The World Comes to Utah
Well,well…what a weekend!! It’s been four years since the World SuperBike circus has come to the states and I could hardly wait to see it again. The last time we all saw WSBK was at Laguna Seca and it was great so I’ve been missing it. In my opinion it is currently the best of the two wheeled racing series. In the AMA it’s generally the Ben and Matt Show and everybody else racing for third (this last weekend was a bit different with Jamie Hacking getting his Kawasaki in there for second..well Matt crashed on Saturday and just didn’t have the setup going into Sunday…but Hackers Kawa was really fast!!) MotoGP is good this year with Rossi seeming to come grips (no pun intended) with his new ‘Stones and the Yamaha developing some more speed and the bloom seems to be coming off Stoner’s rose. The racing is good but it can’t come up to the surprises WSBK can..like Carlos Checa doing the double this last weekend. And check this out..these were his first wins in ten years!!! It was great to see.
Anyway, this was a very spectacular weekend in all ways. Because of the growing sucess of the Motoworld podcast www.themotoworld.com we decided to apply for media credntials and with the help of John Gardner of Miller Motorsports Park www.millermotorsportspark.com we got them. Thank you John.
Load up the truck with camping gear and all our audio equipment..(uh, a little digital voice recorder, a mic and some headphones…whew, lugging around all that gear can wear a guy out…) and Heather and I are off to Salt Lake City and The World Superbike and AMA Superbike races. We’re on way as professionals now..real motojournalists! The drive was easy enough, long but easy. we arrived at the track around midnight only to find the gate to the campground closed..so, camping in the back of the truck it is. A little of Kentucky’s finest to ward off the chill and we get a few hours sleep.
Friday morning dawns bright and clear and pretty chilly. Looking like we had slept in the back of a pickup, we pick up our credentials and the weekend begins. After a bit of clean up we make our way to the media center. We are greeted at the door by a very nice young lady who provides us with all sorts media material and told to go ahead a find a space. The Media Center is alive! One hundred people, six languages, 99 laptop computers (we only had our little recorder)and about a million dollars worth of camera gear!!
Needless to say, we were a bit overwhelmed. So after finding a space to call ‘The MotoWorld’ we scoured the volumes of info and then headed out to the track. What an amazing facility. Lets go find some one to interview for the podcast. Results of our search…check back in tomorrow.
Oh, and listen to the podcast..www.themotoworld.com
See you on the road,
Paul