I was there when Grand Prix motorcycle racing returned to the United States and a Young American finally won his first premier class race.

* * *

The weekend actually started well over a year ago, when rumours of a USGP started flying around. Laguna Seca instantly popped into my mind, it being the most recognizeable American racing venue outside of the United States (okay, Daytona and Indianapolis are up there, but not for classic motorcycle racing). However the initial rumours were about Barber, a small, tight, goofy track somewhere near Atlanta. The horror. Thankfully, as the weeks passed rumour turned to fact and the announcement was made that the GP would be held at Laguna Seca following some extensive changes to the track to make the venue safer for MotoGP bikes.

The next step was getting tickets, but this was easy. A riding buddy of mine had first dibs being a VIP and got me the general admission and the [soon to be] coveted paddock pass even before they went on sale officially. It was not easy for others, as many assumed tickets would remain available, having been used to WSBK style crowds. Ask the folks who made a killing on eBay selling tickets, paddock, camping, even parking passes for 10x their face value or more if this was indeed just another race weekend.

From the beginning the vibe was that this was going to be a very special event.

The first hint was that the hotels around Monterey started filling up, rooms getting bought out by European travel agencies. I don’t think even the hotel owners expected this so at first there was no price gouging. We know now that what happened later with the hotel fiasco was totally outrageous, but I would rather not go into that. Suffice it to say that Embassy Suites and Red Bull have a PR problem on their hands and probably lost a lot of loyal customers through boycott (although I doubt RedBull lost as many as they gained through their superb promotion of the event).

The second hint was the buzz that began with the start of the 2005 MotoGP season. At almost every race, Laguna Seca was being mentioned. Riders were talking more and more about the excitement of coming back to America. More and more information emerged on the changes to the track (thankfully the layout was pretty much untouched although my favourite photo spot (the bridge over turn 9) was moved into a much less interesting position). The buzz never died down, but grew to totally unexpected proportions. By the time the MotoGP circus arrived in Assen, Laguna Seca was all that everyone was talking about.

It was beautiful.

I’ve been going to Laguna Seca for the Superbike and AMA races since moving to California in 1995 missing only 2 years so I’m familiar with the venue and the unique nature of the track, its beauty, and what to expect when visiting. Nothing prepared me for this particular race weekend though.

First off, I didn’t have a place to stay. I knew that something would crop up last minute, because that’s the ways things work right? Well, there was some trepidation in the last week, with lots of fine folks offering a floor space here, a floor space there, but my buddy John hooked us up with a campground just off of Reservation road and Route 1, close to the track, and away from the madness of Monterey.

Parking was the next problem. As an owner of a 916 I assumed (at the time we were buying tickets) that I would be parking on Ducati Island once again. Ducati Island is a Laguna Seca tradition, a seriously amazing kickback for Ducati owners with free parking, gear check, special events. This year, the Island parking passes “sold out”. Even the regular motorcycle parking passes sold out. Oops. I was rescued by “Miss Vicky” of the DOC and Ducati Owners List (a huge and all powerful mailing list for Ducati owners world wide) who allowed me to trade time helping at the gear check for 4 hours on friday in return for a parking pass on the island. Thank you again, MV, you are the greatest.

A big goal of mine was to get some good photography done during the weekend, so the final preparation step was renting a long L lens for my Canon 10D. I reserved it months earlier but it was picked up on Thursday and for me marked the beginning of “The Weekend”.

* * *

Friday morning I left the house around 6:30am and on my way out of town I saw a guy on an RR with a sleeping bag tied to the back getting ready to roll out so I pulled up beside him. Asking him if he was going to the race was just a formality. A third rider joined us and we made good time getting to Seaside by 9am where we split up. I picked up my Island parking band @ Embassy Suites and headed to the track.

The day’s moto was: “I can’t believe it’s only Friday”. The number of fans already at the track was unbelievable. The long narrow roads that lead to the track were packed with cars and bikes. Ducati Island was already half full. Friday attendace at the track probably came close to, if not surpassing, many WSBK race days.

At 10am, the MotoGP bikes took onto the track for the first practice. I was strategically positioned at turn 2 where the bikes exit the pits between 2 and 3. Loris Capirossi on the 65 Ducati Desmosedici was the first rider out. The riders filed out and the bikes filled the air with incredible noise. MotoGP had arrived in America.

I watched the bikes for the first hour noting the crafty lines that each rider was testing coming off the “straight” into the Andretti hairpin. It was clear that this was happening all over the track. There was definitely a lot of checking out of the American riders by the “foreigners”. Nicky Hayden later said that he was pretty dodgy about letting Sete and other riders follow him. The Americans knew that their greatest advantage here was the knowledge of the track and its quirks.

I left half way during the extended FP1 to do my 4 hour stint on Ducati Island “bagging and tagging” gear for fellow Ducatisti. FP2 was just wrapping up when my shift was over and I headed to the paddock.

The paddock area hadn’t changed too much since last year’s WSBK, but the atmosphere was crazy. I suddenly found myself standing next to Alex Hoffman and managed to get a few words with him (he seemed pretty worried about the track) before he got dragged off by his mechanics. Carlos Checa came out to sign a couple of autographs followed by Troy Bayliss who replied to my “We miss you at Ducati Island” comment with a quiet “I know, me too”.

Shaky Byrne was out talking to a few folks, but most fans didn’t even know who he was. Shameful. Meanwhile a throng was gathering next to the Yamaha paddock and the magic chant of “Rossi Rossi Rossi” was starting. Sure enough The Doctor emerged from his paddock and suddenly the entire mob moved in. Rossi was talking to some reporter while the mob squeezed tighter and tighter, small fights breaking out between people to get a look at the Italian in dire need of a haircut. I decided to stay back and it paid off in spades when I saw Barros heading toward the Camel paddock with a familiar looking dude with graying hair. So after parting with HRC, Mick Doohan was now working with Sito Pons. Very interesting. Barros dodged me, but Mick stuck around and after signing the back of my ticket chatted a bit about the track and the atmosphere. He was impressed with the changes and thought the Americans, especially Nicky, would have a great shot at the race come Sunday. Crazy Aussie.

Around this time I realized the rider’s safety meeting was about to take place so I grabbed a good spot to watch from. Sete ran through quickly as did Rossi, only stopping at the top of the stairs for a second to do a quick wave. Melandri came through with a worried look on his face. Then came the Americans. Colin was a blast, eating up the adoration of the crowd and grinning from ear to ear. Hopper had to be dragged away from the fans by one of his assistants. Even Kenny Jr. was all smiles. Nicky was the only one keeping a low profile, as much as he was able.

The meeting didn’t last long and everyone came down pretty much in the same state, if anything, Marco looked even more worried (and hurting). Most of the riders high tailed it to their trailers but Hopper and KR Jr. stuck around for a long while signing autographs and just generally giving love to the fans. Prolly arranged by Red Bull, but Hopper, at least, was totally genuine in his excitement and appreciation of us common folk.

Then it was back to the Island while the AMA Superstock bikes were wrapping up their practice session. On the way I found the Yamaha Superkart staging area but it was curiously empty. No luck catching Rainey.

We took off for Monterey and Cannery Row which was madness. The city was transformed. I’ve never seen anything like it but I imagine it’s what Bike Week is like in Daytona. Crazy numbers of bikes lining the streets for miles and every single motorcycle sub-culture represented. There were the big tourers, classic choppers and modern cruisers, a group of vintage BMW’s next to the comically similar Urals, a couple of super clean and amazingly stock yellow rz350s, a gang of matching Gixxers with undercarriage neon and squared off tires with matching riders posing (poseuing?) and taking photos of each other, a lone BSA, amazingly without an oil pan underneath it, and of course every type of modern sport bike imaginable.

As we were walking down the street and older gentlemen stopped us and asked us if we knew who Wayne Rainey was. John and I were like “Yeah man, of course”. He claimed to be a friend of Wayne’s and was walking around with a notebook getting people to write something to cheer Wayne up. The bad news: Wayne had gotten hurt earlier in the week and wouldn’t be racing the Superkarts. Something about a boat and burns on his legs and buns due to engine heat he couldn’t feel… The notebook was already full of well wishes including John’s “get back out there and kick Lawson’s ass!” and I hope Wayne got to see it.

We grabbed some food, checked out some bikes, and headed back to the campground where I was forced to sleep in the damp cold wrapped up in some tshirts, extra underwear, and my leathers having earlier decided not to bother buying a cheap sleeping bag at the local Target prior to heading into Monterey.

* * *

Needless to say Saturday morning was brutal, but I took off early, now knowing that even the early bird was going to be stuck in some mighty traffic into the race track, and I had a parade lap ticket from my buddy Rob burning a hole in my pocket and a 9:45am date at the staging area. Due to the painfully slow pace and a couple of really uncooperative CHiPs who forced the bikes to ride with the cars for miles at a time, my 916 overheated and I had to pull over just after reaching the track. After a few minutes I got back on and was horrified to find the battery charge not strong enough to turn her over. Thankfully I was on top of a hill and did a rolling start and got into the staging area in time to get ready for the parade lap. Here I ran into Miss Vicky again who had another Island parking pass for me. I had lost mine the day before and was rueing having to walk from the far away lots with leathers, helmet, camera, monopod, and heavy lens for the reset of the weekend. MV rules again.

I made it to turn 5 in time to see the second half of the final free practice which ended with a sweet series of wheelies from pretty much every MotoGP rider.

Of course when it came time to start the bikes for the parade lap mine would still not turn over. I got a jump from a Yamaha mechanic servicing a little dirt track for kids. He said: “How about that, Yamaha helping out Ducati” to which I replied “Tank you Ya-maka!”.

The parade lap started at turn 5 with an almost immediate red flag as some squid laid his bike down on the short straight heading to 6. Next to me in the lineup was one of the greatest bikes from the weekend: a 50cc minibike with a sidecar made out of a “Do Not Enter” sign. The bike didn’t even have a clutch; after it was started the “monkey” would hold up the rear end to let the rear wheel spin.

Unfortunately the CHiP on the way out onto the track made us all go real slow and the minibike guys stalled out. Once away, we got to speed up to a nice pace and I cut inside a gixxer into the corkscrew going at a pretty good clip (Edwards would later copy my move overtaking Valentino in the same way during the race). I popped a squidly wheelie on the main straight and almost binned it in front of the grandstands but arrived back at turn 5 in one piece ready to sign up for a track day.

After parking at the Island I caught the tail end of Christian Pfeiffer’s insane antics on his Monster and headed up to the corkscrew to get ready for the QP. From the several seasons of shooting photos there I knew the spot I wanted and how hard it would be to get it in the resulting crowd if I waited too long.

QP got underway and I made my way around from the corkscrew over the bridge to turn 9 and watched Nicky walk the walk while the European and Japanese riders continued to look for the magic line. Watching these bikes going through the corkscrew was unreal. The suspension on all the bikes seemed much tighter than I expected, the bikes bouncing out of the little dip at the top so much that Bayliss almost got thrown from his Honda at one point. I was at turn 9 when Rossi ran his out of the blue scorcher putting him second in the session.

After QP I stuck around a little while longer and watched the first few laps of the Super Kart race. I’m sure it’s immense fun to drive those things, and it was a blast to see the #34 going around, but it’s just not my thing to watch. I used the time to make a long way around the track looking for my second favourite photo spot from 2004, behind turn 11. It was still there and there was still space enough between the fences and billboards to get a nice long shot down the straight. I made a mental note to be there early on Sunday for the warmup session, and continued around the track.

I made it back to the Island in time to watch EBoz kick Mladin’s ass from the Ducati grandstands between 2 and 3. That was awesome and the Island was in heaven despite Hodgson’s crash on the first lap. Neil would later show up to sign autographs and make comments about the Attack Kawasaki that took him out; “don’t buy Kawasakis, apparantely they’re impossible to control”.

That evening I spent running back and forth between a Target near our camp and a Kinkos past Cannery Row in Monterey getting a bunch of images for Jim Race to post on the site. I also bought a cheap sleeping bag…

* * *

Sunday morning I skipped breakfast as getting to my spot at turn 11 was more critical. Despite already heavy traffic I didn’t overheat again and made it to the corner with plenty of time to spare. I staked out two spots but just 10 minutes before the start of the session two pros from some helmet manufacturer showed up with their gigantic lenses and proceeded to block my view. I was then given a real treat as a MotoGP track volunteer asked me “would you like a better spot to shoot from?”. “uh, yes please” at which point he let me inside the fence and I got to shoot some 150 images from behind the concrete wall.

The most interesting bit during the warmup was that Rossi and a couple of other “new” (to Laguna) riders were still trying out new lines, Rossi going very far to the right down the straight a few times, the Ducatis staying closer to the center. This was a very good omen for the Americans and the ex-WSBK guys who were really just warming up at this point.

After the warmup it was another trip to the paddock where I met Nicky Hayden and gave him the “you can do it man” comment which I’m sure was the reason for his ultimate success. I also literally bumped into Sete and wished him luck but he just mumbled something. Perhaps he was cursing in spanish but I’ll have to check with Marco to be sure… Colin was once again all smiles, tossing out many signed items into the sea of humanity. Xaus was hanging back near his trailer and didn’t want to come up and say ciao. Bummer, but we’ll probably see him a lot in California next year if he moves to AMA as recent rumours suggest.

Back at the Island, John’s Chromo took second place in the Moto-Euro Best Monster competition. He didn’t even enter, just found an invitation sitting on his bike on saturday. Pretty great for a daily rider!

For the race itself we decided to head up to the hill above turn 4, it would give us the best view with only turns 6-9 completely out of view. I considered staying at turn 2 to get some first lap photos but decided I really wanted to actually watch this race instead of worrying about camera settings and the likes.

We found a good spot and watched the on track “entertainment” which consisted of Randy Mamola giving various famous people rides around the track on the two seater Desmosedici.

And then of course came the main event, Nicky got the hole shot, and we screamed in delight when #5 moved above #46 on the score board half way through the race. Our precision stopwatches (1 mississippi, 2 mississippi, 3 mississippi, etc.) showed Hayden holding his lead but Rossi making a last gasp charge at the end. No point in saying more as there’s plenty already written about the race elsewhere. Hearing the American anthem play at the far away podium for the first time in 5 years was an amaing feeling and a true signal that this USGP couldn’t have been scripted better. Watch and learn, Formula One!

Heading home was a surreal experience. Riding in roaring packs of dozens of bikes, lane splitting at 100mph, we were all bad, we were idiots on two wheels, we terrorized route 101 and 880, and we were really really happy.

* * *

The contract for Laguna Seca’s USGP is 5 years long, however this doesn’t mean the rider’s safety commission can’t overrule an event there. So lets hope the track is made further safe as it has been asked for. There’s not much left to do to satisfy the riders, some of whom left unhappy for the wrong reasons.

The weekend schedule was strange. Combining AMA and MotoGP was unfair to the AMA guys who had too little practice time before qualifying and races, who became a “supporting cast”, but even more unfair to us, fans of the entire GP series because of the exclusion of the 125 and 250cc classes. I hope we get a true GP race weekend next year.

As to Nicky, and his maiden win, lets hope this is the crack in the dam, because this was a one time gift from the MotoGP gods, to race his HRC Respol bike on a track only he and a handful of others knew; it was a one time advantage. Honestly I think it’ll be business as usual at Donington but regardless of what his future holds, Nicky has made history. Big history. And he may have gained the final boost that he needed to be one of the big boys instead of just riding with them. And I was there to see it. Yeah!

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