MM Laguna Seca Report

[Sijray21]

you're awesome G!!

thank you soo much, i'll have the money ready for you when i get back

i know you're having fun there, it's interesting to watch them on speed with all the elevation changes and seeing that one wheel off the ground in a couple of the turns

[Feersty]

Great pictures Gerald. Do they have any Ducati T-shirts? But you are probably not there anymore, lol.

[Evan]

as if we didnt know this already, Rossi is a little punk bitch
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[Sijray21]

as if we didnt know this already, Rossi is a little punk bitch
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haha, what a puss, he's just pissed he didn't know how to drive the track.

"top 6 had all ridden on the track before" -- sounds like track experience here is the key, not "track safety"

[Evan]

And again...
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he whines more about the "american superbike riders" having experience on the track.

you dont hear the american riders whining about not having experience on the european tracks, which also just happen to be the majority of the races.

[Myuki]

it says he's done really well overall. So, he's not riding as good as others at this particular circuit. the whole series isn't at Laguna Seca. he needs to stop bitching about it and recognize that the other riders run that course better.

[Ginger]

Sounds like he's trying to cover his ass as reigning champ... he probably doesn't feel like he can just say "I got beat" - not by that much at least.

I don't see any reason that he couldn't have attended the track prior to this event... we've all known it was coming for some time. To state, after the fact, the kind of complaints he had is just childish and not taking responsibility for his own development as a rider.

You can't always play in your own yard.

[Myuki]

maybe he should have asked for a chicane or to have his biked lightened, lol

[Ginger]

HAHA!

I think it was a bad move, sponsor wise, for Rossi to complain so much about the track. Yamaha spent a ton of cash just to get MotoGP on our soil. And the words out of Rossi's mouth are that he doesn't want to come back? Smooth.

When Rossi loses, or thinks he's going to lose, he's not the easy going fun beachboy that everybody makes him out to be. He can be a real asshole. It's all fun and games until you're on the losing end... for that I give Hayden, Gibernau, Hopkins, Bayliss, and the rest of the consistently-almost crowd a big thumbs up for class.

A good winner loses graciously.

[Feersty]

Never A fan of a guy who acts like Rossi.

[G.Irish]

Whew, what an exhausting weekend! The hills around Laguna are no joke, my legs are still kinda sore.

Of all of the races I've gone to I have to say without a doubt that being there for Nicky Hayden's maiden victory in Moto GP (and the first American victory in 5 years) was the best moment I've ever attended. Everyone there was rooting for him all the way and seeing him do his victory lap with the American flag with his dad on the back of his RCV was a special moment.

I can't say enough about this event, it was just cool all the way around. RJ asked me if it was better than JGTC and I answered yes, but in different ways. Everyone at the USGP was super friendly. This is the first time I've experienced the moto-camaraderie and it really was pretty cool. People offering me beer, people inviting me to sit under their ez-ups, and people just generally happy to be in the company of other motorcycle enthusiasts.

To be honest, the Moto GP race was not quite as exciting as the other races this season. I got to see Biaggi make the pass on Gibernau and a few other passes but it really wasn't a big time scrap like some of the other races were.

The race of the weekend was probably Supersport (600cc sportbikes with limited mods). There were several lead changes, lots of dicing for position, and a last lap, last corner pass by Jason Disalvo for Yamaha's only win of the weekend. I'm sure the Yammy big wigs were grateful for that, it being their 50th anniversary and all.

At any rate, I'm definitely going to go next year if I can. I am going to do a few things differently though. For one, I'm going to camp instead of spending 3 hours trying to leave the track at the end of the day. If we can get a MM group together we could rent an RV for about $125 a day and live it up.

Welp, here are some more pics. The video I took was okay but I couldn't figure out how to turn on the image stabilization on so it screwed up a lot of the shots.

Here's a pic of one of Honda's 50cc GP bikes. It actually has bicycle brakes!


An awesome racing replica paint job on a RC51. Oddly enough, it seemed like the RC51 was the most numerous Honda at the event.


A Ben Bostrom 996


Two pics of the Ducati Island. The Ducati owner's club apparently paid for the privilege of having the little island to themselves for Ducs to park at. They had their own catering and hosted autograph sessions and a few other things for those that bought a ticket. One dude on a big pimpin WSBK replica 999R dropped his bike in front of the whole crowd going 5 mph on his way to island...





Here's a pic of said WSBK 999 in yellow (the dude who dropped it had a red one)



Red Bull had a huge presence out there. Here is a pic of some MotoX guys they had doing stunts off a ramp they set up and a pic of their skydiving team doing a jump right before the GP race.





All of the official umbrella girls were pretty much in the paddock and I didn't feel like fighting off the hordes of guys taking pics of the UmbrellaGirlsUSA.com girls so I got one of the cute factory reps to pose on the DRZ-400 Supermoto for me

[G.Irish]

I didn't take many pics of the on track action after awhile because my camera didn't really have enough zoom to get good shots and because I knew there'd be plenty of people taking great photos. Soooo, here are some links to some better photos than I could take.





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[Evan]

Nice writeup G, man I wish I could have been there.

I got one of the cute factory reps to pose on the DRZ-400 Supermoto for me

So did you get her to pose on the MM-56 SuperGerald too?

[G.Irish]

So did you get her to pose on the MM-56 SuperGerald too?

You know, I really wasn't thinking along the lines of kicking game but in hindsight I really should have *doh!*

More pics:

Another angle of the umbrellagirlsusa.com'ers


Oh no the Germans are coming to get me! Pretty mean looking bike, the K1200R. This was a race bike in BMW's Powercup series (spec series). The rumor is that BMW will be getting into the Moto GP fray soon.


Honda's carbon-fibered up one-off race mountain bike


My favorite racing bike paint job (a la Colin Edwards 2002 WSBK Laguna Seca)


Check out how tiny the individual throttle bodies are on this 5 cylinder (RC166). I don't think I could've gotten a thumb in there.


Count the number of exhausts...

[G.Irish]

Oh yeah, some famous people were at the event. Matt LeBlanc, David Alan Grier, Adrian Brody, and...



Some people on the Speed forum said this is Briana Banks. I'm not really sure, I'm more into umm...amateur stuff. Can anyone else confirm?

[lillitnn92]

of the pictures i found of briana banks, it's entirely possible, but then again. don't all blonde fake boob pornstars look a like?

[Evan]

ye gads, she is hideous

[Mike]

whoa my post was deleted. that is not her. you could be sure just by checking her oil... that cornhole is unmistakable.

[Sijray21]

... that cornhole is unmistakable.

...gross

man, hot bikes with a cute sales rep :wink: