would run out of turn eleven dead even with Stoner on his tail. Same drives, sometimes even better than the Ducati. But holy shit, once the tires stopped spinning all hell broke loose for that red rocket. It was like Stoner was strapped to a huge rubber band tied to each leg of the foot bridge over start finish.

Here's a series of (crap) shots to show what I mean:

Up in the suite (headquarters for the ultimate aerial umbrella girl shots), no one knew which way to run - inside to the tv screens, or outside to breathe in all the excitement! It was pure mayhem. And it was all because Valentino decided second place was just not an option. He would weave heading up the front straight (which believe me, is NOT his typical line) every lap. And any moment Stoner passed him, he knew he had to pass him right back in the next turn - or the race was over. Stoner was that much faster.

In the days since the race there's been some talk about Rossi being rough. Rossi riding too aggressive. I know I remember him knocking Gibernau off the track a few years ago, then taking the win as a result. THAT I agree, was not only unsportsmanlike conduct, but it was exactly "stealing" the victory from someone else. This, in my eyes, was not stealing anything. This was a dog fight, every lap, and the most tactical racer won. I haven't cheered that hard for an underdog since, well, I can't remember when..

What a great weekend.

 

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