[kropotkin thinks...] - 2013 Motegi MotoGP Friday Round Up: Of Fog, Earthquakes, And

[Ninjette Newsbot]

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Even the most secularist and rationalist motorcycle racing fan must by now be thinking that there is some kind of supernatural force at work trying to prevent MotoGP from happening at Motegi. It started in 2010, when the race scheduled for April had to be moved back to October because of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland sent a massive cloud of ash into the skies over Europe which suspended all air flights just as the MotoGP teams were ready to fly to Japan. In 2011, on the weekend of the Qatar MotoGP season opener, the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake struck off the east coast of Japan, sending a devastating tsunami towards Japan destroying the coastal regions, then throwing in a disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant for good measure.

So it came as no surprise that the first day of practice at Motegi ended up being scrapped due to the weather conditions. You could even say that to only have the first day of practice canceled was a lucky break, as earlier in the week it had looked like a typhoon could have blown through the area and forced the entire event to be called off. Instead, the typhoon track moved further east than expected, sparing Japan the worst of the wind and rain.

What the typhoon did bring, however, was fog, and that turned out to be a bigger problem than the rain was. With poor weather for a couple of days ahead of the MotoGP round, and then fog on Friday, the medical helicopter which is a requirement at every race was grounded, and unable to reach the circuit. Without a medical helicopter, reaching the hospital designated by the circuit medical officer would have taken the better part of an hour by road. In the case of a rider sustaining a life-threatening injury, the medical team could not have gotten them from the circuit medical center to a hospital quickly enough, and that is an unacceptable risk.

Source:
http://www.gpone.com/en/2013102512011/Lorenzo-tutto-in-un-giorno-un-vant...


http://lazonasucia.wordpress.com/2013/10/25/box-repsol-anticipa-en-twitt...




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