[kropotkin thinks...] - 2008 Laguna Seca MotoGP Preview - No Rest

[Ninjette Newsbot]

If you enjoyed reading this article, please click here to view it on Kropotkin's site, MotoGP Matters.

-----------------

The life of a MotoGP rider can seem utterly sublime to outsiders. Flying around the globe to ride the most advanced motorcycles on the planet at some of the best tracks in the world sounds like a pretty idyllic existence. Combine this with a very generous salary, a three-day work week and continuous VIP treatment - including a fresh supply of attractive young companions - and for anyone who loves motorcycles, it is hard to imagine a better life.

Like all idealized depictions - whether it be of glitzy Hollywood fame or the serenity of an Italian hilltop village - it glosses over the less attractive parts of reality. No one ever mentions the long hours of training to achieve the necessary level of fitness to be competitive, the self-denial to ensure that your weight is kept to an absolute minimum, the endless hours of boredom either attending, or waiting to attend, the PR events which your sponsors demand.

Nor does anyone talk about the fact that you are in some degree of pain for much of the season, either recovering from a crash at previous races or from freshly received injuries at the current event. Nor do you hear about the chronic exhaustion as you chase around from one end of Europe to another, or even worse, from one continent to the next, to attend the next race, or to do some testing, or to launch a new motorcycle for your manufacturer. Look beyond the superficial glamor and the life of a MotoGP rider is a pretty tough existence.

Busy Busy Busy

The US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca is a case in point. The last of a series of back-to-back race weekends, in which the riders have competed in 6 races in 8 weekends, Laguna Seca marks the end of the grueling first half of the MotoGP season. The MotoGP paddock arrives at Laguna Seca after a 12 hour flight from Germany - if they've been lucky enough to get a direct flight, that is - to cross a 9 hour time difference, to get ready for a race which comes just 7 days after the German Grand Prix. Most of the paddock are carrying some kind of injury or illness or infection picked up during the hard slog of the season, and are longing for a break.

Instead, in one of the most important markets for the motorcycle manufacturers (despite a sliding dollar and slumping housing market), the first thing that exhausted MotoGP stars get to do once they land on US soil is roll up for a series of PR and publicity engagements, still carrying around that dazed, jet-lagged, grubby feeling that only international air travel can bestow. Their diaries are full from dawn till deep in the night from the moment they land to the minute they roll out on the track for the first practice.

Adding insult to injury, the track they roll out onto is another tight, twisty track with no straights to speak of, and a couple of the most difficult turns on the calendar. With even the front straight containing a high-speed kink, and the turns leading into each other to such an extent that a mistake in one corner can cost you time through the next four or five turns, there is nowhere that the riders can relax and catch their breath. It's a place that requires utter concentration every inch of the way, for all 32 laps of the race.

read more