MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas, COTA, 4/19-21, 2013

[sckego]

Holy epic weekend. I am SO glad I decided to make the trip out at the last minute. It was great seeing everybody who came down for the races, and getting a chance to hang out and catch up. HUGE thanks to Jared for coming to pick me up from the airport at 2 f'n AM on Thursday, Melinda for lending me her bike for the weekend, George for letting me use his trailer, and to Will for driving myself and the bike down to Austin, and taking me to the airport on Monday. I love that I can still come back there with about no notice and have you guys hook me up when it's needed. You all rule!


Moto2 free practice on Friday--our first glimpse of the track!


Saturday morning, Marquez had a massive off in T19 right in front of Will and I. This is him on his backup bike a few minutes later at the exit of T18 as he set the fast lap of the session, then reset it again the next lap. PA Announcer: "He's a freak!"


Andrea and Jenson were working the station between Turns 10 and 11 on Saturday and Sunday. Notice the carbon-fiber souvenir bit!


For Moto2 and MotoGP qualifying on Saturday, Will and I headed over to the hillside above T1 and met up with some of my California buddies: Linda, Dave, Petra, and Steve.


Everybody got a lot of sun on Saturday... time to slather on the L'oreal before heading into the track on Sunday!


The start of the Moto3 race from our spot in T6


After the races were through we headed back to the house, where most people packed up and hit the road back to DFW. Will and I headed into Austin to meet up with Petra and Steve for the Red Bull post-GP party. Will and Petra at the club:


Found some Vietnamese cuties on the dance floor to have some fun with...


The party shut down at about 3AM, and Will drove me to the airport to drop me off for my 5:30 AM flight. I got there before the goddamned security lines were even open. Did you know airports have operating hours?


I slept straight through my flights from AUS-->HOU-->SFO. Got back to CA around 1030AM, and was back at work at noon. I can't wait to go home and hit the sack. What an awesome weekend.

[Polokid69]

Great pics!

[sckego]

Get a load of Marquez' elbow at the post-race interview.

[DemonDuck]

Such talent... I wish I had just a little of it. He has a great personality also. I think he will be huge like Rossi.

[DarcShadow]

I was even more impressed with that Rea kid from Saturday running 2 seconds faster than everyone else on identical machines. He has a prommising future in MotoGP. Anyone know what the slowest guys in MotoGP were running? Rea was running 2:23 on a 125cc bike, MotoGP was running 2:03. Wonder how far off Rea was from the slowest guy.

[DarcShadow]

I mentioned to some one I wondered what all the flat gravel areas all over the place were for. Judging from the google sat images I'd say they had bleachers there for the F1 races.

[DarcShadow]

Oh, and get this. Attendance for MotoGP 131,082. Attendance for F1, 117,429. Eat that F1!

[WillK675]

That was an awesome weekend !

Get a load of Marquez' elbow at the post-race interview.

mmelbow.jpg

Turn 6 was great for watching that elbow drag the ground. He chicken winged it through the entire turn.


And for those that stayed to watch the Red Bull Rookie Cup Race #2, and saw the bad highside in the tight left hander at the end of the back straight. The girl that crashed is ok. Here is the portion of the news article about the race ...

Watanabe, the 16-year-old Japanese girl somersaulted over the front of her machine when she hit another bike as they braked for one of the tight left-handers. As she required attention on the track the race was red flagged. It looked nasty but the news later from hospital was good as her mentor, ex GP star Nobby Ueda, explained. “The doctors here have checked everything, she just has a small crack in her hip and they say it is not so serious.”

[matadorCE]

Oh, and get this. Attendance for MotoGP 131,082. Attendance for F1, 117,429. Eat that F1!

F1 attendance for the three days was over 265K. 131K for MotoGP was over the three days. No way the crowds were even close to the F1 weekend. All the seating and all the hillsides were packed during F1. I'm glad it wasn't quite that bad for MotoGP, but this past weekend definitely could have used a little larger crowd than what showed up.

[sckego]

1) Want to see what a lap 30% faster then a MotoGP looks like?
2) Yeah, look at all those stands--EVERYWHERE! They were all the way down the exit of T1 and through T2, through the entire second half of the esses and through T6, through 8 and 9, surrounded the back hairpin on all sides, inside of the infield where we parked, and all along the short straight between 19 and 20. Damn, that's insane!



Last year at Laguna 3-day attendance was 137k, just a tad more then COTA this past weekend, but it feels like there are so many more people at Laguna just because it's smaller, and thus way more crowded... it was nice being able to walk around freely without having to shove your way everywhere!

[Fish R1]

This is an e-mail I sent to the track marshal staff at Cota. They have work to do inside and outside the track.




Good Evening.

Thank you for the opportunity to be a small part of the first Moto GP event in Texas, It was an experience I will not soon forget. The Cota track marshal staff was great to work with and needs to be congratulated.

There are some things I hope will be considered before the next Moto GP event.

1, The tent that was used as base for the track marshals was too small. This was clear at Thursdays afternoons track marshals meeting. Not enough room and not enough equipment was available for the volunteers to sit down and relax for the 3 hour presentation. The site and the entrance to the tent was muddy and unsafe for people to get into and out of that afternoon and the next day. There was only entrance to the tent that had 2'x8' sheets of plywood. The Cota staff realized the situation and for a second entrance to the tent someone put down wood pallets. Both entrances were not truly fit for pedestrian traffic.

2. The transportation to and from the tent to our stations was confusing Friday morning. No one from Cota was at the buses to direct the marshals which bus to board. People were moving from bus to bus until a rep from Cota came out and gave instructions. Friday evening the buses were held up at the open track event scheduled for Friday evening, There were thousands of people on the front straight and the buses were trying to get thru, I understand the customers come first but we were donating our time and this in my opinion was just poor scheduling. Besides that this was an unsafe situation for the people on the track.
Saturday afternoon there was alot of confusion about transportation from the track to the tent, My counterpart at flag station 35 informed me that we were to go to the west gate from our location and a bus would pick us up and take us to the tent. After we made the walk to the specified location he informed me there was conflicting information about our transportation, I observed track marshals in a gator with a brush trailer being towed with more marshals in this trailer. In my opinion this was not a safe option. I looked back on the track and noticed school buses. With all the confusion I decided to walk from turn 15 to the track marshals tent. I proceeded to notify a Cota employee of this issue,

3. On Friday there was an issue about getting drinks to the marshals. I asked a Cota employee on the bus ride to the track about water at the stations, The employee said I should have grabbed extra water from the tent, This issue was taken care of after lunch for our station but we were getting reports from other stations that water was not brought to them until mid afternoon. Please keep in mind that the issue was resolved by Saturday.

4. The under staffing of the track marshal staff was apparent on Friday evening when the director of Central Motorcycle Race Association, Walter Walker stopped by our bus pick up location and asked some CMRA members to contact anyone interested in track marshal duties, The tent was not big enough to accommodate the people that were there on Thursday night and that was not enough people to staff the track properly?

5, Everyone was tired Cota staff and volunteers on Sunday morning. When I walked in the tent on Sunday morning it looked terrible. Pizza boxes from the pizza party were still on one table, Other tables for checking out equipment were not in the same location as they were the previous days, There was no real direction from the Cota staff and there were still new faces asking where they should go to sign up for track marshal duty.

I hope this information helps for next years event. The Cota staff at the track marshals tent was polite and very helpful. It did seem to me that preparation was lacking.

With all this being written I would like to volunteer for track marshal duties for next years Moto GP. It was pretty good this year. Next year should be alot better.

[Polokid69]

Is there a place online I can watch videos of the Moto GP races ?

[fixxervi6]

Is there a place online I can watch videos of the Moto GP races ?

http://www.motogp.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I buy the subscription every year

[Dragonfly]

Is there a place online I can watch videos of the Moto GP races ?

You can watch other races (WSBK, BSB, FIM) at http://WWW.roadracingworld.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Dragonfly]

AMA racing as well.

[Polokid69]

Is there a place online I can watch videos of the Moto GP races ?

You can watch other races (WSBK, BSB, FIM) at http://WWW.roadracingworld.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I like that one!

[WillK675]

That was an awesome weekend. I'm still smiling from it.

Fish, did you get a response from your letter to COTA? I'm interested in what they had to say.