MotoGP at Laguna Seca!!!!!!!!!

[David]

Nicky Hadyen 1st, Kentucky; Colin Edwards, Houston, Texas 2nd place!!!!!

Americans in 1st and 2nd!!!!

I remember getting my butt kicked by these little kids and now they're winning GP races!

Too cool.

[jyl]

Just came back from.

Huge crowd - I heard 150K, dunno if that is true, but anyway easily 2X the largest number of people I have ever previously seen at Laguna Seca.

Great racing too - Rossi almost overtook Edwards on the last laps. For never having seen the track before this week, he was smokin'.

Corkscrew's changed - moved the bridge to just after the corkscrew, ugly location IMO, but done for more safety. Moved the trees, built up the dirt on the outside of the track, better seating/viewing.

Rossi and Edwards' Yamahas were wearing the old-school yellow-and-black Yamaha colors. Very popular w/ the crowd.

Probably going back for the Historics. Gonna camp at the track this year. Anyone else going?

[addictionMS]

Laguna Seca, this weekend, Moto GP and AMA SuperBikes

[GIBSON]

OK, I gotta tell this story to somebody so it might as well be you guys.
I'm director of Race Operantions at Laguna. I run the Vicotry Circle and help with anything to do with the race itself, anthem singers, celebrities etc. It's not a bad job but it can be intense.
For this race, I had my 4-Runner in victory circle to drive the top three qualifiers to TV interviews and take the winners to TV and media interviews. It was a pretty big undertaking to bring this size of an event to Laguan. We spent (courtesy of Yamaha) 2 million bucks just making the track safer, runoff areas etc. Then we sold out the track, never done that before. Access to the track is not that great anyway so the traffic was a nightmare.
Today, we got the last cars parked at 1:30. Tempers flared but we did our best. We had somewhere around 59,000. That does not include all of the people who travel with the MotoGP group, our people, vendors (huge group) etc.
So, I get things set up in our new, elevated victory circle (very cool by the way, looks just like any F1 podium now). I get asked to take all of the American riders (Nicky, Colin etc) to meet Michael Jordan. Ok, I pile them in the 4-Runner and off we go. Jordan seems genuinely glad to meet them, some of them want to leave asap, other riders want to talk to him, we all eventually leave.
Then I take the top three qualifiers (Rossi, Nicky and Biaggi) to their TV interviews (live to 82 countries, 120 million people-NASCAR feels good when they get 7 million on TV). All the way over those guys where reaching out the window of my 4-Runner trying to grab girls, I'm not kidding. These guys are hound dogs.
Just get off thet track doing 150mph plus and all they can talk about is women. Seems healthy to me.
Then, I get a call that the master of ceremonies needs to be picked up and would I do it. OK, why not. Turns out it's Brad Pitt. Along with his friend Matt LeBlanc (sp?). So, I get them in the car and Matt hardly says a work but Brad is Mr. talkative, loves the track, wants to get out and just walk around the thousands of bikes. Of course, that won't work, he can't walk 5 feet without an escort, people seemed to know where he was. My car has more hand prints all over it than I'll ever get washed off. I can say this, Brad Pitt is no stuck-up celebrity. He thanked me many times for driving him around, loved the track, greeted everyone with real sincerity and had a blast.
I wish I could say the same for Rossi, I'm kinda glad he lost. He griped about how unsafe the track was, his "personal photographer" said he didn't care for the place, thought it was dangerous. Nobody else complained. And he makes more than Tiger Woods per year.
Anyway, an interesting day to say the least. Anybody in the area intersted in volunteering at the track should contact me. We do occaisionally have some fun.

[David]

Bruce, thanks for sharing the story.

I meet Colin and the Haydens about 15 years ago when I was into road racing. I remember Nicky the most. My boss was one of his sponsers (he was 11 (oh, I mean 13 )), I asked Nicky to watch the sales tent while I went to grab lunch. I brough him back a cheeseburger for a thanks. Nicky was so gracious and so good a rider, I knew thke moment would stick in my memory.

I remember how good Colin was from when he was 16, started with the novice 600cc bikes at Oak Hill and always beat the experts making up a 20 second deficit.

I also remember him b!tching about his bike set up a Mid Ohio when an local Texan and I gave him a ride back to the pits after a high speed get off. Too much of a winer!

[GIBSON]

David, the only down side of the weekend for me was the
shifter cart race. Great racing, really amazing speed and talent
those guys have. We got them up on the podium and the announcer never showed up. I felt like an idiot and really felt bad for these guys who had just done so well in the race. I handed them their trophies and gave them the bottle of champagne and they kinda just walked off the podium. Really a bad ending for a great race. We'll do better by them next year.

[David]

Bruce, don't feel bad. Unfortunately a lot of shifterkart racing is at that point right now. We had the IKF road race nationals a few weeks ago in Texas and the trophy ceremony was a joke. As an older guy, I made a point to spray the winner in my class with champane.

They are trying to get more kart races as support races for big races. There is an ALMS support race shortly at Barber. I won't make it, but some of my buddies are. I hope they get on TV! It should do well as a spectator series because of the close wheel to wheel action.

[Steve Carlton]

Some stuff I saw down there:

MotoGP report

[vash]

i met ben bostrom (spelling sucks ) once. way back when he was dating that leane tweeden girl. talk about smoking hot! friendly too.


bruce, what do volunteers do? i would love to.

[turbo6bar]

Originally posted by vash
i met ben bostrom (spelling sucks ) once. way back when he was dating that leane tweeden girl. talk about smoking hot! friendly too.

Are you talking about Ben or the chick? Can't tell with you San Francisco guys.

[GIBSON]

vash, volunteers at laguna are either
1. members of SCRAMP, the organization that runs the track- we usually have to be at the races most all of the weekend. I was there from 7am or so until dark the entire weekend. It's a lot of work and can involve many different areas from parking to concessions to paddock control to my area, race operations (I think it's the best department at the track).
2. volunteers usually give about 4-6 hours a day, in return they get free tickets. I can arrange to get you into the paddock and possibly work the paddock gates which puts you right in the middle of the action. It's pretty boring helping park cars, I'm just
glad there are those willing to volunteer in that area. I don't know if I could do it.
Anyone interested in working future races, just let me know.
PM or at oldmartin@redshift.com

[motion]

Ohhhh Bruce... man, am I going to be filling your ear in a bit... I'll be back tomorrow with pics and my take on the weekend. I've got lots to say

[nostatic]

Originally posted by jyl
Probably going back for the Historics. Gonna camp at the track this year. Anyone else going?

Gonna be at the POC race end of August. Can't take off the extra week before for the historics.

[GIBSON]

I might have some extra Friday and Sunday tickets to the Historics, let me know if anybody wants one or two. I'll know more about how many I have left a week before the races. Sometimes I end up with 4 or so extras for each day (not Saturday).
Motion, tell me what you thought about the weekend, we want to improve things as much as we can for next years races. BTW, the date for next years MotoGP is July 21-23. If you think you might be going, get a hotel reservation now before the world knows, you might even get a better price. These local hotels jack people around on pricing for race weekends. We can't do much to change that but we try. We have 4 more years on our MotoGP contract.
Here's a good arial shot of the weekend:

[jyl]

Bruce, your PM is full, so I'm responding here.

If you end up with an extra ticket to the Sunday Historics, and you want to get rid of them, please let me know.

I'm coming myself and will buy my own ticket, but ideally I'd bring a French student who is staying here for the summer, he's a car buff (and I took him to see the MotoGP, seemed like a good way to show him the Monterey area and what US moto fans are like). He can't afford a ticket for the Historics (impoverished student etc) but his schedule is also flexible enough for a last-minute invite.

Any tip on where the better camping sites are at the track? It'll just be a tent pitched by the 911, so no hook-ups or RV pads needed - in fact I'd rather be away from the Winnebagos. I've come to the Historics every year since 1987, but this will be my first time camping.

Edit: hmm, I just realized he could get his ticket by volunteering too. I'll suggest that to him. Although I'm not sure his English is up to it, maybe it'll be better by August.

[deanp]

Bruce,

My wife and I went out to Laguna for the MotoGP event and had a GREAT time! Our experience once we got into the gates was fantastic!

This was out first time there and the only downside for us were the traffic issues - we didn't get there early on Saturday and tried to get to the 10AM GP practice but were stuck on Reservation Road and the canyon road for about 2hrs, downside here were bikes had seemingly free access, they were lane splitting all they wanted. Nothing like sitting in traffic waiting, and seeing bike after bike go by and get to the event way earlier than you after showing up to the party later.

On Sunday we got to the track right as gates were opening and didn't have any issue getting in, however we got sent up to Lookout Point. Was a parking pass needed to get closer, it seemed like they sent every other vehicle a up the road to where we parked Friday. Anyway, leaving was a nightmare, we sat for an hour without moving an inch, then went back against traffic to get out by Corkscrew View camping. Again, lane splitting by bikes (or in this case open access to the opposite lane going down the canyon road) was frustrating.

Not sure what could be done to alleviate that much traffic getting into and out of the track. And not to blame to guys (and girls) on bikes, if I had the choice I would've done the same to avoid waiting in that line....

We picked up shirts and hats on Friday so we didn't have the massive wait like those on Sat or Sunday. I acutally heard someone telling people in line that they were out of shirts and wating for the truck to bring more....