Posted by: Danielle Danger Quinn
Amaryllis at Falcon Motorcycles introduced me to a great organization called Riders for Health and a great event called “Day of Stars” that I was lucky enough to attend on Thursday. In order to get up there in time for it I left LA by myself after work on Wednesday for the trip up to Monterey. I took Hwy 101 as I was getting a late start and didn’t want to be riding through the night. Riding up the 101 from LA to Monterey is a 300 mile straight line. They should seriously consider adopting Autobahn rules for that road. I spent the entire way up scanning for CHiPies (California Highway Patrol) and trying to keep it under 90, fearing the whole time that Ponch and John would mysteriously appear in my rear view mirror...



The Day of Stars event was well worth the early departure. I arrived at the Laguna Seca paddock to a group of 50 bikes with orange vests. To my surprise after breakfast they kick the event off with a wine tasting Motorcycle ride through Carmel Valley (although for safety reasons, the only ones that got to taste the wine were those following behind in a tour bus). It was a great ride, some of the roads we took reminded me of the back roads of Spain, simply beautiful. On the ride I met a couple of guys that were walking like John Wayne, just like I was, so I figured they had a long trip Wednesday as well. Turns out Kevin and Andy had flown in from the UK and rented a pair of Harleys in Washington DC and rode across country via Ohio, Utah, and Vegas. They rode 650 miles form Vegas to Monterey on Wednesday finishing up the 3,500 mile coast to coast journey. They had a great time; Andy said, “He had a smile on his face you couldn’t take off with a crow bar!”




Andy, Kevin and Me

After the ride we came back to the paddock for lunch, hosted by Moto GP Champion Randy Mamola. He told us all about the charity and answered racing questions from the crowd. Riders for Health helps provide reliable transportation for health and aid workers in Africa. Randy and co-founders Barry and Andrea Coleman started the organization twenty years ago after Save the Children had invited them to see their money at work. I had a chance to chat with Barry about the experience. He said they went down there and saw a big line of children waiting for shots and felt pretty good about it until a nurse came up to them and let them know that this was not the usual protocol. She informed him the kids were rounded up specifically for their visit, but on any other day there was just no way to get the immunizations out to the people. Barry, Andrea, and Randy looked in to the situation and realized that there were a lot of vehicles that were abandoned and deemed useless after an inexpensive, easily replaceable part had gone bad. Today their work helps provide and maintain reliable transportation and aid in an otherwise desolate and impassable, climate and terrain. Riders for Health is the official charity of Moto GP. Learn more at this website: http://www.riders.org/

We were also treated to a tour of the pits. This was great! First we went by the LCR Honda garage where team manager Lucio Cecchinello gave us the full tour. We interrupted him changing the stickers on the bikes, usually sponsored by Playboy, teams find it hard to get funding for the races in the US, unfortunately the following here is not what it is overseas. He was replacing the Playboy stickers with their US sponsor Givi. He gave us inside tips about fueling and tires, and let us watch the mechanics wrench on the bikes.


Team manager Lucio Cecchinello

On our walk back to the paddock we stopped to take a photo of the track and to our delight caught Casey Stoner's Mechanics tuning his bike. They brought it out and revved it up for the event guest. Just when we were thinking we couldn’t get any luckier, Valentino Rossi’s crew brought his bike out and revved it up as well!! What a treat!

 
Casy Stoner's bike being tuned


Valentino Rossi's bike

After our all access tour, we geared up for our lap around the track. To my utmost delight, they asked if I wanted to be the first bike after the pace car, HELLS YEAH!! We went around once and stopped for a photo opp. at the cork screw and then got to go around one more time for an additional full lap. I was trying my hardest to slow down in the straight-aways to give us a little more room behind the pace car to gun it around the turns… we weren’t allowed to go too fast but I think I got a little lean on it. I have watched years of racing at Laguna Seca, but have never been privileged with actually being able to see the curves first hand, it was a thrill!

Later Valentino Rossi, and some of the other riders hopped on the track for a cart race, only the go-carts had 250cc Yamaha moto-engines in them, awesome! After the race the auction started, but this was no regular auction, in addition to donating gear and autographs, a lot of the riders actually showed up to rally more donations! First was James Toseland, who gave an impromptu interview. One after another they came trickling in: Niccolo Canepa, Sete Gibernau, Mika Kallio, Chris Vermueulean, Collin Edwards, to name a few. These guys were really going all out, throwing in items mid-bidding, literally giving the shirts off their backs, just a bunch of stand-up guys getting excited about a great cause. I ended up with the winning bid on an autographed copy of the movie"Faster."


Chris Vermuelean


Sete Gibernau


Niccolo Canepa


Colin Edwards

Friday, I didn’t make it to the track, but the rest of my family arrived and we went down to Cannery Row for some Italian food. The crowd wasn’t as bad as I am sure it was on Saturday, there were lots of bikes but they were still letting cars through (on Saturday night they block it off for motorcycles only).


Bikes in Cannery Row

Saturday we headed to the track to watch qualifying and the AMA Supersport race. Qualifying was awesome, you could tell they were serious, there were three crashes in all, one by Casey Stoner and two by Jorge Lorenzo. The most serious crash left Lorenzo with a dislocated shoulder and an injured foot. Seeing the video of him and his bike cartwheeling through the air in a mean looking high-side, I am surprised he was able to race on Sunday, but race he did, finishing with third on the podium, injuries and all! I am convinced if he didn’t take turn 11 wide a few laps before the checkered flag he would have passed Rossi and would have been pushing Pedrosa for the lead.

The GP Race was the main event; Pedrosa had a great start and kept the lead cutting perfect lines all the way through the race, but at the last turn of the last lap, Rossi sure gave him a run for his money. It was a close and exciting finish, and an excellent run all around. The guys did a great job keeping the crowd on their feet with the fierce race for second as Rossi, Lorenzo, and Stoner battled it out and put on a great show. Even the hometown favorite Nicky Hayden got fifth place. Top ten in order, Pedrosa, Rossi, Lorenzo, Stoner, Hayden, Elias, Edwards, Vermeulen, De Puniet, and Melandri.

 
First Turn, First Lap,MotoGP 2009

Half the crowd left after the GP; but we stayed around for the two remaining races. AMA Daytona Sportbike race got red-flagged after a 3 rider crash at the corkscrew and restarted about half an hour later. The restart benefited all three riders that finished on the podium: 1. Bostrom 2. Davies 3. Herrin.

The AMA American Superbike race was a total and complete logistics debacle. First there was a discrepancy with the staring light, apparently the protocol is to have the red lights on and when they turn off it is time to go, but they had an unusual occurrence of the lights being off, then turning to red, then turning off again, confusing rider Tommy Hayden, who accidentally jumped the start when the lights initially turned on. They had a warm up lap, and restarted with about 5 bikes crashing at the first turn. For some unknown and totally unjustified reason a pace car got on the track and parked right after the bump in the first straight-away causing a near fatal obstacle with bikes coming over the blind spot at over 200 MPH, luckily all riders narrowly avoided crashing into the back of the pace car. This error could have easliy ended in several fatalities; sitting at the fence near the incident, you could hear people screaming at the pace car to get off the track. Without question the pace car driver, or whoever was responsible, should be fired. In all interviews and commentary from the riders I have seen said there was no red flag at the time that the pace car was parked on the fastest, least visible part of the tack. Soon after the pace car incident the race was red-flagged and restarted once again. Despite the red flag restart, they still made Hayden do a ride through penalty for their start light mistakes. The race was shorted to 18 laps because of all of the above and the finish looked like this: 1. Mladin, 2. Young, 3.Yates, 4. Hayes, 5. Bostrom.

Sunday night my brother and I went down to Cannery Row and happened into what looked like the official GP after party. We saw Holden, Zemke, Milandri, and Rossi. Rossi came in and stayed about a half hour and then Left with every umbrella girl in the place. It’s good to be the Doctor! We rode home on Monday took Hwy 1 (a.k.a. PCH, Pacific Coast Highway) and it was as scenic as ever, I have ridden that rode many a times, but this time the weather was perfect, the road was just curvy enough, and I have never seen the Pacific Ocean so blue.

Moto GP was a great time, easily the funnest weekend all year, but that said, I do now- and always will, have a few complaints. First the races, it seems like every year there are fewer and fewer races and the ticket price remains high. When I first started making the trip up to Laguna Seca six years ago, the weekend was chock full o-races! Friday, Saturday, Sunday, each day had more races, than the entire weekend holds today. They would run all the GP classes, plus all AMA classes, plus World Superbike. What happened to that? With only four official races the event seems a little thin with events not starting until well after noon and hours between each race. If they are going to thin it out like that, they should thin out the ticket price as well!

My second complaint is the US in general, admittedly a big complaint but a valid one at that. Every other country in the world has an appreciation and a huge following for the Moto GP, except us. America is so blinded by the big-dollar sponsorship, WWF theatrics, and left-turn dominated NASCAR, that they are afraid to watch a real race like Moto GP. If NASCAR fans had the chance to witness a motorcycle race it might break the brainwashed Bud-light trance that is the backbone of NASCAR. You should have seen the show these boys put on… scraping knees, touching bikes, trading paint at 220 MPH with nothing between them and the track but a quarter-inch of cowhide, riding with all their heart, putting their lives on the line, for their bike, their team, their sport…I just want to live to see the day that the Corkscrew and the Andretti Hair Pin get half as much support as NASCAR’s perpetual left turns.

 

Too see all the photos, including photos and video of: James Tolesland, Niccolo Canepa, Sete Gibernau, Mika Kallio, Chris Vermueulean, Collin Edwards and my family, please see my Picasa web albulm.

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