Race time

Motorcycle Grand Prix racing isn’t particularly popular in the United States. Worldwide, MotoGP ranks second only to soccer in popularity, with huge crowds at the races and television viewers in the millions. In Europe, Asia and South America, small, fast bikes have always been the favorites of riders and racers, totally unlike the Harley culture that dominates here. Today's race at Laguna Seca in Monterey will draw about 80,000 spectators, and part of the thrill of being there is just riding in with tens of thousands of other riders and seeing the hills covered with parked motorcycles, probably ninety percent of them sport bikes of one stripe or another.

Even without much background in this kind of racing, though, a GP Championship race should be exciting to watch. These are the greatest riders of their generation on the fastest bikes in the world, multimillion dollar thoroughbreds with full factory support. Top speeds on most tracks exceed 200 miles per hour, but the real excitement is in the corners, where riders achieve seemingly impossible lean angles, hanging off the inside of the bikes and dragging their knees on the ground, riding at 99 percent for the whole race and all-too-frequently making the small mistake or misjudgment that sends them flying in spectacular crashes.

Most regular viewers will admit that part of the excitement is in the crashes, but we don’t have to feel too guilty about this. Track safety improvements over the years mean that there hasn’t been a GP fatality in my memory, and although broken bones and dislocations happen, most of the time the rider jumps up and tries to restart the fallen bike to get back in the race. Even when a rider is down and can’t remount, it’s rare to be out with injuries for more than one or two races.



These guys are tough. American rider Colin Edwards fractured his collar bone this season and was screwed back together with seventeen titanium pins. His doctor said he couldn’t ride again until he could do some push-ups, so Colin dropped to the ground and put out two. He said the pain almost knocked him out, but he was back for the next race and finished third in the rain, a wet track meaning you have to slow down a little and ride with more finesse and smoothness, which makes the race a little less physical.

The real thrill, though, is in watching the close racing for the lead and epic battles back in the pack for spots as low as tenth or even lower. The best riders turn in lap times only a few thousands of a second apart on tracks that are typically between two and three miles long, and they race with an amazing consistency. If a rider loses a full second in a lap it usually means he’s made an error and misjudged a corner or got stuck fighting it out for position with another rider, which can force taking a defensive line through a turn.

I watched qualifying last night, in which riders have a full hour to put in their fastest lap, then go back to the pits to make micro-adjustments in the bike’s setup, then back out onto the track. The true qualifying laps come in the last ten minutes, when setup is as close to perfect as they can get it, and riders put their heads down to turn in a 99.9-percent performance to determine their starting position on the grid.

Pole position at Laguna was taken by Jorge Lorenzo, the Spanish rider who won the championship last year. Second is Australian Casey Stoner, off the pace by only seven one-thousands of a second. In fact, the first seven riders are all within seven-tenths of a second of each other, typical of GP qualifying. It amazes me to think that rider skills and bike development are all so close that less than one second over a two-mile track can mean the difference between a world champion and a distant also-ran. At these speeds, a winner with a two or three second lead over the rest of the pack will have a huge lead in actual distance. More exciting is when two or three riders battle it out and finish within inches of each other, the winner often determined by a well-planned pass in the last turn.



The races are most exciting, of course, if you follow the whole season and know each of the riders and how the standings have evolved over the last nine races, with eight more to go after Laguna. For even a first-time watcher, though, there should be enough adrenaline flowing to get you through the rest of the afternoon.

This is the second year in a row that I won’t make it down to Laguna Seca for the race. Last year I was taking an intensive Spanish summer course at Southern Oregon University. Although classes ran from Monday to Thursday, there was no way I could be gone for two or three days without studying. This year I’m recently back from two weeks in Washington, DC and a two-day bike excursion to Reno where I met up with several friends and got lucky at the blackjack tables, coming home up about a hundred dollars after expenses. In the end, I decided it was time to stay home for a few days straight.

Prior to that, I had an attendance record that was mostly unbroken for a lot of years; I can’t really say how many. I remember at least once leaving the track late in the afternoon after the last race and riding home straight through with only gas breaks, getting home well after midnight and then teaching classes the next morning. Usually, I’d just miss classes and ride home Monday.

Watching on television is almost as good, though, and actually even better for seeing the up-close battles that go on the full length of the track.

Racing is covered on Speed Channel, today’s race starting at 5pm Eastern time, 2pm out here on the Best Coast. There’s still time to set up your DVR.