Heed 505

citizenx September 5, 2011 10:30 AM
I'm pleased with the race there. I live in Alabama now but am from Indy, travel to the GP every year they have had it there, and hope to never miss one. It serves as a chance to see family and a nice escape from the grind of day to day work schedules. I had the great oportunity to meet Ben Spies, Loris Capriossi (spelling?), Nicky Hayden, and Simoncelli this year. Motorcyles on Meridian gives bikers, motorcyclist, and enthusiasts a chance to meet and share experiences. Truly the event as a whole is something to attend.

x2468 September 1, 2011 01:17 PM
i wonder how many fans, if any, the new track in Austin will take away from Indie (and laguna for that matter). Im sure that will factor into their thinking. Hopefully, they don't over-estimate it. Would the new-ish track in Jersey be capable of hosting MotoGP? I've never seen it before.

Devil Machine August 31, 2011 07:43 PM
Well, if you can come up with the name of the joint, maybe we'll stay there sometime assuming you paid average-Joe-non-VIP-journalist prices. I'll admit that I'm not as internet savvy as some, but I was good enough to find your website years ago. And for the Chicago motorcycle show in 2008, my girlfriend was good enough to find us a nice room at a Ramada Inn in Chicago with a jaccuzi in the room for less than $100 a night. That's about the only way we pay $100 a night to stay anywhere. In 2008, the parking was really a surprise because we had never been there. I'm glad we took my car. We had considered riding our bikes there, but several aspects of the weekend kept us from doing that. She rides a 96 CBR600 and I ride a 99 750 Monster. Although I've gone camping on my Monster when it was new, carrying a tent and camping gear for two people wasn't really feasible since neither of us ride BMWs or Goldwings. The projected weather outlook was terrible, and we would have ended up wet and miserable for the entire weekend. Finally, with gas at $4.50 a gallon like it was, it made more sense to drive one car, which we could carry plenty of stuff in, and got 30+ mpg- instead of riding two bikes that got 40 mpg each (giving an overall 20 mpg for the pair) which we could only carry limited supplies on. The racetrack facilities are really poor if you don't buy super-VIP box seats. Unfortunately for my girlfriend, half of the ladies' rooms were closed. I doubt if they were closed for cleaning or remodeling given the sad conditions I saw in the mens' rooms. Thankfully they did have a decent restroom in the museum. In fact, probably the best part of the whole weekend was being able to sit under the tent in the Ducati area and drink free water and coffee instead of paying outrageous concession stand prices. Obviously, they can't do anything about the weather and we didn't want to see any riders get hurt because of it. But when they didn't even run the 250s and only ran 14 laps on the 800s that Sunday, it really soured the experience, which was already less than stellar. In 2008, we just left feeling ripped off. Overall, it wasn't what we expected from what is supposed to be the most prestigious racetrack in the country.

Devil Machine August 31, 2011 10:02 AM
So I'm just wondering what your idea of a "reasonably priced hotel" is. In 2008, my girlfriend and I went to the race and she checked into getting a hotel room months in advance. The cheapest hotel she could find was $200 a night and 60 MILES AWAY. She only lives 100 miles from Indianapolis, for $200 a night and 60 miles away, it would have been cheaper to drive back and forth to her house. F that. We ended up camping at a nice campground on the southwest end of town for $10 a night.

And also, as far as a venue goes, for a $40 weekend event parking pass which I and a lot of other people paid for, I think they could pave that field that they call a parking lot. And, they seem to have problems with grandstands in Indianapolis. In addition to the recent collapse of the grandstands they had there a few weeks ago, in 2008, a gigantic piece of aluminum from the top level of the bleachers blew off and came crashing down about 10 feet from where my girlfriend and I were sitting. Luckily, nobody was hurt because it came down in a relatively unpopulated spot, but seriously, people could have been hurt badly.

For some reason, the whole town smells like a johnny on the spot. I'm not joking. As soon as you get close to town, it's noticable.

We went again in 2009. The weather was better. But in reality, despite it's reputation as the racing capitol of the world, the place sucks on so many levels that we didn't go back after that.

nieseba August 31, 2011 05:43 AM
My only complaint with Indy is that they won't host trackdays. Now that I'm addicted to sportbikes and have started doing trackdays I seriously want to ride that track sooooooo badly! They only host three race events a year and track goes un-used for most of the season. I just wish they would open it up to more events.