Red Bull Indianapolis MotoGP

As everyone knows, MotoGP is my “fix”. I watch FP1,2,3 & Quali for all MotoGP races … i’d even watch moto2/125 FPs and Quali if sleep didn’t get in the way! This year was a bit different for travel arrangements, instead of driving in the day before, we flew from Newark, NJ to Indy Friday morning.  If all went well, we would have a few hours to make it to the track before the first FP would start. Of course, this wasn’t the case. After a few hours delay with our first plane, the airline decided to give us a new plane. About 2.5 hrs later, we were on our way to the Indianapolis. As we entered Indianapolis airspace, i look at the window and i see the speedway, with 125cc already on the track, dang! Not off to a good start, but we made it safe, and I’m ready to take some photos!

Besides this being the last year for 125cc(moto3 next year), Indianapolis Speedway resurfaced the entire infield of the track a few months prior to the start of race weekend. This was done because many of the riders complained about bumps around the course, but the downside of doing this without anyone riding on the track before was grip. The new problem for the weekend, was of course tire grip. As the weekend progressed and the more rides took to the track, the more rubber that was laid down to give some better grip to the riders. Thankfully the weekend was full of sun with no chance of rain to hit during race weekend.

Stoner’s dominance continues with his seventh pole position setting him up for another win at one of the tracks he’s never won at before. The Ducati team with tire wear and front end feel with both the GP11/11.1 model has hindered both riders to start higher on the grid. The Yamaha team on the the other hand, Lorenzo and Spies qualified 2nd and 3rd, which was their first first double Yamaha front row of the year.

Race day is here and like the whole weekend, the sun is out and is heating up the asphalt to a scorching 51c/123f. Stoner, Lorenzo, & Pedrosa take a charging start, and Pedrosa hoping to do a repeat of last year, but after 7 laps Stoner over takes Lorenzo then Pedrosa and stay ahead for the remainder of the race.  Even though Spies starts 2nd on the grid, him and Dovi, touch going into turn one which send him out wide. Marco Simoncelli and Nicky Hayden starts off strong but tire wear slowly start cutting back their times, and eventually Nicky has to pit to change tires to finish the race and still able to get a few points. While Rossi has is own problem worth front end feel and tire wear pushes him back to the end of the pack; At one point Rossi was in 17th to work his way back up to 10th.  Despite the bad start for Spies, he works his way back up to 3rd place by lap 16 but too far off to catch Pedrosa. Randy De Puniet ends up finishing 8th, which is his best finish of the season on his Pramac Ducati.

For a first for this year, AMA XR1200 had a race after the MotoGP races were completed. It wasn’t something i was all that up-to-date with, but it was a great bonus the crowed go to enjoy.

For more information, check out motogp.com!

Date: August 26-28th, 2011
By: Erik
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Tags: 125CC, AMA, Harley, Indianapolis, Moto2, MotoGP, red bull, XR1200
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