Aliens crash in giant oval in the Mid-West | Red Bull GP – Indy, 2009
- From: Editor at Large | Published: August 30th, 2009 - 7:10 pm
So the gods seem more willing this year as the weather is considerably better than last year’s inaugural Red Bull GP at Indianapolis. On Sunday it was cool in the shade but the sun shone brightly and the track temperature was good. Horsepower weather and so far all the horse power seemed to be in Dani Pedrosa’s Repsol Honda. Pedrosa has been the fastest man since they opened the crates. It’s always amazing to me how both MotoGP and World Superbike come in what is essentially large suit cases and like some space age umbrella they unfold into the world’s premier motorcycle racing series.
For those of you who didn’t make the event at Indy this year it’s too bad because as well as all the other great events you’ll have missed, it was the first (for many years) and the last time ever that you’ll be able to see the 250’s. As time has marched on and the green people have pushed forward the last of the ‘true’ GP machines will be gone forever after this year. It’s a rare sight to see as the 250 race was canceled last year due to the ‘hurricane’ and they don’t race at Laguna. I will miss the class, it’s produced some of the closest racing I’ve ever seen and it’s hard to believe that the replacement Moto2 machines will be quite as exciting.
So the MotoGP grid is as per usual, the so called ‘aliens’ on the front row. Pedrosa is on the pole with Lorenzo second and Rossi third. Conspicuously absent Casey Stoner chose to sit this round out to cure his just as mystery illness. It’s too bad, first off because I hate to see a man down but more selfishly it looks like Pedrosa has the Yamaha boys covered and Stoner might have been the difference between what looks like a possible Pedrosa check out. For whatever reason Rossi hasn’t looked comfortable at all this weekend, if you can say that about a guy who qualifies third on what seems to be an off weekend.
As for the Americans Nicky Hayden qualified sixth and Colin Edwards in usual fashion is fifth. Nicky seems to be doing well this weekend, he had his best finish since he won the world championship at this track last year with a second and I’m sure he’d be happy to repeat that result. Colin in his (not so old) old age seems to have turned into a machine, consistent in every way. I believe it was Colin who originally came up with the concept of the ‘aliens’ (referring to Rossi, Lorenzo, Stoner and Pedrosa) and has been the next best all year. He referred to them as aliens because those four do seem to have an extra gear this year and have clearly moved to a slightly higher level. It could be construed as some kind of resignation I supposed but in his (Colin’s) matter-of-fact way of speaking I think he was just stating the obvious with some Texas humor twist.
So the light goes green and Pedrosa takes of like he was shot out of a canon. He gets to corner one maybe five or six bike lengths ahead of Rossi in second and Lorenzo followed closely by Edwards and DeAgelis. Nicky Hayden is in seventh but all over Melandri who came from ninth on the grid. Three riders tangle at the back of the grid, one Rizla machine for sure but from my vantage point I can’t make out the other two at all. By the second lap really the race settled down quite a bit and you could see Pedrosa just inching away from Rossi ever so slightly, it wasn’t looking good for those of us hoping for a bar banging race as we’ve been seeing lately especially between Rossi and Lorenzo.
On lap four however, the entire face of the weekend changed. Pedrosa seemed to catch the curbing on the second to last corner and in an attempt to correct he went down. Unbelievable in my opinion as he has clearly been the class of the field all weekend, apparently alright he’s able to get back on the bike and with a little help from a corner worker is back on his way but he’s dead last. I had to gather my thoughts up for a few seconds because I really expected Pedrosa to run away with it, now it’s Rossi’s race to loose. As that rarely happens and Lorenzo has over a six second gap over fourth place it looks like it’s business as usual.
Lorenzo after having crashed out twice in a row while leading seems to be hanging onto Rossi pretty easily as his lap times have been quicker than Rossi’s for the last couple laps. On lap seven he’s four one hundreds of a second off Rossi. But as Lorenzo seems to be devoid of patience he goes by on lap eight. Whatever ‘Gods of racing’ look after the world famous Brickyard sure have a strange sense of humor. Last year a hurricane in Indiana and this year, with nineteen laps to go, the unthinkable! Rossi looses the front end and he’s gone, it’s madness! Of the four so called ‘Aliens’ only one remains in contention. Surprisingly enough Pedrosa and Rossi are still circulating, Pedrosa at speed, Rossi at something close but not quite.
In the mean time Edwards has slipped back in the pack a ways but Hayden has moved forward and is now chasing DeAgelis and in third place. When I said earlier that he would be happy with the same result as last year I meant it but really didn’t expect it. He’s having the ride of his year today for sure; he looks really good on the Ducati for maybe the first time ever. Edwards is now in fourth being hounded by Dovizioso though. Toseland, Melandri, Kallio, Capirosi and DePunit to round out the top ten. There are some special liveries donned for this race and so as the costumes go it’s Captain America out front of the rainbow warrior being chased down by Uncle Sam. Rossi’s in sixteenth ahead of Pedrosa but Pedrosa is realigning him in quickly.
The race would settle in at this point the only ‘racing’ is at the back of the pack with Capirosi coming forward. Calio’s having a good race as well moving up some six positions. Rossi finally threw in the towel with sixteen to go and with a yeomen’s effort Pedrosa would recover and finish in tenth. In the last two laps Dovizioso caught Hayden and all of a sudden it looked as though Nicky would not get his second and in fact would get bounced right off the podium. Nicky fought back though and provided some real nail biting excitement he would hold off Dovi, barely and finish on the box. Lorenzo riding maybe the best wheelies of the year across the start-finish line would win well out in front of DeAgelis in second and Nicky in third.
All told I would say the weekend was a success and the race went off well. It was after all the first real race at the venue for the MotoGP boys. Not to say that the men didn’t earn their paychecks last year but the conditions were so outrageous it was really more like some kind of endurance challenge than a full on race, not to mention it was called early as the Yamaha tent decided it preferred the track to it’s original moorings. This really is a special place, the size, the history, the Pagoda, gasoline alley I’ll look forward to many more races here hopefully.
