Race Day

Its race day! Super Bikes World Championship finals at the Autodrome. Wow, what a day.

Today's forecast: Some sun and a few showers, high of 24c (78 degrees).

Mike sent me a text that he was stuck in traffic. Imagine that, stuck in traffic in Milan. It took him almost an hour to go about 3 km. He finally arrived around 9:30. I met him at our gate and helped him find some parking.

We walked to the Autodrome, arriving about 30 min before the first race. The traffic was really crazy. I've never seen so many motorcycles in one place in my entire life. The Autodrome is huge. After getting an idea of the layout, we headed down to the final horseshoe turn for the first race. We thought about watching near the end of the turn as it enters the final staight towards the finish, but decided to move on to the beginning of the turn. We were pretty close to the track. We could see the racers coming down a long straight and jockey around for position as they headed into the turn. Its amazing to watch the racers lean into the turns on TV, but even more amazing to watch it in person and hear the scraping of their kneepucks. Mike explained what was going on and how the race works as we watched. The first race of the day was won by an Italian rider, but we weren't sure what team he raced for.



After the first race we had about an hour until the next one, so we walked towards the manufacturer display area.



There were tons of parking areas inside the track, but this one was covered and full of bikes of all varieties. The manufacturer area was not all that big. Ducati had quite the setup though, as they should have. All the manufacturers were there, including West Coast Choppers....no Jesse sightings though.

New Ducati bike on display.

Ducati racing bike on display.

Mike trying out a BMW for size.

Mike trying out a KTM for size.

We worked our way over to the S curves on the backside of the track. We tried to get bleacher seats, but apparently they were not for us "General Admission" types, so we hung out along the fence.


Yamaha Race Fans





At the very beginning of this race there was a big crash on the first turn that took out several bikes. We saw it happen on the giant video screens. They showed the replay over and over and over. Two bikes actually did several flips across the grass and track. Amazingly all the riders seemed to walk away from it. Unfortunately it left a big mess along with some track repair that delayed the restart of the race for about 45 min. When the race finally began it proved to be a very exciting to watch. Three riders took the lead pretty earlier - 1 Yamaha rider, followed by 2 Ducati riders. The Yamaha rider kept the lead for all but a couple of laps. He was not destined to win though. For some unknown reason, maybe mechanical, he lost the race going out of the last turn before the finish. He parked his bike along the wall and climbed up into the stands. Ducati won the race. The Ducati VIP stands near us went wild!



For the next race we moved over to the front side of the track, near the first turns after the starting line. This is where the big crash happened earlier. We found some bleacher seats and watched as racers went from 100+ mph down to a more manageable speed for the hard 90 degree right turn, followed by a 120 degree left turn. The riders push their bikes as fast and hard as they can for as long as they can before they need to brake and turn.





Once race three was over, and I don't remember who won, we moved over closer to the main grandstands and the exit. I wanted to see how fast the bikes raced down a straight section of the track. Wow!! Those machines can move and they are so much louder on the straightaway.

We left the track around 4pm and walked back to our apartment. Mike hung out for a few minutes before deciding he was ready to battle the traffic and head back to the hotel.

Sorry Andy, no umbrella girl pics. We never got close enough to the start/finish.

What a great day. I wonder what is next? MotoGP in Florence? Formula 1 at the Autodrome in September? Maybe both....who knows.